The Love Dare- Day Five

Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him or her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you.  You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior.  This is from their perspective only.

Love is not rude.  When a man is driven by love, he intentionally behaves in a way that's more pleasant for his wife to be around.  If she desires to love him, she purposefully avoids things that frustrate him or cause him discomfort.  The bottom line is genuine love minds it's manners.  Good manners expresses to your spouse "I value you enough to exercise some self-control around you.  I want to be a person who's a pleasure to be with."

Who is not guilty of walking around their home displaying their anger or hurt in their expressions and body language but as soon as the door bell rings you put a smile on your face as if you don't have a care in the world????  Oh boy, I know I have and continue to do that to a degree.  How frustrating that must be to my hubby when I do that.  

It really wasn't until this chapter that I thought about this.  I really do want to be a pleasure to be around but when he and I are disagreeing about something or there has been pain brought to one of us I tend to go silent.  I don't give him the silent treatment but I am very disconnected from him.  When I think back to these moments I really can see where if I am acting like this towards him and then we get around others I am a bundle full of joy.... this must really aggravate him.

When I first was with my hubby and we had just moved in together I was not the same Mellie I am now.  I had came from a long history of choosing the wrong people in my life.  I was lost in who I wanted to be as a person, a mother and a friend.  I said and did anything I wanted and didn't care of how it affected others.  I was out to protect myself, even if that meant I pushed people away, because I just knew they would hurt me first anyway or leave so I wanted to be the one with the "power."  Now, I was not mindful of this at the time.  I did not wake up and ask myself who I could piss off that day or who I could put off I just put on a touch hard shell and went out into the world telling myself no one was going to hurt me.

One time in my bedroom my hubby and I were having an argument.  I was standing in front of the closet and he said something that I did not like.  I immediately lashed back and said something, I don't even know what we were arguing about but I do recall that I was not going to let him push ME around.  So I snapped back with whatever it was I had to say and my hubby looked me dead in the eye and said:

"One of these days that sharp tongue of yours is going to get you in trouble, more trouble than you can handle."  And with that he walked out of the room.

I will never forget the feeling of hearing those words and remember the wake up call those words had on me.  I stood there almost stunned replaying his words over and over again in my head till I realized.. he was right.  I had become a bitter, angry woman who was fighting for her protection and for her life but I was bitter and ugly in my way of going about it.  From that day on I told myself I would learn to hold my tongue, bring compassion back into my soul and learn to break down my walls.

Fast forward 10 years later and a lot has changed with me.  I am still working on being a better person by my reactions to situations but I do hold my sharp tongue now and I try not to lash out at my hubby.  But it was never until I read this chapter that I thought about what my silence may be doing to our relationship as well.  Especially when I am disconnected to him but then in public I am bubbly to everyone else.

In regards to this challenge I did not want my hubby to feel pressured to tell me the three things that this challenge asks me to find out.  I did not want to come to him and he take my questions wrong and put him on defense so I sent him a text asking:

"Okay, so I'm reading a book that gives me ways to be a better wife.  Today I am suppose to ask you to tell me three things about me that makes you uncomfortable or irritated.  It's not a chance for me to defend myself but to hear you, take it in and use it as a learning experience to be a better person and wife.  So if you could please let me know the top three things it would mean a lot to me.  Thank you."

That night my hubby told me he had gotten the text and was finding it hard to give me a list of things because there are really none that bother him.  I told him that wasn't true and that it was okay I would not take offense to them and would not talk to him about them.  I reminded him that this was am exercise for me.  His response to that was:

"You really don't do anything that irritates me, so it is hard for me to come up with three things.  I don't want you to read books like this because I think you are a great wife.  You spoil me and take care of me and love me.. this is not your thing to fix.. it's mine."

This was the first time my hubby has really acknowledge his part in the issues that we have in our marriage.  I tried to sit quietly and just listen to continue to encourage him to talk.  He shared some more things with me that I will keep private but in the end I felt as if I had a weight lifted from my shoulders and felt close to him again.

Marriage is not about keeping score or putting the blame on each other.  Our issues in the past and present are not for my hubby to bear all on his own.  But to hear him take responsibility for his part meant the world to me and helped me understand that he understands the consequences his actions are causing.

I still have not gotten my list but I felt like I got more out of this challenge because it allowed me to look at a situation from my hubby's point of view and it helped him be able to admit to me that he knows his actions cause some issues.  

In the end, it's about bringing us together one step at a time and I think that is exactly what happened on this one.

~Mellie

****I have a couple friends who are struggling in their marriage.  I challenged them to take the Love Dare with me.  This is a 60 day love challenge based off the movie FireProof Your Marriage.  I have started this challenge in the past but not fully dove into it or completed it so I thought if I got these ladies to do it with me we could all work through it together.

http://www.lifeway.com/Product/the-love-dare-paperback-p005180605



I am always looking for ways to improve my marriage, my faith and my relationship with my hubby.  I am doing this for me more so than FOR him.  It is about changing who I am and who I want to be as a wife and mother and child of God.****

The Love Dare-Day Four

Contact your spouse sometime during the business day of the day.  Have no agenda other than asking how he or she is doing and if there is anything you could do for them.

