CYBERCOLUMN:
Love means never having to be ambushed
___By Berry D. Simpson
___Recently Cyndi and I were privileged to speak to a roomful of young 20-something couples about marriage. I don’t remember the official title for the evening, but we talked about staying in love for a long time, since that’s our favorite topic.
___It’s risky to talk about marriage, since the evidence of our expertise is out there for all to see. Other topics are easier to mask. For example, I might bluff my way though a

BERRY D. SIMPSON

discussion of oilfield equipment design, or drilling operations, or even Bible study, and only real experts would know whether I was on target.
___But talking about marriage in front of people who see us several times every week means no bluffing. They can see the truth. And not only that, the story isn’t over yet. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?
___I have no illusions that our marriage is invulnerable. No relationship is bulletproof. We will continue to suffer attacks on our relationship from now on. The world will pressure us to fall apart, to break up, to destroy what is important to us; we should expect nothing less. We are, after all, aliens and strangers walking through a world dominated by pagan ungodly thinking. This world is not our home; we’re just passing through.
___We don’t have to be afraid, but we do have to be wary. We have to be proactive to keep our relationship strong.
___There are many topics of married life I certainly don’t feel qualified to talk about, such as conflict resolution (I clam up and avoid confrontation); family finances (I am usually overwhelmed and afraid); or family devotion times (I am such a loner I forget about including those around me in my devotional life). But I can talk about staying in love for over 22 years, because I am more in love with Cyndi today than at any time since we first met. And Cyndi, well, she has, as I’ve previously written, dedicated her life to making me a happy man. So love is a good topic for us.
___It was fun to talk with a roomful of young couples; so many of our relationship habits were formed back when we were the same age.
___We learned a few fundamentals back then when were in our early twenties that have served us well. I don’t know if we picked them up on our own, or if we read them in a book, or if we heard them in a sermon or seminar, but they’ve served us well.
___Probably the best thing we did very early was to decide how we would talk about each other and about our marriage. We decided to keep our mouths shut about any complaints or struggles or dissatisfactions. I don’t mean that we walled ourselves off from people who wanted to help us, but we guarded and protected each other as individuals and as a couple. We were careful about what we said to others.
___I made a conscious decision very early never to tell marriage jokes. I remember being in a large break room one day during lunch, it was full of my coworkers, almost all men, and they were cracking jokes about marriage and bad-mouthing their own spouses.
___I decided I would never be like that. If people heard me talk about marriage it would be only good things. I knew I could make people laugh and I was good at sharp retorts and wise cracks and marriage is an easy target. "Take my wife, please …", and like that.
___But I knew that over time, jokes like that would eventually change the shape of my heart. I decided not to do it. I didn’t want to joke myself out of being in love.
___Cyndi talks about us as a couple, visualizing our role as living back-to-back, taking on all attackers. Any challenge against one was an attack on both of us. We were back-to-back, shoulder blade-to-shoulder blade, fending off the world if necessary. Not that we were combative, but that we were always on the same side.
___That means we didn’t have to guard our own back from our own partners. It means we didn’t tell things on each other, even to our own families. I didn’t tell things on Cyndi to my family or friends, and she didn’t tell things on me to her family and friends. And so, we never had to be afraid of being ambushed in a future family conversation with some personal piece of embarrassing information.
___The young couples’ class did us a huge favor by inviting us to speak. Cyndi and I grew even closer (more in love) as we prepared our talk. We had a chance to reinforce those early decisions that made our marriage strong, and tto think about how we will handle the next 20 years.

___Berry Simpson, a Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and mayor pro-tem of the city of Midland.







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