Ironman Wife

The next time I will have a chance to check in on my blog will be next week. By that time my wife will have competed in her first Iron-distance triathlon, in Lake Placid, NY. For those of you who don't know, the Ironman triathlon begins with a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, followed by a marathon (26.2 miles). And yes, it's all in a row, all in one day. With time limits.

The journey to Lake Placid has been a transformative one for my wife and for those who love her. She did her first triathlon--Olympic distance--in 2010, and did her first half-Iron this past September. Since then she has been steadily training, building up her endurance and her strength and her speed. A few weeks back she did a hundred mile bike ride, got home, hopped in the shower, and went on with the day as if she'd been out mowing the lawn for an hour.

Not so many years ago, she'd never run around the block. She was a singer and actress (very good at both, by the way), not an athlete. Her native compassion moved her to train for a marathon with Team in Training (the most significant fundraising source for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). She did her first marathon while nursing a stomach virus. She hadn't eaten the day before.  She finished, and then began training for the next.

My wife is strong. She is determined. She is stubborn. She reaches for and accomplishes what most others imagine to be impossible.

I am married to this woman, and I am proud of her. Proud to have her as a partner in life. Grateful that she is the person who stands beside me in raising our children.

Yesterday I posted about the views of marriage endorsed by Douglas Wilson and his acolyte, Jared Wilson. They think a husband/wife relationship is essentially hierarchical, that it is inescapably and inevitably about authority and submission (albeit, supposedly, a benign and caring authority and a joyous submission). They think egalitarianism is a lie. They think attempts at achieving egalitarian marriages lead to twisted forms of hierarchy--rape fantasies and the like.

I'm not sure what they'd say about my marriage to a soon-to-be Ironman triathlete. She is physically stronger than me. She does things I cannot fathom. But I'm not jealous. I'm proud of her. My manhood isn't threatened, because I don't buy into such a stupid, banal, and destructively straight-jacketing vision of gender relationships as the one that the Wilsons endorse. If I did, our marriage would collapse. As it is, our marriage grows.  

My wife knows kickboxing. I don't. If we were threatened in the street, I know who I'd count on to defend us. Does this make me less of a man? Am I a failure as a husband because it would be presumptuous of me to "take care of and protect" the delicate flower that my wife is not? No. What it means is that the Wilson's vision of marriage is a really, really bad fit for the marriage that my wife and I have. Th Wilsons try to absolutize. They try to demonize what doesn't fit. But the real demon is the effort to force diverse things into a singular mold.

I would never dream of demanding my wife's submission to me, nor would she imagine the reverse. We are partners. She didn't seek my permission to pursue her triathlon passion as if I were her lord and master. We talked about it as equal partners because of the financial costs and the time involved. And on Sunday, I will be cheering from the sidelines, just as she cheers me on when I pursue my passion for music and writing.

And believe it or not, none of this feels as if I'm repressing reality. Rather, it feels as if I'm embracing it. The patriarchal vision is about ego--about the desire to have a picture of intimacy that allows for the indulgence of one's ego (albeit in caring, condescendingly benevolent forms). To cheer on the successes of a determined woman who surpasses you, you have to release your ego.

And that, in the end, is what Jesus calls all of us to do. That is what love calls us to do.