Category Archives: wifely stuff

I Choose Gratitude…

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Some days I just don’t feel like it. I don’t feel like doing the mom-thing. The wife-thing. The writer-thing. I just want to curl up by the fireplace with a good book and disappear for a while. And I’ve learned over the years that it’s okay to feel that way. It’s pretty normal, actually.

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That doesn’t usually mean I get to disappear for a while. But just knowing that I’m not a bad mom-wife-writer for wanting to, makes me feel better.

 

We all have those days…you know…the ones where the baseball uniforms are still dirty twenty minutes before you have to leave, and Eight and Eleven are arguing constantly photoabout who is the better hitter, when Fifteen comes down the stairs and says, “I need to be at work in forty minutes.” (Now you’re contemplating how you are supposed to be in two places at once, while calmly scolding Fifteen for not letting you know sooner.) And no one has had dinner yet and all that’s in the fridge is cheese, milk and a two week old apple. So you realize you’ll be driving the boys to baseball in one direction then driving back past home and going the other direction to take Fifteen to work and buying everyone fast food along the way. Then you hear your hubby’s voice, in one of those bubbles over your head, saying “We really need to save money and the best way to do that is to conserve gas by streamlining your errands and planning ahead for dinners.” Sigh.

 

Yes…those days. We all have them. Some of us have them more often than not. And those are the days when I desperately need a dose of perspective. As frustrating and annoying as all those little things are, they are part of being a mom. I signed up for this and one day I’ll look back and be glad I did. Even if, right now, I’m questioning the sanity of that decision. Perspective tells me that I’ve got it pretty good and in the grand scheme of things, I have nothing to complain about. My kids are great kids. My husband is loving and supportive. And I know God cares about me. Short of tattooing it on my arm, I need to find a way to turn my attitude toward gratitude. (I have been mulling over the thought of a tattoo.  That would certainly be a good reminder!)

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I may not want to clean my house, but then I think of the women I know, half a world away, who sweep their dirt floors every day to keep them tidy. (Literally, they sweep the dirt off of the dirt.) I may think I’m going to combust if I listen to one more petty argument about who gets the front seat, but then I think of the friend who desperately wanted children and never could have them. I may be annoyed with hubby when I think he’s being mule-headed (cuz he is, of course ;) ) but then I think of the friend who lost her husband suddenly and way too soon.

 

I’m not having a great day, today. I’m really frustrated. But if I go through this day wallowing in that messy place, at the end of the day, things won’t be any better because I’ve wallowed. However, if I lift my eyes and offer a prayer of thanks for the good in my life. If I go from attitude to gratitude…the problem I’m dealing with will probably still be here when I put my head on the pillow. But I will have had a much better day in the process. And those around me will, too. So, I choose gratitude.

How about you? What are your perspective bringers? How do you shift into gratitude? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

 

Photo credit: Reading by the Fire by moonlighbulb on creative commons & Gratitude tattoo by gisele13 on creative commons.

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Unloved or Disrespected?

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(While on vacation…I’m posting some of my most popular posts. Here’s one about the crazy cycle…are you in it?)

Which one are you feeling? If you’re married and you’re struggling it’s probably one of the two. During marital conflict, men most often feel disrespected while women most often feel unloved. A few years ago, my husband and I did a book study with friends based on the national best-seller, Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs. The foundational principles in the book are absolutely enlightening.

A friend emailed me last week asking me some questions about showing respect to your spouse and I immediately thought of the Love & Respect book. So I thought I’d outline the principles in a post and I highly recommend the book if you want more details. (Caveat here: As an author I’m embarrassed to say that I’m a terrible non-fiction reader. I rarely finish non-fiction books and I’m more likely to skim them than read them word for word. So, that being said, I skimmed the book and absolutely loved the principles outlined. But I have no recollection of the writing style or ease of reading the book. Still…whether it’s an easy or hard read, it’s worth learning what he has to say.) Now I’m going from skimming memory, so bear with me. The basic idea is that while we all need both love and respect, women feel the need for love more strongly and men feel the need for respect more strongly.

