r-e-s-p-e-c-t

This is not the promised blog about my new decisions in life. That is still on my laptop at home getting edited. No, this blog is about respect. Not for me, but for my husband. Husbands in general really.

The other night Jake and I watched the movie A Beautiful Mind with Russel Crowe. It is a true story about a schizophrenic named John who winds ups being a genius and winning the Nobel Prize. This movie got me thinking about another Russel Crowe movie: Cinderella Man. The first time I watched this movie I was struck by the relationship between Jim (Russel Crowe) and his wife Mae (Renee Zellweger). If you haven't seen this movie, it is about a washed up boxer who is out money and work because of The Depression. His family is starving and freezing to death because they can't pay the bills. His children end up being sent to his in-law's house someplace warmer because they get sick. Jim is determined to bring his family back together and keep them together so he starts boxing again. Mae is not super supportive right away because it is dangerous and he has already been hurt so many times. But after a quick fight, she is on his side. She actually supports him and encourages him to do what he can to keep the family together.

What struck me about their relationship is her respect for her husband. He so dearly loves and cares for her and wants to provide for her and their children, and she lets him! Even though it seems stupid and even life threatening, she supports him and cheers for him. She doesn't just look on and nag him, tell him he'll never make it, and rag on him to all her friends. She actually stand by him and bolsters him up, roots for him, and publicly supports him even though the odds and against him. What a wife.

I realized that in A Beautiful Mind the wife is just a supportive. Her husband has schizophrenia. He is litterally going crazy and accidentally almost killed their baby. He secretly stops taking his meds because they were making him miserable. When the doctor says he needs to come back to the hospital for more treatments John refuses to go and decides that he can beat schizophrenia on his own. His wife Alicia stands by him. Maybe she is going crazy too. But you know what? He does it! He is still plagued by the things and people he sees, (in the movie they main people he has interacted with just follow him around looking sad that he doesn't talk to them any more) but he is able to ignore them mostly. He wins the Nobel prize and gives all the credit to his wife. She stood by him and supported him. Because of her he had hope to work harder. Perhaps a great deal of that was made for the movie because when I researched John Nash I found that he and Alicia were actually dicvorced for a time. They remarried but apparently were only room-mates until after 1994. But it sure made for a good ending to a movie.

I want to be a wife like that. I'm blessed to have a husband who loves me like these men loved their wives so it isn't all that hard. He hasn't decided to do something totally crazy yet, but I'm practicing respect while I can. :)