my marriage

love is all you need

January 31, 2012

Snuggling with my children today during rest time, when our littlest one was zonked out in his bed, I had a realization as I lay and cuddled with my awake four.

Love is all you need.

Love is all I need. In so many ways, on so many levels. Yes, love is all you need. I’ve been breathless as I’ve read through your comments and words of support today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Even though you may not be able to share with him directly, would you please consider loving and supporting my husband during this painful time, too?

Love is all you need. It’s all I need. Today, I drank in the sweet beauty of my children and the love they exude. Choosing to hold firm to the love I know my husband has for our family, even should he decide to declare otherwise, I went about my day. We are moving. I’m picking a place to move with our children. I homeschooled my first grader, clipped tiny nailpolished nails for our daughter, spiked mohawk hairdos onto two others and rocked the baby to sleep. Love is all I need. It’s all they need. It’s all my husband needs. Where that love comes from is a factor. I can’t control that for anyone else except myself.

So today, I rejoiced in the fact that love is all I need, both whispering and boldly declaring the thankfulness I have in my heart for the love I do have in my life.

It’s all I need.

Filed Under: my marriage | 181 Comments

looking up

January 31, 2012

Looking forward.

Looking back.

But mostly looking up.

Yes, I am looking up to my perfect Father in Heaven who is walking ahead of me and my family, not surprised by any of this, holding us still securely in the palm of His hands, whispering reminders to me that He has plans to give us hope and a future.

I need the reminders these days. And also the slice of privacy I’ve sought to carve out for our family. I would like to come before you guys and ask if you would please respect my family’s privacy, doing what you can to protect our hearts. This is a time when we are clinging to the Lord, getting support from friends and being loved on by family. It is a private, difficult, personal time in our lives that for the same of our children I would like to keep on the down low on the internet. We need love and support from all angles but not disapproval or gossip from any.

We are looking forward. Looking back. And looking up. Why?

Because my husband has chosen to leave our family.

The children and I are moving. Please give us respect and privacy as we are choosing not to share the location we’ll land next. The goats are thriving at the homes, yards and barns of friends, the chickens peck a different ground now, and I am sucking for air trying to grasp how it is I am to protect my children and guide them for what is to come.

Whatever that is.

I have no idea what is going to happen as the days, weeks, months and years from here play out. None at all. But I know One who does. And that is enough. For now, I am taking things minute by minute, loving my children, doing what needs to be done, choosing not to come anywhere near giving up hope on my husband or on my marriage or on myself, looking inward, looking forward, looking back.

And looking up.

Filed Under: my faith, my marriage | 747 Comments

I’m slowing down

September 18, 2011

It feels like I’ve been gone an eternity. I’m still in Texas, though I’m finally leaving tomorrow. I wrapped up my last photography workshops today. I had fun, for sure. But it was work. And it was time away from my family. The latter being very much not my favorite thing to have to do. I kind of feel like I’ve been working like a maniac for the past year or so. And yes, as you probably know, we moved to The Farm the other week because it was time to do something about that. What is it that I’m going to do?

I’m going to slow down.

I love living a fast paced life. Talking fast. Moving fast. Acting hyper. “Were do you get all your energy?” Molly asked me in class today. Another of my students, one of the lovely grandmothers who took a photography workshop from me, asked, “So do you ever sleep?” Not really, Susie. “I didn’t think so!” she laughed. Going on adventures with my children, being able to be there for them ~~when they get off the bus~~ before, during and after school, making messy projects with paint and topping the afternoon off with a trip to Target and then the library is a normal day in the life for me. And I love it. I doubt any of that will change. It’s who I am. I’m hoping that at least for a few more years, I’ll still be bursting with energy every day.

But certain parts of this phase in our life, the ones that involved me working overtime on blogging plus all my various photography things, while MckDaddy held the fort down at home quite a bit more than some daddies, is changing. It’s not grinding to a halt by any means. But’s it’s changing. Slowing down. This blog is one of my favorite creative outlets and venting places. And it ain’t going anywhere (Can I talk like a hick now that we moved to a farm? Please say yes.). But a lot of the extra work ventures that have sometimes left me running around like a chicken with its head cut off (Pun very much intended, sorry.) are going to be left on the side of the road for now.

I’m no Kate Gosselin. She said, with the recent canceling of her show, that she still desires the spotlight. Wants for her children the things and the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to. And that she’ll work her to keep that up. I applaud her for knowing what she wants and for being determined to go after it. But that simply isn’t what I want. Or what my husband wants. We want me to be home more, working less. I am excited about my husband’s new work venture and for the way he’s branching out with his career. I am going to deliberately cut back as things (prayerfully!) pick up for him. For sure, we feel the pull of the things of this world as much as the next person, but we are determined to keep unraveling ourselves from its grip. The last thing we want is to continue to work as hard as we can, and forever feeling like all we need is “just a little bit more.” I knew that was the possible trap of the big house, nice car thing. I just thought we could still stay separated from it.

We couldn’t.

