It’s our last night at my parents’ house before we head back tomorrow. I made the mistake a few days ago of referring to it as “home” instead of “my parents’ house.” It’s an easy slip to make after having lived out of town for so long, but one that certainly doesn’t need to be repeated. It’s very familiar here, with all the trappings I’m used to, but we as a family are very much our own entity. The longer I’m married the more I find the declaration in the Bible that a married man will “leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” to be absolutely, thoroughly, necessarily<\/i> true. In other words, it has to happen. The dangers of the husband clinging to his family in unhealthy ways are more significant than those associated with the wife doing something similar. As far as why that is, I haven’t formulated a complete theory, but after a brief think-through I would say vulnerability is a factor–if the husband and his family are aligned together in a particular direction and the wife, alone, isn’t, then she is more vulnerable than if the wife and her family were of one mind about something and the husband was the odd one out. I wish I could offer something concrete to undergird that notion, but it’s late and my brain, although very much active in the spirit of a few posts ago, is still lagging somewhat.<\/p>\n