The Third Person in My Marriage
There is a ‘third wheel’ in my marriage and he is one I could not do without. He has been referee, umpire, impartial judge, friend, confidant, BFF, sounding board, cheerleader, chastiser, unflinching supporter and companion.
A few days to my wedding over a decade ago, I got a piece of stellar advice from a trusted friend: ‘Two are better than one, but a three-braided cord is not easily broken’. ‘Everyone knows you shouldn’t let in a third party into your marriage‘, I thought. Thankfully, I thought again but not for long.
TW – the person I had in mind – had been the principal recruiter for my husband. I remember writing out the job description and key requirements for the position: essential knowledge areas, experience and attributes, nature and level of qualifications, principal areas of responsibility, working conditions, non-negotiable skill-set (must-haves) and desirable but not essential skills sets (like-to-haves)… I let my imagination fly and left nothing out. To my mind, if he could find me a single candidate who met as much as 65% of the requirements, I would have a winner on my hands. When I went over the list with TW , I expected a snigger but got none. Experience has now taught me that TW does nothing by half measures. No, no. He went out and head-hunted me a candidate that not only met but EXCEEDED the requirements of the job! A man made just for me? What were the odds?! I wanted a God-fearing professional man with strong family values, a man who could hold his own, who was at the very least my intellectual equal (the only requirement my father added to the list – bless his heart), a man of integrity, capable of loyalty and who understands commitment. I desired that he should be athletic but that did not come very high on the list. I had kissed a few frogs and knew better what to be finicky about and what was ‘meh’. Hence that bit, along with many other requirements that used to be really important 10 years prior, ended up on the ‘like to have’ list.
When I met the candidate TW found, he was all those things PLUS he was taller than me (so I can rest my head on his broad chest), older than I was (even if just by a few weeks) , swims, is a martial arts enthusiast, the eldest in a very tightly knit family of 7, creative, intelligent, analytical and not just God-fearing, God-loving. Ka-Ching!!! I hit the jack-pot!
It made sense. TW had been our match-maker. No one else could fit the bill. If there had to be a third person in my marriage, this role was tailor-made for him. I decided to invite him to live with us. He was ecstatic. So we all moved in together. Wrong move? I could not have made a better decision.
TW’s needs are simple: all he requires is that I trust him and since he doesn’t need that much room, it’s easy to forget he’s here. And boy, has he been here! Both my husband and I know we would not have made it this far without him. Since he knows us both so well, he teaches us things we would never have known about each other and did not have the courage to tell. He knows just when to push and when to back off. He encourages and motivates us to be open, to risk being vulnerable for the reward of greater intimacy. He shows us how to be more understanding of each other’s weaknesses and to bolster our strengths.
No one can smooth over a disagreement like TW can. There have been days when all I wanted to do was scream in frustration over something my husband had done or omitted to do and TW’s advise would be: ‘Leave it to me’. ‘But… I need to tell him myself. Didn’t you say communication is vital in marriage? He needs to know how I feel‘ ‘You are too upset to speak rationally now. Why don’t you leave it to me and you can talk to him when you are feeling less emotional about it?’, he has said on many occasions. And sure enough, not too long afterwards my husband would come home and say to me: ‘You know, I should have handled that differently. I am sorry’. ‘How d…’ I would start, then I’d catch TW’s eye and with a wink and a smile, he would step aside and let us make up in private.
One night while my husband was working late, a strange woman turned up at the door of his office and in spite of his protests that they were closed, she insisted on coming in. The moment he let her in, he knew it was a mistake. She was very seductively dressed and kept leaning over him to reach for items on the shelf behind his desk. Just as he wondered how to get himself out of this situation without being offensive, TW let himself into the back office. As he did, he came in with the unmistakable scent of my perfume, which somehow gave my husband the strength to push himself up and shove the strange woman out of the door with the words: ‘I need to get home to my wife NOW’. He still does not know where she came from and we have often wondered whether she was real but we know that without TW’s help, that night could very easily have ended differently. Suffice to say, my husband changed his working pattern, creating a home studio where he works at night when he needs to work late. All without a word from me. I know who to thank for that!
I have taken some unconventional steps in my marriage and without TW, it would have been an absolute disaster. Like when I stopped working after 17 years. Some say I did it because I knew I could count on my husband to take care of me but I tell you, I was banking on TW. I knew I could trust my husband but I had a morbid fear of dependency that would have kept me from going out on that particular limb. When I spoke to TW about it, he said to me very gently: ‘What does your heart say?’ ‘My heart says to do it but my head wont let me’. ‘I’m afraid’ was my response to his unvoiced question. ‘Do you trust me?’ He asked next. ‘I do but…’ ‘No buts. We can do this’.
As always, TW was right. I do not know how we do it, but we do. We have survived running two households in different countries and hosting house guests of up to 12 at a time in a four-bedroom house. Every day we do the seemingly impossible in our household of half-a-dozen children, four dogs plus four adults. We raise two step-children, live an above-average lifestyle on one income, juggle four small companies and two non-profits, serve in our communities and lovingly support our mothers, 10 siblings and 7 sisters and brothers-in-law, 1 ex-brother-in-law and 1 soon-to-be-ex sister-in-law, 17 nieces and nephews, 7 surviving uncles and aunts, 63 cousins and their 125 children…
With TW in our marriage, we are like the 3 Musketeers, the Triumvirate, the Avengers: indomitable, indefatigable. We rule, we can do anything, the possibilities are endless. For all our being a team though, we are under no illusions that TW is equal to us. We have long come to accept that he adds a special element to our lives and he has proven in his unassuming, non-challenging way that he is Primus Inter Pares. Without TW, we could never make it work!
You might have run into him. He also goes by the name: Counsellor. Others call Him ‘The gentle Holy Spirit of the Living God’. I call Him: ‘The friend who sticks closer than a husband’.
– LB for TBB