But it’s not true that there’s no looking back. We may have way overextended ourselves a few years ago, gotten ourselves into financial trouble, pared back but still lived almost right up to our means, praising ourselves because we were no longer living over our means, but none of that seals our fate forever. We don’t have to keep chasing that dream; we don’t have to sweat and toil to keep up with payments on a home we don’t need to own. So, we moved to The Farm. It was the biggest and best way we could find to cut our budget enough to make a sizeable difference. lt’s a balance, for of course there are parts about our lifestyle, just like yours, that we plan to keep. But some had to go. And what I mostly want to keep is a soft heart, a commitment to chasing and working hard for things that matter, an open mind and the challenge to myself to slow down.

You know all the things they say: Our kids are only young once. I can’t take it with me when I go, anyway. And I’m never going to be on my death bed wishing I’d worked a little more or taken one more trip. So, tomorrow I head back to my family.

To this guy and his siblings and Daddy.

And I’m gonna slow down.

Filed Under: my faith, my marriage, my mothering style | 102 Comments

248 square feet

June 14, 2011

This summer, my family is living in an RV as we travel the country. It’s wonderful. And busy. And tiring. And rather cramped. In case you were wondering, we have exactly 248 square feet to call our own in here. I may have calculated the square feet because I was wondering exactly how close these close quarters are that I’m living with my husband are. Of course, I’m living them with my children, too. But marriage. Ahh, marriage. Things have been put to the test a bit this summer between me and my betrothed. How are things going? Well, I’m glad you asked. Because I’d like to share.

But first, I need to back up a bit.

When I started MOPS* a few years ago, we mothers were instructed to make nametags for ourselves on the first day. As the soon to be friends at my table chatted about how many children each had and where we lived, we also worked. Each of us were given one of those black Crayola magic drawing sheets, cut into a circle. Do you know the ones? The sheets are all black, but underneath lie a variety of bright colors. To create using the paper, one must scratch the black surface, revealing the color underneath.

(*Mothers Of Preschool Students)

I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. You may have, ahem, already guessed this about me. My nametag design that first day of MOPS was planned out in my head before I’d had my second bite of egg casserole. Coming up with the idea was the easy part. The hard part was scratching the surface of the black paper in such a way that I didn’t scratch off anything I didn’t mean to. I noticed right away that even a sideways swipe of my hot cocoa mug would remove some of the black coating. More than once, my design changed on the fly. I added an accidental mark near my J and ended up turning it into a swirl. An extra mark above my i was worked into the existing dot so that the resulting dot was bigger than I had planned. And of course some scratches remained on my nametag, not having been turned into part of the design, but just serving as proof of how hard it is to attain perfection with this specific craft project.

No sooner did I finally complete my nametag and give it to my table leader for our next MOPS meeting did I realize the parallel between the black paper art and marriage. The truth, applicable to both the MOPS craft project and my own marriage, was so simple: You can’t take it back.

When working with the black Crayola paper, any scratches that you make are there to stay. Indeed, you can’t take them back. As I learned, I needed to be careful not to make damaging marks to my nametag in the first place. Of course, if I made some, I worked them into the design or left them be, choosing to look past them. And so it is in marriage, especially (as I’ve noticed during the 7-8 weeks we’ve RVed as a family this year), when in tight quarters with my dear husband. Once an unkind word is spoken or a hurtful glance is made in our spouse’s general direction, we can’t take it back. What’s said will always have been said. And never has that been more obvious then while standing in a 12 square foot kitchen area with nowhere to escape and slam the door to after a disagreement. I’m learning more than ever, you can’t take it back. Of course, we can ask our husbands for forgiveness when we have been cold or acted in an unloving way. Struggles, like those my husband and I faced especially a few years ago, can be worked into the beauty of a marriage and assist in making it better, even if they were unplanned in the beginning.

But best of all is not to make the marks on the black paper that you don’t want, or say the hurtful words to your spouse you may be thinking, in the first place. Because you can’t take it back. This lesson I am learning in triplicate (or maybe more) this summer in the RV.

As it regards my marriage, and most other areas of my life at that, I still have miles to go before I sleep, though. Even when in close quarters while RVing, I still say things I regret. For example, yesterday I chastised MckDaddy in front of our children for the way he handled a matter between two of them. Instantly, I knew I was in the wrong, though I stubbornly didn’t apologize until a little later. But, interestingly enough, neither my husband nor I are doing much of it any more. That example has become much more of the exception than the rule. And I think the close quarters we are sharing are helping. Of course, at first they hurt. A lot. The initial two weeks of our first RV trip were brutal, relationally. But once my husband and I were over that bump (er, mountain), things have been so different.

You see, with only 248 square feet to deal with, there are really only two ways I can see to do it: Either my husband and I could be at each other’s throats, sick of the constant togetherness, arguing and saying things we can’t take back. Or we would be able to not say things we’ll regret in the first place. Without nagging MckDaddy, there has been no need for me to apologize later, or work yet another scratch into the black Crayola paper art of our marriage.

With nowhere to turn, as when you sit in our RV bedroom you are also nearly simultaneously sitting in our kitchen, it has slowly become easier for my husband and I to not hurt each other to begin with. Letting the little things roll off our backs rather than bringing them up makes life more smooth on the road. And this is a lesson that will work back at home, too. But when the bumps come (and come they do like when one of us glares at the other, thinking, “What kind of a numbskull locks the car doors when the keys are on the dash?” or “What do you mean you forgot to slide the slideout in!?”), we are thankful that there is still new forgiveness available every day.