How precious also are Your thoughts of me... How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.  -Psalm 139:17-18

Love is thoughtful.  When you first fell in love, being thoughtful came quite naturally.  You spent hours dreaming of what your loved one looked like, wondering what he or she was doing, rehearsing impressive things to say, then enjoying every moment of the time you spend together.  Love requires thoughtfulness- on both sides- the kind that builds bridges through constructive combination of patience, kindness and selflessness.  Love teaches you how to meet in the middle, to respect and appreciate your spouse and how your spouse uniquely thinks.  Great marriages come from great thinking.

How many of us call our spouses just to say hello and see if they need anything?  I think I have done this less times than I could count on one hand in my marriage.  Sure, I call him but often but when I call to say hello the conversation will turn to something about bills, work, the house or the kids.  I often find myself not calling just to say hello and to let him know I was thinking about him.

Today I had to tweak my challenge.  Today my hubby and I have the day off together so we were together all day today.  So I took my challenge and just made sure that I did check ins with him during the day.  "How are you?  Is there anything I can get for you? Do you need anything?"  I tried to stay in communication with him in person while still letting him know I was open and willing to do anything he needed.  I am sure it is not the same but I did not want to skip the challenge all together.  My plan is to do this first thing on Monday and just have an extra challenge that day so that he will get the full affect.

I have to share doing this challenge and thinking about it during the day has really helped me put some things into perspective.  It has reminded me that I need to show kindness, patience and selfessness but doing it in a way where I am not expecting anything back.

This is my challenge, this is not his and it is not fair for me to think of ways I think he should react to what I am doing.  For all I know he is not even aware of what I am doing, I know he is not reading my blogs because I am not posting them on my Facebook.  But that's okay because this is not about him,  this is about me striving to do better, to find a more holy love for him that I can show in my actions, my words and my expressions.

I am sad to hear that friends of mine are thinking of divorce.  They have been together for awhile now, not as long as my hubby and I, but still a long time.  This couple is just at the end of their rope and the story I am hearing is that she is tired of feeling like she is the one doing all the giving and compromising plus compromising who she is.  Her complaint is that her hubby drinks too much for her taste and is not forthcoming in his actions.  He pretty much lies about everything in her mind.  So she just feels that it's time to call it and move on and save herself any more pain.  He is tired of all the fighting and thinks that life would be easier for him if they just went their separate ways.  They have two kids and pretty much the only thing they agree on is that the kids will be fine.

But as I listen to her explain why the marriage is falling apart from her point of view and from his I think to myself.... all I am hearing is "me"  She wants to save herself, he wants this or that... there is nothing about them being together in this. In fact it sounds like they are on different sides of the fence and have been for most of their marriage.  

There is a song called "I won't give up"  By Jason Mraz.  

Part of the song goes:

We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I've got, and what I'm not
And who I am.
I won't give up on us

"We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in"  So many people don't want to learn how to bend and how to come together, I think we get so stuck in fighting about the things we want in our marriage or the feelings we have we forget that we should be fighting to stick together and learn how to bend so that both parties are happy.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I am not saying I live the perfect marriage or have all the answers but what I have learned in my life and in this marriage is I am willing to learn how to bend to keep my marriage together and find a way to make my marriage solid.  Am I done? Did I master it?  No!!!  I am still working at it everyday.  I am still asking God for help everyday, I am still on my knees praying for strength and for guidance.  But like this song says, "I won't give up."

I hope my friends can work through their marriage and see that they need to not be working against each other but for each other.  This is a partnership and a bond that no one should be able to break and they are on the same team.  I think they have forgotten they are on the same team.  Plus, I don't care what anyone thinks... the kids will not be fine.  Kids from a broken marriage will always have issues with the divorce and the separation of their family.

Anyway, today was another good day.  I felt like I took my challenge to heart and did what I set out to do and I hope it gets me closer to being a better wife and having a stronger marriage.

Have a great night everyone.

~Mellie

 

 

****I have a couple friends who are struggling in their marriage.  I challenged them to take the Love Dare with me.  This is a 60 day love challenge based off the movie FireProof Your Marriage.  I have started this challenge in the past but not fully dove into it or completed it so I thought if I got these ladies to do it with me we could all work through it together.

http://www.lifeway.com/Product/the-love-dare-paperback-p005180605



I am always looking for ways to improve my marriage, my faith and my relationship with my hubby.  I am doing this for me more so than FOR him.  It is about changing who I am and who I want to be as a wife and mother and child of God.****