Newlywed Life | Defining Your Identity as a Wife
/STEPHANIE FRIES
The human person has a natural desire to define their identity in order to know themselves; for as we come to know ourselves, we come to know God who created us. In this process, it can be difficult to differentiate between “who am I?” and “what do I do?”
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For example, claiming an identity through a professional vocation may sound like “I am a nurse.” Straight away, this sounds like an answer of who I am! The language is straightforward and consistent with the question. With second thought, however, this sentence holds greater claim to what I do--it defines an occupation more than it defines a person’s being.
Take the same thought into the ways we identify as a wife. “I am a wife.” This statement is a true and valid identification for many women. Often more personal than a professional vocation, this definition more closely defines who I am because it intuits how God has called woman to a lifelong and all-encompassing relationship to love and be loved.
What qualities define one’s identity as a wife? By digging a little deeper into this role to answer the question, “Who am I?,” we may uncover a beautiful revelation of our identity as designed and intended by God the Father.
When my husband was traveling for months at a time this past year, I wrestled with my identity as a wife and recognized this part of my identity was defined by the roles I fulfill in our marriage, in our relationships with others, and in the duties of our home.
In fact, it seemed my identity as a wife was void without his presence and the opportunities to serve him in tangible ways. I realized my confidence and self-efficacy was the byproduct of productivity and action. Perhaps Satan was trying to strip me of all confidence and joy in our first year of marriage (and I was close to falling in that trap), but God’s grace slowly led me away from isolation and despair.
Beyond the literal ways we show up and fulfill the wife role and responsibilities--by bringing home a paycheck, wiping babies’ hands, or keeping a home--how does God desire to define our identity through the Vocation as wife?
In his “Letter to Women,” Saint John Paul II makes a personal address to wives when he says, “Thank you, women who are wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.”
What do you give your husband at the service of love and life?
I invite you to pause and answer this question, noting your initial response.
My impulse jumps to the tangible acts of kindness and service: I give my husband dinner every night when he is home, I share my body and heart with him in marital intimacy, I have offered up my career in order to partner together and pursue his. This is where I pause, with caution, for there is more.
God calls husbands and wives into a mysterious, life-giving union. Fulton Sheen says, “existence is worth,” and I believe this simple statement begins to answer the questions of identity in Vocation.
Living into a spousal union in the image of God is more about existence than it is about productivity. When a wife joins to her husband for the duration of her life on Earth, she is fulfilling her role. It is that simple. Her whole-hearted living presence is the foundation of her identity as a wife.
The gift of self is not always a measurable action. Being a gift of self is being alive, existing, renewing the “yes” we claim in the marriage vows. Being a gift of self and fulfilling the vocation as a wife is the combined offering of everything you are, in who God created you, and everything you do “at the service of life and love.”
The same is true for Jesus in his spousal presence to his bride, the Church. He concurrently exists in the presence of the Eucharist, and continually offers himself to us through the tangible Eucharistic sharing of his body, blood, soul, and divinity.
What you do is absolutely a part of who you are; but what you do is not the foundation of your identity. Regardless of your occupation, Vocation, or any other roles you may fill in a day, you were created by God as beautiful, worthy, and whole in your existence alone. Uncovering the mysterious identity as a wife reveals an even deeper affirmation of your beauty, worth, and wholeness through your sheer existence in your marriage.
