Man and Woman

During one of our coffee chats, my friend Rose asked me, “What are your similarities with Tony?”

Difficult question. If it were asked in a job interview, I would have been turned down. After about 10, maybe 30, minutes I gave up. “How about differences? I could come up with a thousand in a second.”

She laughed.

I was being facetious. Of course hubby and I have similarities—two: (1) we both love our children; and (2) we both love to read.

And I guess everything else moved from there. Shared values based on the Word came into play when we disciplined our children. Shared wisdom from years of reading books (the Bible most of all) helped in the tricky task of raising three boys. 

And here's where the third similarity, and the most important one, comes in; we both believe in grace. How our boys turned out (thank you, Lord!) was all by grace—it guided us in our decision making.

Males and females are so wisely designed by our Creator to be different—physically, mentally and emotionally.

We approach questions, issues, and problems differently; show our feelings differently; behave differently, and are equipped differently. Men read the headlines; we look for the  fine prints.

In many research results on the subject, the conclusions have been the same: a man (or a woman) is attracted to someone who complements him, not someone who is a mirror of himself.

These are just some of the things that hubby loves: history, geography, cooking, the great outdoors, the sun, unplanned trips, traveling, gardening, watching TV, and singing. On the flip side is, well, that's where my interests lie.   

In Bible times, one could clearly see the demarcation line between what women did and what men were called to do. Through the years, with women's lib, gender laws and all, that line has blurred.

But this fact holds: the marriages that often last are those that have complementary pairs. I see this in mine, my friends' and kin's.

“. . . the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2: 21-23)

Rose and I ended our topic with this conclusion: man and woman are made differently, that's why they have separate toilets.    

 

Yup, hubby and missus are collegial partners, not Siamese twins.