And a bathroom door in our RV that shuts and locks.

Filed Under: my marriage, RVing | 47 Comments

everyone has a story

May 4, 2011

Everyone has a story to tell. One of the things I love about photographing other people is unveiling just a tiny bit of their story.

When photographing a family of five recently, I couldn’t help but notice that the father had an extensive, professionally done tattoo on his arm. A closer look revealed a much smaller, much more rudimentary tattoo on his hand. My curiosity got the better of me. “Did you make that one yourself?”

Sure enough, he did. When he was young. Very young. I think he said 12 years old. It was then that he met a girl, who was even younger. They fell in love. As much as kids that young can, I guess. Using a pen, a needle and a technique that fascinated me, he tattooed her initials on his hand, where they remain to this day.

Wondering if that’s kind of strange for his wife now, to see her husband’s very first girlfriend’s initials tattooed on her husband’s hand?

Nope. Not at all. Considering that was her. They have been together since then, grew up, got married and had three children.

Yes, everyone has a story. To read about where and when I met my husband (and also why we had a two week engagement and I wore black to our wedding), click here. And what about you? What’s your story? How did you meet your significant other?

Filed Under: my marriage, pictures of other people | 94 Comments

marriage is (really, really) hard work

January 2, 2011

“How’s married life?” I asked my friend, a teammate of mine from our college soccer team, many years back. She was older than me, had graduated the year before and married her boyfriend, who had played football for our Christian, liberal arts college. I was a senior, wrapping up my Education, Art and Bible studies, and I was anxious to be married. My parents had gotten married when they were 21; growing up I always thought I would, naturally, get married when I was 21, too. I had boyfriends in college, some very serious, but marriage wasn’t on the imminent horizon for me, much to my dismay at the time. Few friends I knew were married already, so when I had the chance to talk to one who was, I wanted to soak in some of the sunlight of her marriage glow.

I was sure marriage was amazing. A best friend…a boy best friend…all the guilt-free sex one wanted, the constant feeling of being desired and wanted, not having to go on dates and search and hope to find the right guy. Ahhh. It was bliss, I was sure. But still. I wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

“How’s married life?”

“It’s wonderful,” my friend replied. Her lips remained parted, poised to finish her thought, but before another word came out of her mouth, I was already jealously basking in the marriage light that emanated from her. I knew it. I just knew it! Being married is wonderful! Ahhh. I can’t wait. I just can’t wait!

But she wasn’t finished.

“Yes, it’s wonderful. Wonderful work.” I remember her words shattering my daydream like it was yesterday. As I scampered to pick up the shards left littering my image of marriage, I managed to stammer a response. “Oh, that’s nice. I’m glad it’s wonderful. And yes, I’m sure it is quite a bit of work!” And perhaps I giggled nervously. At any rate, I distinctly remember that the conversation ended. Abruptly. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what else I could say. And besides, I was far too busy trying to make sense of what she said.

Work? What on earth did she mean by that? I mean, of course marriage is no cake walk. Right? People get divorced all the time, so I know it must not be easy. But she just got married a year ago. Why is it already work? Is something wrong in their marriage? It must be. Do they fight already or something? Is loving each other not coming easily? That can’t be a normal response, can it? Wonderful work!?

As a woman now married for seven years, I can surely say that, no, her response may not have been normal. But it was definitely something else. It was honest.

Forget studying for the SAT’s, laboring with no pain medications for literally days on end while preparing to give birth to my first baby, making it to State in high school swimming, passing kidney stones, graduating with over a 4.0 GPA and taking a job as a new college graduate being told to develop an Art program for an entire school with no curriculum or organized guidance. Those minor exercises in hard work pale in comparison with the wonderful work that marriage is. By leaps and bounds, being married…and staying married…is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Aside from my honest, married friend, most of the other people I knew years ago who were married either weren’t as straightforward with me, or didn’t have struggling marriages themselves. I have no idea which was which, but I have since come to embrace and appreciate friends who, without getting into the gory details, confide that their marriage is hard work, too. If you can’t relate to what I’m saying and have truly experienced a harmonious marriage during which you and your spouse have seen eye to eye on most things, disagreements have been as rare as ice cubes in the desert and getting along has been effortless for you, then I can truly say I am so very, very happy for you. At the risk of sticking my neck out here, I am going to readily admit that effortless is the very last word in the entire English language that I would ever use to describe what it’s been like for me to be, and stay, happily married.

If relationships are hard work, marriage relationships are super duper hard work.

But herein lies the point I am actually trying to make: It is worth the effort.

Far be it from me to tout myself as a seasoned marriage expert. I’ve only been at it for seven years, with hopefully many, many more ahead of me. But I do feel rather experienced. And it is from my own experience that I draw the conclusion that marriage is worth the effort, but not because eventually, if you work at it hard enough, you are guaranteed to emerge with the most delicate, beautiful marriage flower that could ever be imagined. You see, putting in the time to become the spouse you need to be doesn’t guarantee that, in return, your spouse will become a phenomenal spouse, too, and you will be all pretty and perfect like a flower. Granted, it sure makes that more likely, but it’s far from a guaranteed outcome.

