I shared a few days ago about how music is life for me. It’s a NEED for me, and when I’m music-deprived, we all know it.
My husband, on the other hand, isn’t musical at all. He can tune the radio and that’s about it. He tried to learn to play the guitar, and he did sing in church choir a bit, but he admits to it being a chore.
So, I’ve found it difficult to include music in our lives. Music can be distracting to him. Music can easily become noise to him. Music means very little to him. It’s just how he’s wired.
And as I mentioned before, with 5 of us in the house (including 2 tween boys and an early teen girlie), it gets loud without adding music.
This is a very difficult place to be, at least it is right now. Music speaks to me, and I feel and communicate most fully through music. I melt when I hear a low bass voice. I’m overcome with emotion when I hear certain types of music. I am rarely happier than when I’m listening to music LOUDLY so I can hear all the bits and parts and sounds. There really IS a song for every situation in life, and I’m tempted to sing them all.
And yet these types of things are completely foreign to my hubby. So I’m not able to share them with him in the way that I could share with someone who ‘gets’ it. There’s just not that connection.
I had dreamed of marrying someone who I could sing with, or who could play an instrument with me while I sang and played my own instruments. Because music is such a powerful element in my life, it seemed like it should be a naturally powerful element in my marriage as well.
My hubby is an amazing man. He’s sensitive and attentive and a great dad. He just doesn’t get my ‘thing’ with music. He doesn’t speak this language that is so very special to me. He doesn’t deny or belittle my special language; he just isn’t able to share it with me. He knows it, I know it. That feels really weird in my heart sometimes. The situation is not ‘broken’ really, it’s just not ideal.
So, even after 15 years of marriage, it’s still something I’m trying to figure out.
I’m sure there is something like that for him, too – something he LOVES that I don’t ‘get’.
Have you experienced this kind of weirdness in your own relationships or your marriage? What is the passion in your heart that your spouse just doesn’t get?
my husband and I have all sorts of different interests but I think it is more me that doesn’t quite get HIS passions than the other way around in our marriage – but he is more content to just go and do them on his own. He joined a photography club for example and he shows me his pictures and I love them… but I am very unlikely to ever truly learn how to use a camera like he does. My passions are more solo-activities anyway because I am such an introvert 🙂
I get that, Tara. It’s really hard for me to have something that is so much a part of me and is not really appreciated or understood by my sweetie. I can sing to him and he wouldn’t know if it’s good or bad, and would be just as content if I never sang to him. That’s a weird thing for me. LOL!
I wanted to thank you for this post, Raylene. Music is so much a part of me and my background, and after 8 years of marriage to my amazing husband I am also trying to figure out the place it has in my life. My husband has a passion for math, which is a major area of his life in which I will never be able to fully appreciate his accomplishments. I appreciated hearing you put into writing some of my thoughts about these areas where we don’t connect. Maybe God puts each of us with someone who is so well-suited to us, and yet there is some area that is not a ‘perfect fit’ -so that we remember that only God can fill us up and satisfy every part of who we are. However, I still wonder about what to do about music in my life… Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
Joie, I think you make an excellent point. It’s an ache to remind us where we need to go to be filled. Even so, I do wonder what to do with the intense emotions I feel through music. Thanks for your comment. It’s interesting to know that others have similar experiences, and so nice to be able to process together!