My 26-day Journey to Becoming a Better Wife. “H”

How “Go along with the decisions that he makes” and “Give thanks to God and your husband” went:

            Yesterday was a busy day for both of us. My husband forgot to take the checkbook with him to work, and we live REALLY FAR from the place where we needed to pay the bill. Instead of getting angry, I thanked my husband for getting up and going to work, and when he got home, I went out with one of the boys to pay the bill. It was really no big deal, when weeks ago, this would have been a hug hairy deal. Thankfully we were able to simply move on. Furthermore, I was actually thankful that my husband got up and went to work. He has a great work ethic, so it makes our lives much easier in that I don’t have to try to force him to go to work on a regular basis. So I got to find something to be thankful for. As far as the decisions he makes, yes he requested certain clothes which I went along with, but yesterday was hard for me because I still am not feeling well. I was laying in bed, and my husband said “babe, you really need to get going on dinner, it’s getting late”. I know that I could have easily said “I really don’t feel up to cooking” and he would have been fine with that and made himself a sandwich, but instead, I got up and cooked. He was extremely happy with his dinner, and we had a peaceful evening together. I love it when the household is peaceful!

H: Hold Him First and the Children Second:

            This one is really hard for me, I’ve always wanted children, every since I was little I wanted to have children. Before we had kids, my husband and I lived a very quiet life. We used to go to this little second hand bookstore and buy books by the box. We’d come home to our dog, and our quiet little apartment and sit and read. We would read in silence for HOURS. When we started to get hungry, we would fight over who had to run to a drive-through and get us food and who had to walk the dog. The person who got to walk the dog got to keep reading, so that was the chore that we always wanted. Eventually we kept track and took turns. If I decided to cook, we would both stop reading and while I was cooking we would stop and tell each other about our books. Neither of us was particularly interested in the other’s book but it was fun to talk about. We would stay up late playing gin rummy (he ROCKS at that game), monopoly, and trivial pursuit. We would watch movies before bed. This was our life. We loved it, but I still wanted kids. When we had the twins, our whole lives changed. Our lives became ruled by two other lives. Two people that needed us for EVERYTHING. Forget reading, we couldn’t even EAT or use the bathroom in peace! Our quiet little home turned into a place where the noise level rivaled that of a rave. Yet and still, we loved these little people. Somewhere along the line though, our relationship began to suffer, because my whole world became about them. It wasn’t just that they needed me, it was that I fell in love with them, I was completely enamored by everything that they did. I was so focused on them, that I allowed my relationship with my husband to falter. We spent less time together. We stopped talking to each other about anything other than the children. We stopped telling each other how much we loved each other, and in a short amount of time, we became strangers. Strangers that couldn’t even look at each other without bitterness.

            My husband always wanted our old relationship back. That’s not to say that he didn’t want the kids and didn’t want to keep the kids, but he wanted a balance. It took me a while to realize it, but I fell so much in love with the kids and put them first in so much that I was making my husband feel as though I didn’t love him at all. What he doesn’t know is that I yearned for that relationship back with him. I felt like he regretted having children at all, and I felt like maybe he regretted being married to me. This is obviously not the way that a marriage should be. For some reason, we both felt trapped. What changed? Don’t think that I’m an awesome wife yet. A while back, I started to become overwhelmed with the kids. I still loved them, I just realized that yet again I was feeling empty, and this emptiness is because I was missing some other kind of love. The kind of love that you get from a husband not from kids. I’m not talking about sex, I just mean that kind of love. That relationship that you have with your spouse. Our pastor was on this kick about families during that time. God had laid on his heart exactly what I needed to hear. It seemed like every message was about family and how God wants our family to be etc. He kept talking about how children need to be second to your spouse. They are important, but you need to put your spouse before them, because it’s important that your marriage be first. If you put your marriage first, the rest will fall into line. You aren’t doing your kids any favors by putting them first, because eventually that either leads to a bad marriage or it leads to divorce. How does that help your kids exactly? It doesn’t.

