pants

People have made a lot of jokes to John and i about who wears the pants in our relationship. It's an easy and popular question to ask, provoking an easy and obvious chuckle. When we first started dating, i told one of my friends that we'd found that things went a lot better when no one wears any pants at all.

Strange as it may seem, that joke is actually a perfect description of the power balance of our relationship. It's not that one of us wears the pants all the time. It's not that we take turns wearing the pants. We just refuse to put them on at all.

Sarah of Emerging Mummy describes her marriage as a slow dance:

"Sometimes the questions people ask or judgments they imply can make us chuckle, don't they, my darling?

Well, who is in charge here?


We are.

Yes, but if push comes to shove, who is the leader?


We are.

But then who is the spiritual head of your home?


Only Jesus."

Ours is not a relationship where one person holds the power. It is not a relationship where we both jockey for power. It is not a relationship where power is shared. It is a relationship where we don't consider power or control, where the question never even comes up. We stand together, move together, stop together. We aren't trying to get anywhere except closer. Our relationship is not an eighteen-wheeler on the highway in need of someone to steer it. It's a slow dance in an empty room.