This becomes a problem because, in general, women show love to their husband more naturally than they show respect, and the opposite is generally true for men. So in a marriage relationship we often get caught up in what Eggerichs calls “The Crazy Cycle.” When a woman feels unloved, she responds by disrespecting her husband (making him feel unimportant or unworthy and not appreciating him for who he is). And when a man feels disrespected, he responds by being unloving (silent treatment, lack of response to emotion, etc.). And now we’re back to where we started with the woman feeling unloved and therefore acting like she doesn’t respect her husband, etc., etc,. etc. Does this sound familiar? It really doesn’t matter if the chicken or the egg came first (did he act unloving first or did she act disrespectful first?). The point is that someone has to stop the cycle.

Here’s how: If it’s the wife, she has to show respect to her husband (even if she doesn’t feel it yet) even if his behavior doesn’t inspire her to do so. This is hard. No question. But it works. And if it’s the husband, he needs to be loving toward his wife, even if she makes him feel disrespected. Someone has to get them off the crazy unloving/disrespecting merry-go-round they are caught on or they will likely spiral into a national statistic.

Eggerichs bases his ideas on Ephesians 5:33- “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Until I read his book I had never noticed the distinction in that verse. If you’d asked me to quote it from memory I would have told you I thought it said that we should love each other like we love ourselves. Nope! It tells the husbands to love and the wives to respect. Now does that mean that wives don’t need to love and husbands don’t need to respect? No. It’s just that women, in general, tend to be nurturers so loving comes more naturally and men tend to have an inborn sense of honor so respecting can come more naturally. This verse is addressing us in our respective weaknesses.

Don’t believe it? Think about it. How many times have you seen a wife publicly dis her husband? When I was a young wife I used to feel awkward when I’d go out with a group of women because it seemed that the topics often turned husband bashing and I didn’t want to do that. I would just stay quiet cuz I didn’t want to be like, “Well, I don’t know about you but my husband is awesome.” (Although it would have been a nice thing to do for my husband, I didn’t have the courage and was worried I’d lose friends!)

Think about TV commercials…how often are husbands painted as complete idiots that couldn’t find the front door without their superior wife’s help? And on the flip side, how often are women painted as objects of lust, not love? It’s not popular to cherish a woman. It’s popular to judge her merits based on her cup size. Not loving.

So the scripture is aimed at getting us to do that which doesn’t come naturally. And it’s not easy. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure it’s possible without God’s help. But He’s willing to help us and it is so worth it. Doing what this verse says breaks the crazy cycle and creates a positive cycle that goes something like this. He starts acting loving to her even though she’s been belittling him. She may not trust it at first, but the more he shows her love, the more she begins to show him respect. She appreciates him and even begins to tell him so. This makes him feel respected which makes him more determined to be loving to his wife, etc., etc., etc.

The other thing that practicing this way of communicating does is it automatically shifts our focus from ourselves (“He’s not treating me right, she’s doesn’t appreciate me.”) onto the other person. This goes against our natural instincts. We want to protect ourselves and not be vulnerable. But the irony is that the more we focus on our spouse, the more they usually respond and act the way we’ve wanted them to all along. Now, there are exceptions to this and I must  include that if you are in an abusive relationship, this is not for you. You need to get out and get help. But if you are in a marriage where both people truly want to make it work but don’t know how, reading this book and putting the principles into practice could be life changing.

How about you? Are you stuck in the crazy cycle or have you found your way out of it? If you have any suggestions about how a husband can be more loving or a wife can show her husband she respects him, please share in the comments section below or on Facebook. If enough of you share, I may do a follow-up post giving people concrete ideas of how to put the Love & Respect principles into play. Thanks!

Oh, and after I wrote this I saw a beautiful little video posted on Facebook that highlights an amazing selfless love. If you’d like to see it you can click here.

 

Love,

rebekah

Love & Respect is available on Amazon.com here. (I am not on commission, btw ;) )

To access the Love & Respect website click here.

 

 

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Why You Messin’ With My Plans?

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I learned something new about my husband recently. After 21 years of marriage…I learned something new! I was telling my friend Kristy that I was frustrated because I had called him when he was at Lowes and asked him to stop at the grocery store and grab something we needed. He acted irritated and gave me push back. Said he didn’t have time. I was ticked because I feel like that kind of thing happens a lot. I’ve interpreted it like this for years: If it’s not his idea, he acts like it won’t work. It drives me crazy!