Why can I confidently say that marriage is worth it? Because, even in hurting and probably in failed marriages, too, there is more to learn about ourselves than we could have ever dared imagine back when we were first single. Man alive, I hope and pray that on my dying day I am still a married woman, but more than that…yes, even more than that…I hope that the years that I am married serve as the refining fire I believe God intends them to be, molding and shaping me into someone who is more like Jesus than she was before.

I mean, really, in the Bible, God compares a marriage relationship to that of Jesus’ relationship with us for a reason. Because it is amazingly similar. Believers are referred to as “the bride of Christ.” We are lovely, loved and chosen, both as wives and as believers, to enter into a love relationship. And then what do we do? Show our admiration and appreciation by loving Jesus, and our husbands, flawlessly in return? Um, not. We flounder around, cause pain to our Beloved, make hurtful remarks and love imperfectly. And our spouses return the favor, loving us imperfectly, too. Showing us their flaws and weaknesses. And we have the chance to turn away in anger, rejecting our spouses, or to do what Christ does with us: Keep on loving anyway. The way God loves us all, no matter what, is such an inspiration in my own marriage. To be more like Him, even when it is hard (So hard!), I will keep putting forth effort. Keep loving my husband. Keep allowing myself to be refined by marriage’s fire. Keep fighting for my marriage, even when it is myself I am fighting. Keep working. Because it is worth it.

So there you have it. I share my raw, in the moment, feelings with you because I was glad that my friend shared hers with me. Even with her very few words, she shed a true light onto something I may have otherwise gone on to romanticize to an extreme. Marriage has so many beautiful facets to it. The companionship and support, the soft place to fall and shoulder to cry on, the warm body beside you in bed and the partner in parenting to name but a few. But oh it is also hard work, as both spouses are chiseled away at, in order to become better people.

Marriage is (really, really) hard work.

At least, that’s the way I see it.

Filed Under: my marriage | 210 Comments

I left my husband.

December 7, 2010

I left my husband.

It’s true. And I’m not proud of it. But let me back up a bit. I don’t particularly want to back up, but really, what is the point of blogging and having other people read if I am only going to blow sunshine? If you’ve been around long, you know that’s not what I’m about.

I’d ask you to go gently on me as you read this, but I’m not sure I have come anywhere near having earned the right to ask that of you. So, here goes nothing.

Just the other day, I wrote a post about the state of my marriage. It was so freeing for me to admit areas where I’m still struggling in my relationship with my husband. Getting them out in the open helped me to find a clarity of mind. God definitely spoke to my heart about what I need to be doing in my marriage.

I was going to be a changed woman. The other day as I wrote that post, I made promises to myself. I’d truly change. I just knew it. I vowed, there and then, to make the alterations in my own behavior, just as my husband had done, that my marriage needed. And to withhold judgement where it concerned my husband and the areas God was still working with him on. It would be for the betterment of my marriage, my own contentment and my family at large.

I was going to change. And it would be awesome.

There was just one teeny tiny thing I forgot to account for, though. In my hyper perfectionistic makeup lies a sometimes quiet beast I often forget take into account. I’m human. So, just mere days after I’d promised myself to do better, I was back to my old tricks. I won’t get into the details, but suffice it to say my husband and I had a disagreement about a Christmas present he’d gotten me for this year. The particulars don’t matter as much as the downward spiral I allowed myself to fall into does. Given the chance to prove to my husband, and to myself, that I could respond differently to minor disappointments, I failed.

I exhibited right there for my husband the exact behaviors I swore off of just days earlier: Overreacting about a Christmas present (and about the fact that he shared it with me before Christmas and bought something practical that he wanted and chose to pass it off as my Christmas gift). Letting tears trickle down my cheeks like a spoiled brat. Choosing to not be thankful that my husband is a great guy who at least thought of me enough to get me something (he’s notoriously not gifted in the gift giving department). Making the small issue into something larger by calling my husband self centered and selfish, instead of saying, “Wow, I guess I’d rather not have known about my Christmas present beforehand, but I sure am grateful that you thought about me enough to order something ahead of time, Babe” (And keeping the whole, “You numbskull, why would you get something so practical that we both know is something you want as my Christmas present!?” to myself.)

Needless to say, my husband was less than pleased with my ungrateful response to his disclosure of the now infamous gift purchase. And he let me know. And that’s when I lost it. As the awareness of what I’d done sunk in, I crumbled. One gigantic pity party for myself began. I had failed. Again. After vowing up and down again that I would become the wife my husband and family deserved, I fell back into my old ways. So freaking quickly. I was devastated. Frustrated with myself. Angry at my humanity. And forlorn.

For me, I often find it oddly easier to accept the way Jesus continually forgives me than I do to accept my own need to forgive myself. I’m annoyingly perfectionistic like that. And, the afternoon of that disagreement, I allowed myself to believe the lie that if I couldn’t do things the right way for my husband, it wasn’t worth doing them at all. And I left.

At first, I really just wanted to cool down. Taking breaks is something our wonderful marriage counselor has advised us to do as a healthy alternative to allowing disagreements to turn into fights. So, my husband was fine with it, and we separated amicably. The unspoken understanding being, of course, that I would return in short order. But I chose not to. In doing that, I made mistake number whoknowswhatIwasnolongerkeepingtrack of the day. I felt overwhelmed at the thought of trying again. My reserves were depleted. I was crying. And I was so sad that I had messed up, albeit in a small way, once again and disappointed my husband. I knew he would forgive me. In fact, he probably already had. Of course, God did. For goodness sake, sins I haven’t even committed yet have already been forgiven by Him. But there was one last holdout: Me. I couldn’t forgive myself. Or wouldn’t.

