Marriage Moats-Friendly Failure

Published: Sun, 05/15/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

Failure is my friend.

I did not recognize that fact the first few thousand times we met. But over the bumpy years I have come to be a tad more comfortable with her.

Just yesterday two different people accosted me to complain that I forgot their anniversaries when I list them in our church newsletter. Years ago I might have been embarrassed, or tried to defend myself with an excuse. But this time I thanked them sincerely for the chance to get it right in the future, and promptly plunked their dates in my phone. After all, it is a gift to know that anyone eagerly anticipates seeing their anniversary listed, and it is a sign of trust that they want to bolster my imperfect efforts. If I had not failed, those conversations would never have happened.

Failure is also a chance to feel compassion. Before I took care of my aging mother, I was peripherally aware of other people who had live in parents. But I thought little of it. It was not until I kept falling on my face, trying to navigate the potholes of elder care that I felt a surge of empathy for those daughters I had previously felt no connection to. Now I wanted to run to their houses with flowers and tea.

"You took care of your mother for eight years? Bless you!!! Can I kiss your feet?"

Failure is a window for joy that certain success can never unlatch. If I ask a professional seamstress to make a bean bag, she will cock her head, raise an eyebrow and zip one up. Her joyometer would be flatlined. But each week that I spread out the fabrics and buttons for my five year old novices, uncertainty hovers in the corner.

"Where do the pins go?"

"The machine is unthreaded again, Mrs Lori."

They forget to sew pretty sides together, and when they turn it right side out it is actually wrong side out. Start again. Or they sew it closed with such loose stitches that it breaks with the first hurl and beans explode all over. Start again. Finally they sew it with the seams on the inside and the right side on the outside and the beans on the inside. Bing! The joyometer starts clanging.

Failure ratchets up gratitude. Laryngitis hijacked my ability to sing earlier this spring. I listened longingly to other people belting it out, but when I opened my mouth to try my voice was on vacation. It stayed away long enough to brand the memory, and I still feel more appreciation with its return than I ever mustered before it left.

Perhaps the sweetest reason to welcome failure into our relationships is because it softens the terrain for humility. Being loved by John when I have whipped up a yummy dinner, and the kitchen is spotless (well, maybe not spotless) feels great. He loves me, and deservedly so. I am a success.

But the memory, kept in the safe deposit box of my heart, of how he loved me when I was too sick to get off the couch, or paralyzed with fear over the uncertainty of the future, is in a whole different league.

I would tell you about it but the words have not yet been invented.

Photo by Andy Sullivan

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