            So, in an effort to be a better wife, I’ve started putting my husband first, and I realize that I don’t have to neglect my kids to do so. As a matter of fact, I can incorporate them into it, and the funny thing is, other people start to notice. My husband has been hinting around for weeks that he wants me to make him some pies, cakes, cookies, something. He gets that way now and then, especially as it gets close to the holidays, he gets this sweet tooth. Well, we just recently found my pie pans. I took the twins to the store a couple of days ago, and to keep them interested, I try to talk to them. I started saying “we are going to make daddy a pie this week! Daddy wants pie! Are you guys going to help me make daddy a pie?” Several ladies stopped me in the store commenting that they wanted to come over, and that it was so sweet that we were making my husband a pie. I also knew that I was planning to make lasagna that day. My husband loves Texas Toast, I on the other hand think toast is pretty disgusting. Every once in a great while I will eat a piece of toast, but I just think it’s gross. Texas Toast is even worse because it’s really THICK toast. They have this Texas Toast that is a garlic bread. I also think that garlic bread is nasty. So they put two nasty things together and people actually buy it! Well my husband is a big fan. I like breadsticks. I stood at the freezer section debating, and then I decided that we would get what my husband likes, and then I told my kids: “we get Texas Toast because daddy likes Texas Toast. Daddy loves us, and to show him that we love him, we get him the things that he likes”. I did that with several things throughout the store, until one of the boys started saying “daddy likes this?”. Another thing I’ve tried to do is put my husband first when making plans. If we are invited somewhere, or even if I’m invited somewhere, I don’t just say “sure”, I say “well let me talk to my husband”. It’s easier that way, so that I don’t end up scheduling things that end up inconveniencing him. Another thing I’ve tried to do is have conversations about subjects besides the children and finances. We don’t really agree on politics, but it’s still something that we can talk about. We also talk about current events, we plan for the future, we have a lot that we can talk about. It allows us to get closer to each other. We also watch movies together at night, and to be perfectly honest with you, I yearn to spend time with him now. I can’t wait to put the boys to bed so that I can spend time with him and focus my energy on him. We also try to have occasional date nights. Unfortunately it’s too expensive to have someone watch our kids for us, so what we do is put them to bed, eat something nice and play games. I love it when my husband plans these things because it makes me feel like he wants to spend time with me.

H: Honesty is Key:

            One of the biggest issues in relationships is that of honesty. We have become a society that is ok with “white lies”. I hear people say “a little white lie never hurt anybody”, but it really does. When you lie about small things and your spouse finds out, it causes them to not believe you in the big things. Women in general amaze me, they ask their spouse if they look fat in an outfit, and if their spouse says “yes” they are in huge trouble, if the spouse says no, and later someone says “wow that doesn’t look good on you!” they get angry at their spouse for lying. It’s almost like people WANT to be lied to. I am not a fan of lying, for ANY reason. I think that when people lie it’s because they are too cowardly to tell the truth. I also have serious trust issues, so when I am lied to, it makes it very hard to trust a person again. When I ask my husband if I look fat in an outfit, he will tell me the truth (yes, he has in the past told me “yeah…it does kind of make you look fat”). Does the truth always make me feel warm and fuzzy inside? No. It does make me feel safe though.

            What I struggle with is being honest to a fault. I can be brutal in my honesty which really hurts people’s feelings. I defiantly am not one who is good at speaking the truth in love. This is something that can tear a marriage apart. If I don’t know how to tell my husband in a loving way that I feel that he’s being selfish, all I end up doing is hurting his feelings and he shuts me out. There has to be a better way to say how I’m feeling. That’s the balance that I’m working on finding. I don’t want to be any less honest, just more kind and tactful.

            In your relationships, I encourage you to work on honesty in everything. Little white lies turn into big lies. It will break down the trust in your relationship. When your spouse looks and you and says “I can’t trust you” it’s because you’ve lied so much, even if it’s just little things, that they don’t know when you are telling the truth. You have to make a change. You have to be honest with one another. Take the first step by being honest. One of the things that my husband will tell you is that he never has to be concerned about where I am, because I’m very honest with him. He can trust me. If I say, “I was here at this time” he never has to think “was she really?” he can simply trust me. If your spouse can’t trust you, you must make a change because a relationship can’t make it without trust. So remember, be honest, but be honest in a way that doesn’t hurt the other person’s feelings. Instead of saying “you look enormous in that outfit” something like “that outfit doesn’t flatter your figure” is just as honest and a lot more kind. I pray that all of you who are working to make a change are finding that your marriage is improving greatly. Remember to put your trust in the Lord!

Until Tomorrow!

My 26-day journey to becoming a better wife! “G”

How “Flexibility Breeds Contentment” and “Forget the past” went:

            Ok, so first, a general update: we didn’t argue for the past two days! That’s good! I apologize for not writing  one yesterday. You ever have one of those days where you wake up and everything is already going wrong? That’s the kind of day I had yesterday. I was panicking, calling my husband, trying to get some information etc. It was just ROUGH. Then, the kids were being completely crazy, and you know how that goes. We both kept our cool, and we were actually both really flexible in coming up with new plans for dinner, with working out our stressful situation in the morning, and eventually we just relaxed so that was WONDERFUL. Over the past couple of days, there have been times when my husband has done things that make me want to bring up the past. Fortunately, I remembered my goals and decided not to bring it up. It made for a much more peaceful household, and surprisingly, I couldn’t even tell you now what he did if I wanted to because I simply can’t remember. Something that I’m learning about “forget the past” or not bringing it up, is that it makes the current situation easier to deal with, and easier to forget as well. So cheers to a successful day!

