The Secret to Joy in Marriage

[Murph]

The Secret to Joy in Marriage

Victor Lee Austin is a priest in the Episcopal Church whose wife died tragically of brain disease. In his book Losing Susan, Austin walks through the story of meeting his wife, their falling in love and getting married, her diagnosis before the age of forty, and her untimely death. Halfway into the memoir, Austin shares with great vulnerability how there came a point during his wife’s illness where he became her full-time caregiver. He had to take his “dearly beloved to the toilet and wash her soiled sheets.” He explains, “On September 29, 1978, I vowed to love Susan as my wife in sickness and in health for as long as we both were alive.” It was in the midst of faithfully loving his wife that Austin discovered something he did not expect.

It is not only that I had to do these things for Susan, things that I did not foresee and for which I was usually quite unprepared. It is, also, not only that in doing these things I found God to be with me and, in the tensest moments, to be present and helping me through. It is this: I found joy in doing these things. Wiping Susan’s bottom, when I had to; washing sheets; guiding her through the obstacles of an airport; taking her to the hospital; sitting by her bedside; shuttling from home to hospital to work and back again . . . I would weep. I would be angry. I would pace the floor. But there was joy in my bones.

The covenant vow that sustains marriage is not a joyless commitment. Although the media may depict marriage as a loss of personal freedom, we mustn’t assume with it that joy comes primarily through self-indulgence. If you view your spouse as an object who exists to bring you joy, you’ll only do them harm and be disappointed. As odd as it may sound, one of the strange but glorious things we discover in marriage is that joy doesn’t come through demanding but denial, self-denial. It’s there that we too can find joy in our bones.

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