How to Love Every Version of Your Wife

On the day we stood at the altar, I wonder if Chad realized that he was marrying someone who would come in so many different editions? Did he know that he would be called upon to learn to love all of the versions of me through all the years? Maybe he was surprised, on the afternoon of our wedding, to see me go so quickly from laughter to tears, a young woman suddenly overwhelmed by the prospect of everything in her life changing, weeping in a pretty bedroom while a sweet young groom shakily offered her a can of Sprite to make her feel better. He should have realized then that there would be no stopping the inevitable changes in me from year to year, and sometimes from moment to moment.

Some years are harder than others. Life circumstances shape us all in certain ways and will almost always result in either spiritual growth or spiritual decline. I have gone both directions through the years. When we were very young, I had a job that I hated. I was so miserable that when we would leave my parents’ house after a visit I would sink into the seat for the long drive home and wipe tears from my eyes, knowing what awaited me on Monday morning. Rather than telling me to get over it, to toughen up or just choose to be happy, he made up funny songs and held my hand and made me laugh. He reminded me that the job was temporary and that God would get me through it. Those drives didn’t make my job better, but they did make me feel loved. He didn’t plan on living with a miserable woman that year, but he didn’t just leave me to my misery. He walked through it with me, with jokes and reassurances.

I remember one period of young motherhood when I became convinced that maybe I was not even a Christian. By that time, Chad was already an associate pastor, and we sat together in our living room late one night when our kids were asleep. I confessed to him all of the fears that I had been dragging around, and he counseled me and prayed for me and told me all of the things in my life that he saw as evidence of faith and a changed heart. I was serving alongside him in ministry, and he had no idea that I was secretly terrified that I didn’t even know the Lord. He counseled me gently, without panic, without judgment.

I could share so many stories about all of the versions of me that Chad has dealt with through the years. But if I could tell husbands one thing about how to not just deal with your wife in all of her many forms, but to love her well, the way Christ loves the church as you are commanded, I would say this. To truly love all the versions of your wife, you have to develop endless amounts of grace. Grace is what she needs. It’s what will ease her out of her darker times, what will reassure her when she is afraid, lonely, or lacking in confidence. Grace is what will keep her from withdrawing or collapsing or deciding that you aren’t capable of leading her spiritually.

This world is a harsh place, and your wife will face many difficult times as a woman. She will gain and lose enthusiasm for things. She will have a hard time explaining why she is struggling at times. She will give all of herself to her family and to others who need her. She will sin. She will fail. She will unfairly take things out on you. She will develop new ideas and discover new influences. Life circumstances will change her in so many ways. Are you asking the Lord to give you extra measures of grace for your wife so that you can love her selflessly no matter the phase she is living through?

I can tell you from experience, as an entirely imperfect, sometimes difficult woman who has lived a roller coaster of changes in the past 25 years, Chad’s grace has made all the difference, not just in our relationship, but in my very soul. When God’s grace is displayed in a man’s life, the other fruit of the spirit are inevitably present at the same time. How can one show grace without also being gentle, kind, faithful, loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, and self-controlled? Chad has taught me about the character of God through his grace for me.

The truth is that neither of us could imagine on that wedding afternoon with the tears and the Sprite what kinds of changes lay in store for us. We met at the altar with no real understanding of what these vows were actually calling us to. Chad may not have known how many variations of me he would have to learn to love, but he has extended God’s grace over and over again. Through all the phases, in all the changes, he has loved all the different versions of me. That love is of God, and it has held me together more than once.