The Man Who Sewed My Skirt

This morning, while I indexed family history records and we both listened to sweet Sunday music, Gage trimmed and hemmed my skirt.

That's right.

My sci-fi loving, mechanical-engineering, tool-wielding man sat down behind his grandma's 20-year old Bernina, changed the foot, inserted a new spool of thread, removed the pins he'd placed, used his steady hands to guide a straight stitch - and didn't think twice about it.

I did.

For a minute I felt insecure. There I was watching uselessly while my partner, who can also run math and science circles around me, carried out a basic domestic duty. I'm not ashamed to have just quit a good job so I can move with my groom to wherever his job takes us. I don't feel relegated to, but rather honestly yearn, to fill the role of wife and mother and loving homemaker. But up to this point in our relationship, Gage has cooked more than me and, if we had kids right now, he'd be the one they'd run to for hand-sewn Halloween costumes.

Gage and I have talked about variations of this thought before. He points out that I have other talents, and he's right. I serve in the temple and write and speak Spanish and exercise and am largely content with how I spend my time. Sometimes Gage is even the one who says he feels insecure, and I try to assure him there's no reason to be.

Ultimately, both of us know that in each other we have found a healthy balance. Our individual talents combine to cover almost all the bases. Together, we feel that we will make a very happy home. We know that it doesn't matter if he's the one sewing and I'm planning the honeymoon, or whose savings pay for our dates out. What matters is that we "help one another as equal partners." 

So I brushed aside this morning's brief insecurities and instead gave thanks to be marrying a man who doesn't think himself above any type of work.

If only it were happily ever after.

A couple hours later, at church, standing at Gage's side in my freshly sewn skirt, I watched a well-meaning married man of 25 years put his hand on my almost-husband's shoulder.

"So you're getting married soon, are you?" he asked.

"12 days," Gage smiled.

"Well, just remember," the man chuckled, "She's always right." 

Gage and I exchanged a glance. 

"That's one of the first things I learned in marriage," the man went on. "You gotta get used to being wrong. I only made one right decision in all this time, and that was marrying her."

We didn't know how to respond. But the gentleman didn't seem to notice our shifting feet and forced smiles. 

It's wasn't the first time we'd heard something like that. A couple of weeks into our engagement, a group of strangers in their 70s joked that we must be newly married if we were still holding hands. Once before Sunday School, some women at church told Gage he better get used to saying "Yes, dear." When I protested that I wanted a husband to counsel with, they insisted I didn't know what I was getting into. They made marriage sound like I'd be training a dog.

Together, Gage and I marvel at this kind of language. We resolve to fuel the flames of our romance and retain the respect and admiration we feel for each other. And we wonder why. Why does this kind of "advice" get tossed around as if its funny? It's especially exasperating to hear it within the walls of our church, whose members are taught that both husband and wife are prized by God and essential in the family. 

Just this spring, the apostle D. Todd Christofferson gave an inspiring message about fathers in which he said "We call on media and entertainment outlets to portray devoted and capable fathers who truly love their wives and intelligently guide their children, instead of the bumblers and buffoons or 'the guys who cause problems,' as fathers are all too frequently depicted."

As a woman whose fiance sewed her skirt this morning, it is especially discouraging to hear baffoon-type stereotypes directed at the love of my life. Don't the people who say these things know that all too often Gage is the one gently (and ever so tactfully) correcting me? Don't they see the countless ways he serves me: filling up my water bottle before I know it's empty, giving me the bigger bite of the shared cupcake, even massaging my scalp as I write this? He hates it when I say it, but in so many ways, he's perfect. 

And that, maybe, is one of the reasons the kinds of man-minimization we heard expressed today is proliferated throughout society. This morning when Gage was sewing something I didn't know how to, it made me feel insignificant. That wasn't a pleasant feeling. If I hadn't had his encouragement and/or the critical thinking and self-esteem to understand and invalidate those doubts about my worth, I might have been taken in by the temptation to tease him about his ability to sew. Sitcoms even today might still label that something like "women's work." They'd poke fun at a man for sewing like they would if he wore pink.

In his talk about fathers, Elder Christofferson said, "For men, fatherhood exposes us to our own weaknesses and our need to improve." I can say the same about dating, engagement, and marriage from a woman's perspective. From any perspective. There are things I'm not going to know how to do that Gage is going to teach me (and vice versa). One of the tests of matrimony will be seeing whether we act with humility while both teaching and learning. Doing that means admitting our weaknesses instead of belittling the other. Doing that will "require sacrifice, but it [will be] a source of incomparable satisfaction, even joy." 

It's how we'll grow together. And I'm betting it's the only way to happily ever after.