He Says Whatever You Want

Four words, and they have been said perhaps thirty times since May.

Whatever you want.

And every time, she says something like, no, really, what do you think, and he says something like, honestly, I am happy with any of them, and means it completely, and the conversation ends there because there is nowhere else for it to go.

And she goes and sits somewhere and feels something she has not been able to name until now.

I want to name it, because it is not annoyance and it is not about a name.

It is loneliness.

A decision this size was supposed to be carried by two people. It was one of the things that came with the marriage: that the large things would be held between them. And she is holding this one on her own, in a house with a perfectly kind man in it who thinks he is being generous.

That is why the four words land the way they do. He hears himself deferring. She hears herself being left in a room.

And the awful part, the part that makes it impossible to raise, is that he is not doing anything wrong. There is nothing to object to. A woman cannot start an argument with a man who has just told her he trusts her judgment, and so it goes nowhere every single time, and it has gone nowhere thirty times now.

Two are better than one

There is a line in Ecclesiastes about two people, and the reason given for it is not the one people expect.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth. (Ecclesiastes 4:9, King James Version)

You are meant to be carrying this with somebody, and Ecclesiastes 4:9 has never once made being alone the efficient way to do a thing. The written word gives the reason as the lifting and the falling, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land on a woman who has been calling herself ungrateful since May.

Notice what the passage says the second person is for. Not for a better decision. For the moment of falling.

Two are better than one because when one goes down there is somebody there. That is the whole argument. It is not about efficiency and it is not about the quality of the outcome.

And that is exactly the thing that is missing in that house. She is not short of good judgment. She is short of somebody standing beside her when the weight of it lands at eleven at night.

You have been given a reason that is not about the decision at all, and Scripture puts the value of the second person in the falling. Ecclesiastes 4 says woe to him that is alone, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes the word ungrateful out of a woman's mouth.

What he thinks he is doing

Now let me be fair to him, because he is a good man and he is being read as an absence.

He believes, sincerely, that having no preference is a gift. He has watched other men fight their wives over things like this and he has decided not to be that. In his own head, saying whatever you want is the most loving sentence available to him.

And he is not wrong that it is generous. He is wrong about what it does.

Deference is a gift when somebody wants the decision and is being blocked. It is a weight when somebody wants company and is being handed the whole thing.

You are able to tell him what it actually does, and no verse anywhere asked a person to intuit what somebody needs without being told. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives words to a thing that has only been a feeling since May, and Ecclesiastes 4:9 names the falling as the reason for the second person.

And there is a second thing, and it is worth saying because it is common and almost never guessed.

He may not know what he thinks. Not as an evasion. Genuinely. Some men have never been asked to produce an aesthetic preference about anything in their lives and do not know how, and being asked what do you think about this word produces nothing at all, and the honest report of that nothing is whatever you want.

You are possibly asking for a thing he does not know how to make, and Scripture never once required two people to work the same way. Ecclesiastes 4 asks only that somebody be there, and the Spirit of God is what makes a different kind of contribution possible.

Three each, six out loud

So here is the assignment, and it is designed for exactly this.

Each of you write three names down separately, then read all six out loud once.

Writing three is not the same as being asked what he thinks, and that difference is the whole of it. What do you think is an open question with no floor under it, and it produces whatever you want. Write down three is a task with an end to it, and almost anybody can do a task.

You are asking a question he can actually answer, and Ecclesiastes 4:9 has never once required two people to contribute in the same way. The written word asks for the second person's presence, and the Holy Spirit is present in a room where a task replaces an open question for the first time.

And read all six out loud together, with no reactions until every one has been said, because the point is not to find out which of his three is best. The point is that for one evening, three of the names in that house came from him.

That is what she has been asking for since May, and she has been asking for it with the wrong question, and neither of them has known that.

You are permitted to ask for company rather than for a verdict, and Scripture puts the whole value of two people in the not being alone. The Spirit of God is with two people at a table with six words on it, and Ecclesiastes 4 says woe to him that is alone when he falleth.