Dare Seventeen: It’s a Secret

I am a pretty good secret keeper.  If someone tells me something, I never go to another person and blab, “So, do you know what ____ told me?”  However, I have at times told a “secret” that should have been kept between me and my husband.  Maybe I was talking with the girls and wanted to share my husband’s worst problem or maybe I was mad at him for the day and let the “secret” slip.  The secret doesn’t even have to be really bad things.  Maybe he didn’t take out the trash, or he promised to set the alarm and didn’t.  The reason for it to be a secret is because I do not have to broadcast to the world my husband’s personal struggles or failures.

Yesterday’s dare was in regards to secret keeping.  “Determine to guard your mate's secrets (unless they are dangerous to them or to you) and to pray for them.  Talk with your spouse, and resolve to demonstrate love in spite of these issues.  Really listen to them when they share personal thoughts and struggles with you.  Make them feel safe.”  While the book did not go into detail what the secrets may be, I realize that because of a husband and wife’s intimate relationship (intimate meaning super close and knowing every detail about each other) we will ultimately know things about each other that no one else knows.  In order to make my husband feel safe, he has to have faith that I will be his protector and guard his secrets how silly they may be.

When we first married, I was more than willing to let any ear hear about our fights and his shortcomings.  Why shouldn’t everyone know that James had failures too?  I quickly realized that sharing these “secrets” made me feel better at his expense.  Sure, I was elevated for the moment as seeming better than him, but I brought him down in other’s eyes.  I did not like lowering him in other’s eyes.  In fact, I began to realize that I wanted others to see what a fantastic guy I married and to bring him up.

That change was dramatic.  Instead of broadcasting his failures, I always make sure to tell others about how wonderful he is.  And he is wonderful.  Not because he never messes up, but because he is my husband and I am his support.  God has given me the amazing job of building him up, and I am not doing that job if I am tearing him down.  I choose to make him feel safe in our relationship.  When he shares his struggles, he trusts that the conversation is between only him and me and that he won’t be seeing his struggles being posted on Facebook or hearing about them from my friend’s spouses.  The “secrets” are for me to build him up in prayer and to show him that I am there for him, and not for me to tear him down.

While I am not perfect in regards to keeping James’s every shortcoming a secret, I think I make sure everyone knows that James is the most wonderful man that I know.  He is a great father and someone that I learn so much from day to day.  I have faith in his leadership, and I trust his judgment.  Instead of bringing him down, I choose to build him up.