Since I perceived myself to already be in such a (self dug) hole, I couldn’t at the time see the point in working to get out. I may as well stay in the hole, I thought. So I stayed gone. I missed small group at our house, leaving my husband in the awkward position that no doubt he was in when everyone came over. And as the hours ticked by, the shame struck again. What kind of wife drives away from her husband and stays gone for hours and hours on end!? Suddenly, the small way in which I had overreacted about the Christmas present was eclipsed by my current behavior of separating myself from my family. With our baby, of course, because although I’d like to have thought of myself as acting irrationally at the time, I rationally knew I would never leave our breastfeeding son behind.

And the pity party began anew. Now, I not only had to forgive myself for falling short at home, I was looking at moving past the fact that I had left my family! Who in the world did I think I was!? And, you guessed it, that kind of thinking got me deeper into the hole of sadness and disappointment, and I felt even less like I wanted to go home. So I went somewhere for the entire night, communicating with my husband only by text. I knew, even then, that I was not acting in the right way. That I ought to have just apologized right away for how I acted about the gift and moved on. That I could not abandon my family or my husband and that I had to go home. That I would, of course, go home. It was like I was watching someone else’s actions. I was battling the real me, the qualities that I have which are good and pure, full of proper intentions and level headed thinking with the bad me, that which satan would like me to be, my sinful nature and inborn struggles.

The battle waged on, but finally I listened to myself as I was reminded of the things I have been learning in individual counseling (Something I don’t think I shared before on my blog that I have been going through, but there you have it.). I listened to that still, small voice in my head. That of my God reminding me of the truth: Yes, you are broken. Yes, you messed up. Yes, you failed. But you can try again. You must try again. You are not a quitter, nor a failure. You are a human being, loved by Me even with all of your imperfections. Your husband still loves you, too. Becoming more like Me is a process. You must be patient with yourself. Change will not happen overnight. Yes, you have come a long way. But, my daughter, you have a long way to go, still. Slow and steady wins the race.

Okay, so God didn’t exactly say “Slow and steady wins the race,” but it was of those truths that I was reminded as I thought, prayed and read Bible verses. And I know it was of Him. And so I told my husband I would come home. Just in time to make it to our marriage counselor, for the maintenance (hah!) visit with him we had already scheduled. Just in time to have me set an appointment to get my estrogen levels checked, as losing one ovary a couple of months ago has my hormones struggling to fall into place again. Just in time to realize anew that my perfectionist tendencies aren’t going to fit very well with my desire to become a more Godly wife.

But not, you should know, just in time to blog about it. I wasn’t going to share. Heck, I still haven’t hit publish, so who knows if I really will. Because, honestly, I have zero desire to share with anyone that I left my husband because I was depressed about my own shortcomings. Scratch that, I have a net negative desire to share that with anyone. More or less with lots of someones! But then my friend Sarah inspired me. Speaking with her on the phone the other night, listening to her share her broken heart over a husband who had just left her, reminded me of the courage I knew I had. The courage to put behind my failures, again, and strive to be a better wife. And, when I read Sarah’s post late last night, something she bravely published to her blog (a blog which has been all about the amazing healing and restoration God brought to her marriage when she and her husband reconciled four years ago after a history of drug addiction and infidelity), I began to feel courage rising up in me to do the same.

So there it is. The unflattering story of how I left my husband recently. I claim to want to do better, but my actions belie that claim time and time and bloody time again. Yet, when I hit publish, I will choose anew not to let this part of our story go untold. Being a wife, mother and child of God is a hard road to walk. It is different for everyone, but my own story is all I have to share. So I will share it with you.

Today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Filed Under: my faith, my marriage | 349 Comments

in which I am honest about the state of my marriage

November 30, 2010

Since the time when my marriage to my husband was in extreme peril, a couple of years ago, my husband has changed so much. It’s been amazing. Beautiful. Miraculous. Awesome. But you know how when your whole house is getting kind of grubby? And you get your walls painted? Or some brand new linoleum laid in the kitchen? Yeah, and then when you do, it looks nice and all, but it also serves to accentuate the fact that your carpet is ratty and your furniture is worn. By comparison, the grubby parts of your house now look even worse in comparison to the new, shiny stuff.

That’s what it’s currently like in my marriage.

My husband has grown by leaps and bounds, is ever so longsuffering with me, patient and forgiving. He speaks kindly to me and is almost always willing to talk calmly about things, even when the topic at hand is heated. It’s so different from how he used to handle things, and I am so proud of him, and it’s wonderful…but. But his obedience to God in how he treats me is painful. His forgiveness and nearly unconditional acceptance of me is simultaneously heartwarming and convicting. His renewed change in behavior and attitude towards me is an exposing light on my own flaws, which stand in contrast to his. Now starkly visible are my habitual critiques of his seemingly every move.

