Moving Out and Moving In

Today is my husband and I's one month wedding anniversary.

Tomorrow will be our one month cohabitation anniversary - when I moved out of my parents' house and into his.

We made the 8 hour drive down to our Virginian apartment the day after our nuptials, listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and talking about our enjoyment of the festivities. Although I had never seen the place where we were to make our first home, this fact gave me a sort of secret thrill like I was a pioneer girl taken from the lands of her family to a far away place she had never seen and wouldn't be returning from anytime soon.

It was quite dramatic for a passenger seat reverie.

With the delights of a companion to wake up beside every morning, it still feels like an extended slumber party in the least immature sense of the words. But with shared living space also come the delights of wet towels on the floor, disagreements over what exactly a dishcloth is used for, and personality shortages of anger or listlessnesses of spirit.

I don't know how people are comfortable with any of it without the consolation of marriage and permanent companionship. I enjoy it so much I think, even the not so fun things, because we are married. The thought of building a marriage and a home so excited me that "wifey" was my word of the day for the entire first week. I had a constant desire to do "wifey" things that I think, when we hopefully have children, will convert itself into wanting to do "mommy" things.

They just seem to come from the same place.

A good friend of mine is not so fortunate. Her relationship with her boyfriend, lasting for over 8 years as friends and lovers, was ended in pain two nights before my wedding. Though not officially affianced, they had what my husband and I termed a "common-law engagement". Everyone knew it was there, and they planned for life like it was. And though boyfriends and girlfriends are generally not invited to weddings, those who had a common-law engagement are nearly always welcome to come.

But... Her boyfriend never did propose. He never did grow up. He never was the man she needed him to be.

So what is left? A woman in tears whose future is markedly different from all she had planned it to be and all that she had given up for.

I think there are things she doesn't regret, though, at least not yet, and if I'm honest with myself there's a good chance she never will. And that's the hardest part for me to see...

There has been no expression of regret of her intimacy, of her self-giving, of the trust she had and the love she gave that ultimately could never be fully requited or fulfilled.

We had a conversation at the end of our senior year in college, where she was truly excited for me to engage in sex with my then-future husband for the "trusting" and "unconditional" feeling she felt with her boyfriend was a source of such happiness to her.

I thought it at the time but I couldn't say to her:

"Your love is made on the condition that no baby can ever come and had no vow of fidelity ever sworn. He can leave without cutting any strings for he has made no promise to love you - only to enjoy you. The only trust between you is one of hopeful faith that he won't abuse the spousal privileges you have given him unearned and unprotected. That is not unconditional love."

But she did everything she could for him for she is a hard and fast friend.

Recently, however, she was angry and quite upset, that her father had not let her move in with him. He said he wouldn't pay for a cent of her grad school if she did. In her tears, she cried that she would've done so anyway given time, appalled by her father's lack of understanding and antiquated social norms.

I think she knew I'd have little sympathy for that point. I didn't say anything and began to comfort her in other things. But again, it struck me as remarkable, in a disappointingly negative sense.

Yet again, I couldn't seem to get the words out:

"Your father is trying to protect you when you can't protect yourself. There is an intimacy in living together like the intimacy in sex, and neither work on a conditional love. If you had been living together, imagine how much greater your pain would be now."

Please don't think I'm cold for I know her pain is great and prolonged - she gave so much of herself to him. But it baffles me how, even knowing that, she can't seem to see or even flat out rejects what would've protected her, at least in a major part. The emotions, the connections, the trust and intimacy cannot thrive on terms of conditionality. The bond is looser, the liberties greater, but all are overlooked or praised in our culture of post-modern concubinage.

I may still be hurt many times over, in ways small and severe, but I can't imagine my husband and I even getting as far as we are now without the promise of love and reception of Christ on our wedding day.

But I still wish I could say at the time what I think and write more coherently days and weeks later. But is it my words that fail me, or my fear of hurting my friend more when she needs the love of a friend the most? How much can I say without pushing her away?

I hope the world soon, very soon moves out of this cheap, painful sexuality and into a life of chastity and true fulfillment.