I know that there aren’t a lot of couples out there that would say that they have a perfect marriage. Who does? But if you had asked me last week, I would have said that mine was an 8. I would have given it a higher score, probably, if we weren’t building this house! Which, by the way, isn’t as fun as I thought it would be. 99% of our disagreements lately are because of that. Although, I know it will be totally worth the entire struggle, once it’s done.
Matt and I attended a marriage conference this weekend presented by Family Life, which I LOVE! We’ve done sessions like this before. We took a class a few years ago that lasted about 6 weeks and required at least 1 hour of homework every night! That’s a lot for a couple who sometimes only sees each other about 30 minutes a day through the week! The class was AMAZING and we had great growth in our marriage as a result. This class, however, was only 2 days and I’ll admit, was mainly appealing to me because I REALLY wanted a childfree weekend, especially the weekend before Valentine’s Day! I reminded Matt of that, and he was in, too! Secondly, I figured we’d learn to tune up some of our communication skills, which have pretty much no reception these days!
There were six sessions. As each one started, I thought the same thing…”What can I learn from this? We don’ t have any issues in this area.” By the time each session was over and I would think about all of the information that was presented, I became overwhelmed with all of the ‘stuff’ I wanted to do differently in my marriage to be a better wife and mother. I was learning… A LOT! One session seemed to be directed straight towards us…well, Matt! I was going to sit back and listen to the presentation and remember every detail so that I could remind my darling husband what he needed to do differently to communicate more productively and to better fulfill his responsibility as a husband. The session first addressed the husband, explaining how his role as a provider and head of the house can sometimes allow him to ‘disconnect’ from his wife. Yep, that was Matt. I circled, in my workbook, “We need to retrain ourselves to be present in the moment with our spouses,” just so that I could point it out to him later. “I hope he’s listening to this,” I kept thinking to myself. You know that scripture in Matthew 7, where it says that you should first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye? Well, that scripture was soon about to be very relevant for me! Now for the wife’s role. I seriously thought that I could sit back and ignore this part. I couldn’t communicate any better, could I? Afterall, it’s not a secret that I LOVE to talk! Yes, I actually did think that! Well, I was wrong. A woman came on the video and began to tell a story about her and her family. Frequently, her, her husband, and her two boys got pizza at a local pizza parlor. They ALWAYS got pepperoni pizza with extra sauce. They all loaded up in the van one night and her husband went into the restaurant to get the pizzas. He came walking out with the pizzas and two containers of extra sauce on top of the boxes. She said to him, “Let me guess…you forgot to ask them for extra sauce…AGAIN?” Of course, she said it with sarcasm. Her son then piped up, “Dad, you’re such an idiot!” She was shocked. She never used that word and most certainly never called her husband an idiot. It dawned on her that even though she wasn’t saying it with her words, she was saying it with her attitude. This hit me…HARD! After hearing it, I wanted to rate my role as a wife, nothing higher than a 2!
When Matt isn’t home for dinner or sometimes isn’t home to tuck the kids in bed at night, and they ask where Daddy is, I tell them how awesome their Daddy is. I tell them about how hard he works and how badly he and Mommy wanted me to be able to stay home with them, so he chose to work really hard at his job (sometimes more than one job) so that we’d have money to pay for our house, food, and lots of the other extras that we want them to have. How confused they must be when they hear me talk to Matt with the attitude that I sometimes do. I can think about lots of times when I’ve had the same attitude with Matt that the woman in the video had with her husband. My frequent sarcasm seemed so harmless until I heard it explained by the woman in the video. How can I expect that my kids not talk to me with sarcasm or attitude, when I do it to their Daddy? What kind of example am I setting? Shouldn’t I be witnessing to my kids everyday? They’re watching and learning from me, every second! Oprah talks about “Ah ha,” moments…this was one of mine!
The seminar ended with a discussion on leaving a legacy for our future generations. I want my legacy to be that of a woman who respected her husband and set a good example for the kind of wife that I want my boys to search for and my daughter to someday be. I want to leave a legacy of God’s love and I’m ‘putting a stake in the ground’ today. Will I mess up? Sure! Who doesn’t? Hopefully, Matt listened well to the part on forgiveness!
By the way, Happy Valentine's Day! More to come on how we celebrate, later!
Have a great day!
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