I used to be able to get away with murder, hiding my own actions and attitudes behind his. But, truth be told, I am not proud to say that even back then, I was every bit as awful to my husband as he was to me. Moreso in many ways. A couple of years ago, when the you know what really hit the fan, I was guilty of being more physical with him when I was angry than he ever was with me, even when he was arrested for domestic violence when I called the police after he threatened me during a fight. So deluded was I back then, that I really thought our marriage problems were all about him. As I waited patiently for him to fix himself, that is exactly what he did, while I sat blithely by, steeping in my own self righteousness. His great strides have been such a blessing to our marriage. And such a veil lifter on my own persistent negative behaviors. I now realize with shaming clarity that he was far from the only one who was bringing our marriage down. I was, too.

The only difference is that I still am.

I am so frustrated with myself tonight. With my cyclical behavior of acting out on my husband when I am stressed. When I feel low, scared or vulnerable, for some sick and twisted reason, I enjoy (in the moment) trying to bring him down with me. When he kindly asked me this evening if I would make sure to completely close the bags I was putting the ground hamburger in (I am prone to not being very careful with food in how I handle and prepare it.) so that the meat didn’t go bad, I chose to feel defensive, snarking back about how I was closing them completely, but if he wanted to talk about meat going bad, we could discuss the wasted fish in our garage freezer that he neglected for many moons to cook up.

Seriously!?

He must get so tired of hearing me apologize time after time. After blessed time. For the same stinking thing. I nit pick, often with a humorous tone that I suppose I must think makes it somehow okay, whenever I feel frustrated. My husband, though? He only brings up truly important things to me, letting the rest of the small stuff go. Not me. I often choose to let things fester, taking merely an afternoon to work myself up into a frothy lather, so that when he walks in the door like he did earlier today, I pounce on him, venting about what I was currently upset about while throwing in irrelevant jabs about his past failures, something we learned with our awesome marriage counselor that we are never to do in a disagreement.

My pride has been taking a huge beating in my marriage lately.

And I suppose that is ultimately good. Very good. I need to let go of my selfish ways, die to my desire to point out my husband’s flaws to him, slay my penchant for critical speech, swallow my pride and make the changes that I need to make in my marriage, focusing on the good my husband does and is instead of on the opposite. I have made some progress along the way, let me give myself credit where credit is due, but it’s time for me to completely rip out this stained, frayed carpet. It’s really out of place with the fresh, clean walls around this joint.

Filed Under: my marriage | 172 Comments

faking it

November 18, 2010

In my experience, sometimes it’s okay to fake it in your marriage.

The year was 2009. My husband and I had been in marriage counseling for some time. Like an onion, layers of my marriage had been peeled away with the help of Dr. R, our now beloved marriage counselor. But other layers remained. Tough, inner layers. The kind that make you cry when you peel them back and cut them. You know the ones. My husband and I were still married, having survived by some miracle the Great Storm of 2008 (which I wrote about here, when it was happening and here, after the fact) which had threatened to end our marriage. It didn’t, and we emerged, though I’d hardly describe our status as unscathed. Indeed, my husband and I were still quite a ways from healthy, as Dr. R was gently able to make us aware.

My leg would make a squeaking sound on the leather as I’d shift repeatedly on the oversized sofa in Dr. R’s office. My husband, at that point in our marriage counseling journey always sitting across the room from me on the other leather couch, was cold. Not to the touch but rather in attitude. Well, he may very well have been cold to the touch, too. But I didn’t know. There wasn’t a lot of touching going on between us at that point in our marriage. It was one year ago at almost this exact time. Fall had wrapped up and a familiar chill was settling in around our home. And in our home.

“There is a coldness,” I explained. “A distance between the two of us. It comes from him, and it comes from me. But see, we aren’t really arguing about things anymore. Things are a lot, lot better. Yet there is this separation, this lack of closeness. I can just feel it.”

Normally Dr. R is not one to suggest take home assignments. In the year and a half span my husband and I saw him every week on Wednesday, I can only remember a handful of times he asked us to try this at home. Rather, we usually ended up, with his help of course, at our own conclusions. The changes we had made in our marriage were because my husband and I ourselves realized the need to work on things and were willing to make the required alterations to our thinking or behavior. This time, however, would be different.

Asking my husband if he felt the same cold distance between the two of us, Dr. R scratched some notes on his yellow notepad. “Yeah, I guess,” was my husband’s response. “Well,” Dr. R went on, “if this is something you would like to change, I have a suggestion. Would you like to hear it?”

I suppose at this point we must have uttered something remotely affirmative or at least silently nodded. I can’t quite remember.

What Dr. R was about to suggest would remind me of the adage I’ve heard many times, “Feelings follow actions.” It’s true, of course. And Dr. R knew it. Many a married couple, ourselves very much in this camp at the time, had things backwards. Typically, for example, I would wait until I had the feeling of love and affirmation towards my husband, and then I would act on it. Similarly, my husband would grab my hand and give it a squeeze only when he felt a soft, loving feeling towards me. Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of lovingly affirming words or tender hand squeezes going on between us during this season in our marriage, in spite of the fact that we were doing so much better than we had been a year earlier.

Dr. R’s advice? Basically, fake it ’till you make it.

In his office that day, he encouraged us to pick one physical act. Just one. And to together decide that we were going to perform that act multiple times a day for one solid week. The act? Something as simple as holding hands, which is what we (grudgingly) decided to do for our first week. Dr. R went so far as to tell my husband he should reach out and hold my hand, even just for one minute, sometimes when he didn’t particularly feel like it. “In fact, it would behoove you to hold her hand this week precisely at the moment when you do not want to hold her hand.” We were encouraged to just try it.

