In my twenties, I formed a sisterhood stronger than almost any other I\u2019ve ever experienced. I met a group of girls who I lived my life with, in its entirety. We laughed together, we cried together, we shopped together, we worshipped together, and mostly we were single together. These were my roommates, my best friends, my confidents \u2014 my family. We were inseparable.<\/p>\n
But, slowly, the inevitable happened. Some of those friends started falling in love and getting married. When they did, everything about our relationship shifted, including our texting.<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cWhat are you up to this weekend?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wedded Friend: \u201cWell, I haven\u2019t seen Jack all week so we\u2019re going to just hang out and spend the weekend together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Me: \u201cAh.\u201d<\/p>\n
About this time in the conversation, I\u2019d grab my keys and head to buy another pint of ice cream and brainstorm which movies to Netflix for 48 hours, because I was alone. So alone.<\/p>\n
It was hard \u2014 almost impossible \u2014 not to resent these friends. Girls who I talked to every day started to disappear for more time with their \u201chubbies,\u201d and what this silently said was, I live with Jack, I\u2019m married to Jack, I see Jack every single flipping day, but I would still rather see him than come out and meet you girls for brunch or dinner on Friday or craft night.<\/em><\/p>\n Ugh.<\/p>\n How, <\/em>I would rage, does this happen to all my married friends? I will never be like this. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n And yet, replace \u201cJack\u201d with \u201cKevin,\u201d and you\u2019re now reading a text I\u2019ve probably sent in the time it\u2019s taken you to get to this paragraph. I\u2019ve sent it twice if you\u2019re a slow reader.<\/p>\n Yep. I\u2019m that girl. <\/em>I got married. I drank the Kool-Aid. I\u2019m all about nights in with my husband in sweatpants (still with ice cream). The idea of a weekend with no plans aside from hanging out together and visiting the farmer\u2019s market and walking the dogs and maybe doing some laundry and drinking coffee makes me want to do a full-on Simone Biles floor routine. (Do y\u2019all miss the Olympics yet? Because I do.)<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not out of laziness, either. Marriage takes a surprising amount of time and work. The thing is, if you don\u2019t give it the time it requires, you don\u2019t have a happy marriage. These nights in are filled with precious moments, and we need them desperately. I want to maintain a happy, healthy marriage, but I hate that it requires so much sacrifice in other areas.<\/p>\n Still, I do feel like a traitor.<\/p>\n And to make it more <\/em>polarizing, I have a few (incredible, beautiful, godly, amazing<\/em>) girlfriends who\u2019ve had the absolute worst luck with dating \u2014 for years. While they go on yet another random date with some guy they met on the internet who turns out to be a) creepy or b) creepy, my husband and I are moving forward, talking about starting a family or where we want to go on our next vacation together. And I feel so guilty.<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not alone. I have other newly married girlfriends who also feel guilty for enjoying their new life<\/a> and wanting time alone with their husbands. It truly is a cultural (or marital?) phenomenon I don\u2019t fully understand.<\/p>\n Now two years out from the wedding, and I\u2019m getting better. I\u2019m actually up for group things. Sometimes I even leave my house on purpose after six on a weeknight. I\u2019m finding natural ways to see my girlfriends again, but I have new patterns and habits. The flow of my life is different now.<\/p>\n It\u2019s getting harder in other ways, too. For my single girlfriends, dating scenarios that were somewhat discouraging when we were 25 have become completely disheartening at 31. I have friends who are starting to wonder if they\u2019ll ever be mothers or wives \u2014 if they\u2019ll ever have their own families. I feel this loss with them and for them, and because of this, I don\u2019t always know how to share about my own life without feeling I\u2019m another knife stabbing them in the side. I deeply long for us all to be in the exact same place <\/em>\u2014 just like we used to be.<\/p>\n With each new step I take with my husband, I feel a loss because I want those friends to be taking those same steps. I don\u2019t want to move into new territory without them. It\u2019s scary, and I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n I want them there with me.<\/em><\/p>\n While driving with one of my best friends last summer who was struggling with a horrible breakup with a guy who did not<\/em> deserve her (you know who you are), I confessed something that feels super weird: I told her I feel her longing to be married so intensely I almost feel like my own marriage picture is not yet complete and won\u2019t be until I know she\u2019s found the relationship she deserves. (I have no idea if this is healthy. Probably not. #boundariesarehard.)<\/p>\n The theological concept of \u201calready\u201d and \u201cnot yet,\u201d initially proposed by Gerhardus Vos, was a term to discuss the Kingdom of God<\/a>, but I\u2019m realizing as Christians we can feel this for each other in so many ways, in terms of the gifts of God we\u2019ve received while others have not. I feel that being given a gift only enables one to mourn more with those who don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n My aching for my friends to have what I\u2019ve been given freely has taught me more about the heart of God, who aches for us as we continue to trudge through our lives. When Christ left us to return to heaven, I wonder if He wept over not being able to bring the\u00a0disciples with Him. Having a Savior who hurts when we hurt \u2014 who works only for our good \u2014 I finally have a small picture of that kind of great love.<\/p>\n And so I walk in this tension \u2014 the \u201calready\u201d and the \u201cnot yet.\u201d I am slowly allowing myself to enjoy my marriage guilt-free, but I still let myself have moments, on a date or on a trip, when I feel a pang of sadness for a friend. Yes, I have a great marriage (though not perfect), and no, marriage doesn\u2019t complete a woman<\/a>. But that won\u2019t stop me from feeling like I\u2019m not quite where I want to be.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Ashley Emmert is a proposal writer, freelance writer and concerned mom of \u00a0multiple small dogs. She lives in the suburbs of Chicago with her very Southern husband. If you need her, she’ll be watching the new season of Gilmore Girls for the next two years on repeat. Find her at\u00a0<\/em>ashleygraceemmert.blogspot.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or on Twitter\u00a0<\/em>@ashgemmert<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Copyright 2018 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My aching for my friends to have what I\u2019ve been given freely has taught me more about the heart of God, who aches for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":42531,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13419","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marriage-prep"],"yoast_head":"\nMaking peace with the aching<\/h4>\n