I’m a different wife as a Larter.
Duh.
Tragedy will change a person.
I was so selfish with HeeJun. We both were. Many, many fights were simply about our own selfishness. What he wasn’t doing for me. The shoes he wouldn’t put away. The socks I wouldn’t fold. My weight and lack of self control. Resentment and bitterness crept in at times. Can you believe I slept on the couch sometimes? What a selfish, naïve girl! We just didn’t know what it meant to love selflessly.
I learned a lot after losing him.
I’ve walked by Chad’s tools laying on the floor and laughed thinking, “man, that would have driven me nuts before.” When my mind starts to get overwhelmed with all the things I WANT, WANT, WANT for the house, I laugh and remember it’s not important. Those things will fade. They are not my treasures.
“But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Now, I think about all the things he does for me that make me feel so loved, and I help pick up the tools. No nagging or resentment. (Ask me about the tools after we’ve been married a year…I know we are still honeymooning)
I try not to let things stress me out. I want to give selflessly. I want to love selflessly.
You are such a delight!
It is amazing how different the second time is. W and I didn’t fight much but we were still grounded in the idea that we were more individuals than unit, and I don’t think I truly understood that what makes a relationship fulfilling and long-lasting is the mutual selflessness. When your partner’s happiness and well-being are more important than your own, and you are content that it is so, marriage is more wonderful than you could have ever imagined it could be.
I think near everyone with a long, happy union figures this out over time and I probably would have too with W, but his death was like a speed course in learning what mattered and the learning curve this second time as barely steep at all as a result.