The Husband?

I have been bragging on my Anne over the last 3 months since she has been involved with CPE, which is training to be a certified chaplain. She has spent hundreds of hours in clinical settings in addition to doing 5 hours of class a week. She has become confident in her God given gifts and calling to be one who both understands the broken and hurting and knows practical ways of helping. She has learned so much about the ministry of the presence of God where the most important aspect of care isn’t what you say but by being physically and spiritually present for the person in great need.

Anne has been able to get back into writing on a consistent basis because of doing class reflections and also papers on her clinical experience with her patients. I was reading one of her reflections not to proof it but just to read it for fun. I was doing great hearing what she was learning and how her review from her supervisor was really enlightening and then I read that she was talking about our work together and said the husband and all of a sudden I felt like I had been reduced to some clinical guinea pig. I knew that this was a typo and she should have said MY husband not THE husband.

I went downstairs after reading about being the husband not my husband to bug her. I can remember times where as a parent you will scream at your spouse please take care of YOUR son or daughter not our or my. We laughed together and I bugged her over the next couple of hours and even this morning. It struck me what it would feel like if someone I truly cared about spoke about me in the third person instead of the first person. I wanted to be owned and possessed by her and not be referred to as if I were an inanimate object.

I know that one of the keys to having a great relationship is taking ownership with it. I care about my kids at New City and I won’t often say the kids but either our or my kids. Yet, I can’t fathom talking about the wife as if she is totally removed from me. Where this really comes into play is when you have been raised in a broken home context and you are always referred to as the kid or the problem child. I am in the middle of a few teens that are homeless and I know that their stepparents or guardians have too often talked about them in the third person and purposely distanced themselves from them.

I know that my Anne gets jealous in a funny way with our latest stray, Freckles or Kong as Anne calls her. Freckles is clearly my dog not the dog and waits patiently when I’m gone and is always excited because her master has come and might take her on a ride in the truck or go for a walk on the canal. I know that Freckle’s life revolves around me and obviously Anne also. My dog doesn’t live in a third person world because she is always there in the middle of everything and demands attention. The sad fact is that too many people are put in the box of being the husband, the wife, the kid or the dog.

I admonished my wife not the wife with a kiss and reminded her that I’m her husband not someone else’s!