Check Engine
Two Bs and a P. Biblically correct. Biologically correct. Politically? Not so much. That would be my thinking if I read what you are about to read (or I hope you will read — especially if you are a husband). It’s not my intention to introduce a potential political faux pas at the get go, but it can’t be helped. It’s front and center here. It’s this: Women are relational. (Emotional? — heavens no!) Men are not relational. (Emotional? — heck yes!). Are these gender slurs? Quite the opposite! Does all this matter in a marriage? You bet! In a marriage the man is the cement in the driveway, the bricks on the steps, the hardwood on the floors, the molding in the walls and the boards that cover them. The woman is the wiring in the walls; the unseen tubes, ducts and cables; and the entire electronic network. If we’re talking car for a marriage metaphor, the man is represented by the tires, the interior, and all the hardware; the woman by everything electrical and electronic. The husband oversees the structure of a marriage. The wife oversees the status of all the connecting links. That status is displayed on the dashboard. Woe be to the marriage that ignores those displays. More accurately, woe be to the heedless husband.
Check Engine
The check engine display popped up repeatedly on the dashboard of our marriage. (In those days it was the word engine flashing on and off in bright red — in a car and in our marriage.) I paid no attention other than to look at the temperature gauge, the oil pressure, and listen to the engine. They seemed normal so it gave me no cause for concern. (It never occurred to me to look under the hood.) I felt my only problem was the blinking engine light. Blinking, blinking, blinking. How do you stop it? I don’t feel like you love me. I don’t feel like you love me. I don’t feel like you love me. (Mimi was wise. She used the “I” language. She didn’t accuse me of anything. She really didn’t know what to accuse me of anyway.) She simply told me how she felt. I don’t feel like you love me. Over, and over, and over again. It was not until we wrote our book that I realized I nearly lost my wife and ended our wonderful (as I blindly saw it then) marriage. When I asked Mimi to start Chapter 3 with her take on our marriage at this blinking light stage, it was the first time I realized how close we came to disaster. I thanked God that Mimi kept blinking and that I finally checked the engine. She wrote these words: I kept telling [Sim] there was something wrong with our marriage. He would look at me very puzzled. Because he would not listen, I had to decide whether to leave, live like I was living, or trust God.
Ways to Stop the Warning
The easiest way is deadly. I will never forget the front-page story out of Detroit Metro Airport. A Northwest Airlines plane (now merged with Delta) crashed on takeoff, killing all on board except a little girl who was miraculously thrown clear. Our daughter had just moved to Detroit and flew back and forth on Northwest, so naturally we were interested in what caused this plane to suddenly lose altitude at a crucial moment on takeoff, hit a bridge abutment, crash, and burn. Months later, heading up a small news article, I read, “FAA Finds Cause of Northwest Airlines Crash.” Its findings: When the plane took off on a sweltering August afternoon from Saginaw, Michigan, to Phoenix with a planned stop-over in Detroit, the pilots encountered huge towering thunderheads in their path. So, for the short 20-minute hop from Saginaw to Detroit they chose to fly unusually low, under the weather rather than over it. This caused a noise device in the cabin to sound, indicating their altitude was below regulation. The copilot, annoyed by the sound, unplugged the device. It was never replaced. Later, on takeoff from Detroit to Phoenix, the hot, expanded low-pressure atmosphere failed to give the needed lift. The disarmed warning system kept the pilots from knowing the altitude discrepancy. Had they known, they could have corrected it in seconds. Instead, the tip of the landing gear hit the bridge, catapulting the plane out of control. Husbands, listen to the gauge in your cabin — your wife. Wives, whatever you do, don’t become unplugged. Unleashed? Fine! But not unplugged. If you sense that things are not right, sound off and/or keep blinking. Your husband will be totally unaware without it and your marriage could crash and burn. Make sure, though, that it’s not a nag. Use “I” language.
Another Story — Maybe Apocryphal but Presently Appropriate
At a community college recently a group of adults divided themselves up (men and women) for a fun project: What gender should computers be? The women unanimously voted masculine, citing (primarily) that: Computers are supposed to help you solve problems but half the time they are the problem. The men voted unanimously that computers are feminine, citing (primarily) that: No one but their Creator understands their internal logic and when they communicate with each other they speak in code language only they and experts can understand. Even in jest women are known by all to be God-endowed with an internal genius.