This article was previously published on Latterdaysaintwoman.com
Back in May, I wrote an editorial responding to Helen Croydon’s opinion that marriage is pointless. It was posted at LDSBlogs.com. Croydon doesn’t want to waste five minutes helping someone find a shirt, have to share a milk carton, or be stuck with someone after the novelty wears off. She supports having a team of men to support her various needs—a very self-centered approach to life and to relationships.
I was thinking about her article this week. We have just finished a move that, for a variety of reasons, was brutal. We got the rental house at the last minute and had to scramble. We’re not as young as we used to be (of course) and we don’t have children at home to help with the packing. My husband got sick, and then I got sick right at the very end of the process. Our 
daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were moving out of state due to a military transfer, which was hard to take. Our elderly rescue cat, terrified of change, went on a hunger strike. A combination of homesickness in advance, worries, and a stomach flu caused me to have a meltdown just a couple of days before the movers were arriving.
My husband was at the new house delivering things we preferred to move ourselves. I was home alone packing when I suddenly became very emotional. I don’t have many meltdowns, but suddenly I was convinced we couldn’t finish in time. I couldn’t cope.
I began taking things out to my car, but after just a few runs, I fell into my reading chair and started crying. My husband called me during the meltdown and although I’d managed to stop the tears and tried to sound normal, he knew I wasn’t. He coaxed me to tell him what was wrong and I did, explaining that there was too much left to do (and being sick, I wasn’t letting anyone from Church come to help) and it would not be done in time.
He told me to sit down and stop working until he got there—and instructed me to order a pizza to arrive after he got home so I didn’t start thinking about cooking. When he arrived, as we waited for the pizza, he took a broom and swept the dining room, which was our staging area. There was a lot of debris on the floor from my wrapping, sorting, and cleaning out projects. Then he reorganized the room so the wall of pantries were on one wall tightly against each other, freeing a lot of space. He moved packed boxes into one area so they weren’t all over the house and gathered up the loose items. We had gotten down to random items, breakables that needed wrapping, and things we had still been using. They were scattered all over the house because I had set them on surfaces to wait for the right boxes or time to wrap. He put them all into a single closet.
Suddenly, it didn’t seem like there was so much to do. The now clean and organized dining room didn’t look overwhelming and a single closet to pack didn’t seem so bad. I calmed down and the stomach pain and terror went away.
Everyone would need a different approach to their panic in that setting. Only my husband would know—even when I didn’t know myself—what it took to bring me out of my complete panic. If I’d had a whole group of men, not one of them would have known me that well. If I had only men who stayed in my life a few months, none of them would know me that well. Furthermore, it’s not likely a temporary man would even care all that much. It takes a special kind of person to care and to know.
To read more of Terrie’s articles, click the picture.
Today, many are opting to have Croydon’s life. Others are choosing to abandon marriages for shallow reasons. (There are valid reasons for divorce, but those aren’t my focus here.) They are giving up something extraordinary for something temporary and fleeting. Sure, a new romance can be fun, but it can’t give what a long, established, and committed relationship can give. When two people commit to make it together forever, as Mormons do, something miraculous happens. Those meltdown moments, the trials, the scary things…they’re all better when your best friend is along for the journey and forever.
Helen, I’m so sorry you’ll never know what you could have had. Your own private carton of milk? It can’t compare to what I have.
The late Terrie Lynn Bittner—beloved wife, mother, grandmother, and friend—was the author of two homeschooling books and numerous articles, including several that appeared in Latter-day Saint magazines. She became a member of the Church at the age of 17 and began sharing her faith online in 1992.