Now Kristy and I had already discussed how different our personalities are. She’s an administrative whiz. She’s organized and likes to plan things. If you’ve been reading my blog for any period of time, you will know that I am not those things! (You can check out my post on my glaring faults here. Or one that highlights my difficulty with clutter here.) So when I mentioned why I was irritated with my hubby, she nodded and said, very matter-of-factly, “You changed his plans.” I what? “He already had his plan for while he was out and you changed it. I have trouble changing my plans too.”

WOW. I had never thought of it like that before. And it sounded so rational when she said it. I’m a FBTSOMP kinda girl. I “fly by the seat of my pants.” If someone calls me and asks me to add a stop to my itinerary, I say, “Sure” cuz it doesn’t bother me. (Incidentally, I rarely make all the stops on my list. But I know that I won’t. It’s just how I am. I’ve accepted it. Hubby always makes all the stops on his list. He plans it and he does it. End of story.) So I had never considered that when I ask him to do things that are last minute, I’m messing with his plans and its uncomfortable for him…it adds stress to his life. He likes to plan and he likes to stick to his plan. And that’s okay. It’s how he’s wired. I was looking at the situation through the lens of my personality…forgetting to take his personality into account. (And I never realized it all these years!)

I told him about what Kristy said and he nodded. As if it were just common knowledge that his frustration was because I was messing with his plans. (I think all you organized people must have a club where you sit around and discuss these things…or more likely, you don’t discuss them. Someone presents it with a power point with lots and lots of bullet points. If my peeps…you know, the disorganized FBTSOMP people, got together there would be no bullet points, most of us would be late but there would definitely be chocolate and cool music playing.)

But I digress (shocker!) Back to my story…ironically, ever since my talk with Bill, he’s been more willing to change his plans when I ask. (And he says to me every time, like a proud school-child with an A+ paper, “Did you see how I did that? I just changed my plans.” It’s quite cute.) And I’ve been more careful not to try and change things if I don’t really need to. A little understanding goes a long way.

I learned early on that just because someone sees things differently than me, doesn’t mean they are wrong. I love learning about the differences in personality traits and how they affect communication. It’s that old “walk a mile in his shoes” idea that we so often lose sight of. How about you? Is there someone in your life that is just different from you? Do you fall into the trap of thinking they are wrong just because they are different? Can you think of a time when different personality styles caused miscommunication? How did you work things out?

Are you an Introvert? Extrovert? Thinking? Feeling? Dominant Director? Influencer? Cautious Thinker? Security Minded? Phlegmatic? Sanguine? Melancholy? The list of personality styles is endless and dates back to Ancient Greece. But if you’ve never taken a look at any of these theories, it’s really worth a little of your time. In my next post I’ll go into more detail about personality traits/styles and give you some resources to learn more.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope your summer is going well! Try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes…but not when it’s really hot out.

Love,

rebekah

 

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Are You Speaking the Wrong Language?

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When Emily was a child her dad traveled the world for business. But he always brought her something unique from each trip. He would search the markets for the thing that reminded him most of the daughter he missed. When he’d arrive home he’d ask her all about what she’d done while he was gone, he’d tell her how proud he was of her and he’d present her with her newest exotic gift. Emily felt that her dad loved her more than anyone in the world. 

Nate had trouble falling asleep as a little boy. So one day his mom had him lie on his tummy and she rubbed his little back hoping to relax him and coax his eyes shut. It worked! He was asleep within minutes and this became a nightly ritual. 
Fast forward twenty years. Emily and Nate have been married for a year now and both are wondering if they’ve made a mistake. 
Emily tells her best friend, “I’m not even sure if he loves me. He never brings me any presents even though I bring him stuff all the time. He doesn’t even appreciate it! So I get upset and then he has the nerve to rub my shoulders!? I know what that’s code for…and it ain’t happenin!”
Nate tells his dad, “I have no idea what she wants, dad. I try to do things around the house to make her happy. I try to rub her shoulders every night to help her relax. Nothing satisfies her!”
This fictional little story demonstrates a very common miscommunication in all kinds of relationships. It’s a problem with love languages. I haven’t read the book in at least fifteen years, but I will always remember the impact that “The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman had on me and my marriage. Mr. Chapman says that there are five different “love languages” that people speak: (For more detailed descriptions click here.)
  • Words of Affirmation
  • Quality Time
  • Receiving Gifts
  • Acts of Service
  • Physical Touch

In the story, Emily felt loved through Receiving Gifts and Words of Affirmation while Nate felt loved by Physical Touch and Acts of Service. Neither felt the other was being loving toward them because rather than showing love the way their partner received it, they were using their own love language to show that they loved the other. I’ve seen this happen in real life and it’s so sad because both people are actually trying really hard yet both are frustrated and feeling unloved. However, the solution isn’t difficult. It’s just a matter of figuring out which love languages make you feel loved and sharing that with your spouse, friend, sister, etc. And vise versa.