So, we did. It was awkward and strange, to have talked about holding hands in our counselor’s office, and then to try it immediately after counseling. It felt so fake. So forced. The feeling behind the hand holding was not there. But. But as the week went on and we dutifully held hands at least two times a day, we started to giggle about it. Hold on a little longer than the one minute we said we’d do it. By the time we saw Dr. R next week, we were ready for his next challenge. The act we chose for week two should be a little more physical. He suggested a hug. A timed one. Yes, Dr. R asked us to hug, holding each other for at least 30 seconds, a few times a day. “It would be preferable if you didn’t count out loud as you hug her,” he teased my husband good-naturedly. He explained that there is an actual chemical release that takes place when spouses hug for a length of time. Even if they are faking their desire to hug, he explained, that release will still come. And it’s a bonding time.

Okay, it sounded a little hokey to me. And probably to my husband. But we did want to keep healing our marriage and desired to feel in love again. So before we left his office, we agreed to try the hugging. As luck would have it, we ended up fighting for nearly our entire drive home. About the hugging. I thought that we were supposed to hug and hold hands that week, while my husband was sure Dr. R had said we only had to hug and could drop the hand holding. Yeah, that got us pretty riled up.

I remember walking into our house after the long drive from Dr. R’s office and turning to my husband in the kitchen. “Well, since we don’t feel like it, I suppose now we should hug, huh?” I was feeling like trying out our hugging experiment, but my husband was not. “We just disagreed. I don’t feel like hugging.” But that was just the point. Fake it ’till you make it. I suppose my husband remembered that, as he reluctantly turned his body towards mine and let me hug him. He hugged me back, his arms at first like limp noodles. Hugging your husband when you really don’t want to is pretty weird. I’m not sure if you can relate. If you’re married and haven’t ever felt distant from your husband, like you and him are just roommates who share a last name, maybe you can’t. But this is how it was for us. But not for much longer. I swear (I still don’t.) that as the hug went on, we started to feel the warmth flowing between the two of us. By the time our silent count to 30 was done, we were looking at each other and smiling. My husband kissed my forehead and we went on with our day. We hugged a lot that week, as I remember, and it was a true turning point. The hand holding and hugging, even (and especially) when we didn’t want to, was the perfect way to behave our way to success. The more we touched, the more we wanted to touch. And before long at all, we were spontaneously holding hands and hugging. Because we wanted to. Because the cold season of distance between the two of us had passed. We faked it ’till we made it and I’m happy to say that not only did we have a baby nine months later, we still enjoy spontaneous hugs to this day. Something that was not a part of our day to day lives a couple of years ago.

During the first few years of our marriage, we may have lost that lovin’ feeling. But we faked it ’till we made it, and we found it again. No doubt we’ll lose it and find it again many more times before we bite the dust. But hey, nobody said marriage was supposed to be a fix it and forget it thing.

And the cute thing is, nowadays when my husband grabs me and holds me close, he sometimes slowly counts aloud to 30, just for old time’s sake.

Filed Under: my marriage | 217 Comments

liar liar pants on fire

September 25, 2010

I love Jesus. And I don’t mean just a little bit or only on Sundays. I’m totally sold out for Him. If you know me in person or have read my blog for long, hopefully you already know that. I concur with what Paul wrote in Romans 1:16 when he said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” But even though I am not ashamed of Jesus, or to talk about the amazing thing He did when He died on the cross for our sins, taking our punishment so that we don’t have to serve the time, still I wonder.

I wonder sometimes exactly how bold to be on my blog. Or, rather, how exactly to go about being bold for Jesus here. The very last thing I want to do is be so preachy that people are turned off from God. Yet I know I mustn’t allow the pendulum to swing so far in the other direction that I what I share about my faith is so watered down it means nothing. I can imagine that few people who do not know Jesus are going to become interested in learning more about Him if they only hear fire and brimstone tirades. But will the amazing truth about a God who loved us so much He gave us His Son to be our savior be found by many if, on the other hand, they only hear noncommittal blathering?

Where do I, as a Christian, find that balance? How can I be who I am, a mother and woman in the world, while not letting myself be of the world? How would God have me use my blog to share about Him in a way that excites people and draws them nearer rather than repulses them and turns them away? This is something I have been considering heavily lately.

Of course, it’s not all about what I say on my blog, or elsewhere, of course. I want to live a life that is pleasing to Him so that others are turned on to God. But yet my life will never be spotless enough to come anywhere near being a true representation of Jesus. I am saved by faith in Him, my sins forgiven. This I love to revel in. And then I remember that although I am saved by grace, I am also judged by works. If I know Jesus, good works will flow out of me. It is not those works that will get me to Heaven. Rather, I have those works because I already know Jesus. But knowing that I am forgiven (again and again and again) by our gracious God does not give me free license to sin. Pau also says in Romans 6:1, 2a, “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?” Absolutely not. Paul proclaims the same thing, saying, “By no means!”