  G: “Go along with the decisions that he makes”: </ This is another one that I’m sure people will think is old fashioned, but it’s Biblical and very important. It’s also something that I struggle with. I am a natural born leader, but I enjoy a dominate man. When I was dating my husband, he was extremely dominate, after we got married, and had kids, I think he became overwhelmed by the responsibility, and he began to wane in his dominance. I started to step into the things that he was waning on. This became an issue as eventually I became the dominate one in our household. This would cause a lot of problems in our household, as I would greatly desire for him to take charge, as me being in charge was really stressful for me, and he would just be constantly annoyed. God put the man in the role as the head of the household for a reason. I have a theory behind it: men and women are different. Men see a big picture, while a woman sees little details. Because we see little details, we are completely obsessed with everything going “just right”, but the problem is, in real-life, most things aren’t “just right”. Plus, a man deals with stress in a much different way than we do. Do you as a woman ever have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep because you are stressed out, and then you look at your husband who is snoring away and it infuriates you? Men are better able to compartmentalize. Basically, they can be stressed about an issue, but they tend to move on until the issue arises once more. Women, we tend to be the opposite. We stress until an issue is resolved, and EVERYTHING we do becomes driven by this underlying stress. There’s nothing that we can do to change that, but there’s a very easy way to get you out of the stress cycle: do things GOD’S WAY!

            God’s way is that the man should be the head of the household. He should make the decisions, which should be lead by instruction from God. We as the women should follow. I know it’s hard to do, like I said, I’m a natural born leader, but even as I’ve been working on this, I have noticed that my stress level has decreased which has decreased the stress level in the household all around. The reason that I feel less stressed is because I just feel like “if this is the plan that my husband has, and I do what I’m supposed to do and follow him, it’s going to be OK.” That’s not to say that everything is always going to work out. Our husbands will at times make stupid decisions, but that falls on THEM, because even though those consequences may effect the rest of the household, it’s then HIS DECISION as to how to fix these things! It’s still your job to just FOLLOW! I asked my pastor once what if my husband makes a decision that I really feel is stupid and wrong, and my pastor said “so what? Suck it up! You are supposed to be his help-meet and submit”. Ok…well, I haven’t even sucked up the fact that pastor said that three years ago lol! So, “sucking it up” is a hard thing to do, but the fact is that he’s right. Don’t get me wrong, you can and should still voice your opinions to your husband, but encourage him to make the final decision, and when he does, you need to follow it.

            One piece of advice that I will give to leaders like myself, BACK OFF. I mean TOTALLY back off. I would constantly give my opinion, and when my husband would make a decision that I didn’t care for, I would say “well did you think about ______?” Eventually, I would in a round-about way, get him to make the decision that I wanted him to make in the first place. That’s still ME leading, NOT him. If you are a natural born leader, stop giving your opinion for a while. If your husband has all of the information that you do, let him make the decision. I know that it’s hard, and it definitely is very difficult for me, but I realized that this was the only way to truly allow him to be the leader, and for me to be submissive. After we get comfortable in those roles and it’s more established, I can then give my opinion without feeling that I’m swaying him.

            Some women feel that they have husbands who just don’t know how to lead or that will never make decisions. As I said, my husband used to be very dominate, but then somehow our roles got switched in the household. When that happened, my husband stopped making as many decisions, it almost became like pulling teeth to get him to make a decision. What I’ve started to do is back off, but also I ask him to make smaller decisions on a more regular basis. For example, I ask him on a daily basis what he would like for me to wear when he gets home, and what he would like for me to wear to bed. Now remember, guys aren’t really that detail oriented, so I’m not expecting for him to say “wear a black skirt with a red top and a red scarf in your hair” but I know that it’s going to be something more along the lines of “wear a skirt and something nice”. Now when it comes to bed clothes, expect him to be able to be way more specific. :). These are things that he knows I will be asking him every single day. Also, when I make my meal plan for the week, I run it by him for “approval”. I do ask him for ideas if I’m stuck and can’t think of anything, but generally I try to come up with most of it myself. Ladies, you know why. Your husband may just LOVE something that you make that takes you about 6 hours to make. You really may not be feeling up to that. Or you may have a husband that could live off of corn dogs and French fries. My husband falls into the first category. If I ask him what he would like to eat, he’s going to say “fried chicken”. I know he loves it, but he has very little idea as to how much work it is. When I suggest pot roast, he’s for it but he’ll say “isn’t that a lot of work?”. Dude, pot roast takes me 15 minutes to get everything together and put it in the oven or the slow-cooker, fried chicken is at least a 1.5 hour meal all together (chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, rolls etc.). So again, open things up for him to have the ability to make decisions, and ASK him to make even small decisions on a daily basis just to get him more used to you stepping back and him stepping up, but when it comes to things like the meal plan, be smart about it. My husband would tell you in a heartbeat that he loves my cooking, but if me cooking a huge meal means that I don’t have energy to be intimate later, he’ll settle for a hot dog and call it a plan.