Have you ever experienced the kind of miscommunication I described? Do you know what your love languages are? Do you know what your spouse’s are? Your kid’s? It’s really worth looking into. If you click here, you can take a love language survey for free. I hope it helps you like it’s helped me!

Love,

rebekah

 

 

Photo of father and daughter from: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1118452

Photo of mother and son from: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/958366

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The truth about me

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I’m gonna be honest. I’ve got nothin. I’ve been trying to think all night about what to write about for Friday’s post and I just have to admit that I’m slightly brain-dead. I truly don’t have any deep thoughts left in me. I can’t think of anything funny to say and my A.D.D. mind is failing me. It happens. And knowing is half the battle. ;)

So in the spirit of the name of my blog…allow me to ramble just a bit. I want to thank you all for your replies to yesterday’s post about Joshua. He’s such a special guy and I’m glad you all got to kind-of meet him :)

I didn’t just put up the post about Joshua yesterday, I also put up a bunch of writings that I’ve done about my experiences in Africa. I’m passionate about the work we are doing there and I like to share the things I’m passionate about. So I’m quite sure there will be more posts about Let Them LOL. But I do have something I want to be clear about. This is a little awkward but I need to say it if we’re going to continue our relationship. I am not any more special than anyone else is. No more special than you are.

I had a phone conversation last night with a dear loved one and she kept saying how much she admired me and how she doesn’t know how I do it all. I’ve heard this before and I appreciate the heart behind it. But what concerned me is she kept putting herself down and comparing herself to me. (Apparently she didn’t read the Apples to Oranges post earlier this week. :) )

So just to make myself feel better, I’m gonna do a John Maxwell and tell you all some of my faults.

*Besides the obvious, like I can’t seem to lose 20 pounds, the biggest one is that I’m completely lacking in self-discipline (which of course contributes to the 20 pounds ;) ). I’ve been trying for so many years to conquer my lack of discipline, but it’s a struggle and I’m definitely a work in progress.

*I yell at my kids too much. I’m not a screaming banshee but I still yell more than I’d like. (I’m pretty good about apologizing tho.)

*I stay up way too late (It’s 1:17 a.m. as I type this). And then I don’t want to get up in the morning. I do get up…I get my kids off to school and then my plan is always to get lots of stuff done or go work out before my hubby gets up at 9:30. In reality, I almost always crawl back into bed with him and sleep until about 10 a.m.

*I’m a procrastinator. I know that the saying goes, “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” But my brain seems to be hard-wired more for, “Put it off until you absolutely  have to get it done, then you’ll do a better job.” (I know…it makes no sense. As I’ve gotten older I’ve made progress in this area at times. But my default is still procrastination.)

*And the one that probably causes me the most stress and shame..(drum roll please) my house always seems to be a mess. I really admire those people who keep their houses picked up all the time. I think it’s very impressive. But I don’t seem to be able to do it for more than a week. And then when it starts to get messy I get really overwhelmed and I shut down. I have clutter behind every door and drawer in my house. And don’t even get me started on how much laundry a family of six generates. This “messy house” issue has been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember. And it stresses me every day.

I tell you all this so that if any of you have been comparing your weaknesses with my strengths, you can just stop it! That’s not what the point of my blog is. I’m sharing this “Fault List” with you because I want you to relax around me. I want you to be honest with me because you know I’m willing to be honest with you.

The good news is that God is not done with me (or you) yet. Philippians 1:6 says, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Thank God for that.

In the interest of fairness, I will say I’m very good at going on vacations and trips. And I think it’s good to do what you’re good at. I keep telling Bill he should take me on vacation again cuz I’m so good at it. So, if you hear of me taking a trip somewhere, you’ll know it’s just Bill giving me the opportunity to feel good about myself.

Thanks for letting me ramble. Turns out I had something to say after all :)

Love,

rebekah

P.S. I’ll be out of town for the weekend so I probably won’t post anything new till Monday. TGIF!