I’ll be honest, I try not to use too much so-called Christianese on my blog or in my real life speech. To be sure, I mention Jesus often; my love for Him is hopefully clear. But there is a way to get that across without blowing someone who is not familiar with lots of Biblical terminology out of the water. Know what I mean? Where exactly is that balance found?

Truthfully, I don’t know.

I do know that we as believers are called to speak up. Luke 19:40 says that if we “keep quiet, the rocks will cry out.” And there is something on my heart lately that I want to share. It’s about satan. And what a big, fat liar he is. If this is way too much religious jargon for you, please at least know that my intent is not to offend, judge or confuse you. My intent is to use the voice, the blog and the resources I have to share about what I believe is truth, just as I hope you do with whatever you believe. When one is passionate about something or someone, they can hardly help but shout about that love from the rooftops!

The Bible tells us in John 10:10 that “the thief (that’s satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” In my journey of faith, one thing that has been immensely powerful for me to remember in the past few years, especially as I walked through Stellan’s illness and the unhealthiness in my own marriage as well, is that satan is a liar. He hates to see God glorified, people looking towards Him, others giving Him credit for healing children and marriages.

The thing is, though, satan has already lost the battle. Jesus triumphed over him. Satan still has dominion in this earth, however. And I’ll be darned if he doesn’t use it to try to feed us lies every chance he gets. Why do I say this has been important for me to remember? Because recognizing some of the thoughts that creep into my head as lies from the evil one helps me call them out as such and turn away from them. Instead of giving in without even realizing who is really behind it all.

Perhaps you don’t believe in God, Jesus or satan. And that’s your prerogative. If you do know the Bible a little, however, you’ll understand that it doesn’t take an expansive familiarity with that book to know that satan has always played the role of liar. In the Garden of Eden is just one example. He lied to Eve about eating the fruit that God told her not to. And today? He whispers lies in our ears, too. At least, he sure does in mine.

Satan will use whatever he can to get our eyes off of Jesus, off of doing what is right, off of moving in the right direction. It may be a magazine, words from an acquaintance, a song, the sight of another person or our own imaginations. For me, it is typically when something is not going well when satan likes to jump in and try to lie to me.

I have gotten much better at recognizing his lies and seeing them for what they are in the past few years. But it wasn’t long ago at all in my marriage when nearly every disagreement I had with my husband left me vulnerable to satan’s lies. Some of the things I would begin to think were lies like this: “I never should have married him.” “I know I don’t believe in divorce, but he is clearly never going to change, so what’s the point in staying?” “I’m so messed up and I keep making the same mistakes in my marriage over and over. Maybe I should just quit trying.” “I bet there is a man out there who is much better for me.” “This is so hard. It’s not worth the fight anymore.”

It was our marriage counselor who first helped us to see that those kinds of thoughts, which ran counter to what Scripture teaches us, were nothing but lies. In learning to stop myself when those thoughts creep in, call them out (sometimes even out loud) as lies satan wants me to believe because he wants to destroy my marriage and my witness for Jesus, I have found such power. Jesus’ power, of course. I now know that I do not have to believe any lies. I can cling to the truth. And, as far as my marriage is concerned, even when things are way less than peachy keen, I know that: “I was supposed to marry my husband.” “I don’t believe in divorce, and my husband may never change, but I can work on changing my own rotten attitude and spend time in prayer for my husband.” “I’m so messed up and I keep making the same mistakes in my marriage over and over. Isn’t it beautiful to serve a God of second (and third and fourth) chances?” “There is no man out there who is better for me than my husband. I married him and so this is the man I need to make marriage work with.” “This is so hard. I need to stop and ask God for the strength to keep fighting for my marriage.”

When my husband made terrible mistakes and acted in anger towards me, at first I was tempted to believe that part of it was my fault. Maybe I could have stopped his anger if I had only been prettier, or prayed harder. This must be my fault on some level. But that wasn’t true, either. My husband and I are both solely responsible for our actions. Neither one of us is to blame when the other misbehaves. Can we do things to help our marriage to be healthier and more God honoring? Indeed! And it is on doing those things, and not on blaming ourselves or even our spouse, where I believe our time would be well spent.

There are people who spread lies about me on the internet, too. I face wind of those lies in much the same way as I described above. When I know something that is being spread about me is not true, all I need to do is remind myself that God knows the truth. If others falsely accuse me of things, there is first of all nothing I can do about it. But second of all, is there a purpose in it? I think there is, most definitely. God has a purpose in everything! Every time an accusation is made about me that is false, instead of shirking away or needlessly defending myself, I smile. Why? Because when I hear satan whispering lies to me, it makes me want to shout about Jesus in return. “You intended to harm me,” Genesis 50:20 says,” but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.” Indeed, when lies are spread or my character is challenged, it simply makes me want to speak up, be bold, proclaim Jesus’ name even louder and assert that satan is a liar. He wants to knock me off my game. But I will call his bluff. He already lost the battle; I don’t answer to him! I won’t take my eyes off the Prize and I won’t shut up about it, either! What God does with other hearts when we are faithful to speak up like that, well, that is up to Him.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven.” Matthew 5:16 says. So if satan is a big, fat liar, does that mean I am 100% full of light and good deeds? Definitely not. But thank the good Lord that I serve the One who is!!

For me, falling prey to satan’s lies is, like, so 2009.

Filed Under: my faith, my marriage | 295 Comments