            The other thing about going along with his decisions is that you must remember that there will be “growing pains. He’s not going to instantly be the best decision maker in the world, and you are not instantly going to become the most submissive wife in the world. So if your family is being run like “Roseanne” today, don’t expect to have a “Leave it to Beaver” family tomorrow. So try to be patient with one another.

 

G: Give thanks to God and your husband Constantly:

            1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

            I know that life is tough. We go through so much on a regular basis, and sometimes in a trial, it’s hard to find anything to be thankful for, but yet and still, you need to. Let me take you through my morning this morning. Last night, I had trouble sleeping. Yes, I was stressed about something. My husband was snoring away. I had to ask him several times to roll over, I finally got to sleep and it felt like just then my husband is waking me up telling me I need to come latch the door behind him (our kids know how to unlock and open doors so we have to keep the door latched at all times so they don’t “escape” in the middle of the night). I get up, latch the door, and my husband told me that he had recently sent the boys back to bed. I crawled back in bed and went to sleep. A little while later, one of my sons comes in my bedroom and asks for some milk. I get up, walk to the kitchen and stop dead. A half-gallon of iced coffee has been poured all over the kitchen floor. The box of doughnuts is on the floor, with several doughnuts missing. My husband’s tool box has been moved to the living room. They had pulled the Redi Whip ® out of the fridge and put it on the counter. The ketchup was on their small table, and there was a block of ice melting on the floor. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I already have enough to do without little people adding to the difficulty. Instead, I got busy trying to clean it up, and then praised God for the fact that my children are healthy enough to make a mess. My kids have had so many health issues in the past, and have been to the hospital more times than I can count. So today, I thought of every parent who has had to kiss their child for the last time on a hospital bed, who has had to bury their child or children, and I thanked God for mine. Remember, God deserves your praise regardless of what you are going through. Everyone in my household has the flu right now. It’s annoying because I’m drained, my husband is drained and the kids are cranky and drained, BUT I praised God that we are all sick at the same time. There were MONTHS where we couldn’t go to church because we all kept passing around a virus. This way we all have it at once and will hopefully get over it at once. Even if God never gave us another thing, and never did anything for us again, He still deserves our praise as He sent His son to die for us. So in every struggle you face, find a way to praise God. In EVERYTHING!

            You should also find ways to thank your husband on a regular basis. I know it’s hard, especially when your husband is driving you nuts, but thanking him can be encouraging and it also lets him know that you appreciate him. When my husband has a hard day at work, I try to remember to thank him for even going to work, because there are men out there that just won’t get off the couch and work. I try to thank him when he’s taken care of the kids, given them baths etc. When he does things that take some of the responsibility and pressure off of me, I thank him for that. Being thankful toward your husband also does something to you too. It helps to get rid of some bitterness. If I can thank my husband for cleaning the kitchen so that I didn’t have to, then maybe I won’t focus so hard on the one dish that didn’t get cleaned. If I can thank him for giving the twins a bath for me so that I could relax, then maybe I won’t focus so hard on the fact that the bathroom floor is covered in water. It’s harder to be bitter when you are thankful. The thing is though, that you have to make sure that you are sincere about your thankfulness. I did try this for a while a while back, and then actually became bitter because my husband wasn’t reciprocating and telling me “thank you” back. Well now, I kind of don’t care. If my husband thanks me for things that I do that’s AWESOME and I love that. If he doesn’t, that’s OK, because I’m doing the things I do out of love not for thanks. Make sure that you continue to thank your husband for things. If you are struggling that badly to find something to be thankful to him for my advice is to pray. Get on your knees and pray until God brings something to mind that you can be thankful to your husband for. Your thankfulness can be an encouragement to him, and it will help you to see him in a different light. That’s a win-win for both of you.

 

That’s it for now. Thanks for continuing to read and follow the blog! Please keep us in your prayers! Thank you!