Marriage is difficult. The daily irritations that rub, like sandpaper, can cause wounds that make it hard to love and respect the one whom you are called to do just that…..love and respect.
Oh sure, we’ve picked up the books. We’ve made a few changes here and there. Things seemed to get better, then something hits the fan, and we are right back where we started. Round and round it goes. We’re tired of it! We want to just throw up our hands and say, “I give up! I am going to just shut down, live my life and he can live his!”
This is a temptation. Do you remember what St. Paul says? “I have run the race, I have fought the good fight.” I don’t think he meant to say “I have fought the good fight until I just couldn’t take it anymore” or “I have run the race…. until I got tired…nobody was paying attention and it didn’t seem to make a difference!”
Nope, we must never give up. I know that the struggles women have are very real. How do I know? Because I am a wife. I was raised in the city, my hubby is a country guy, I am a melancholic/sanguine, hubby is a choleric. On yes, and I forgot, he is a man, I am a woman. HUGE DIFFERENCES! It is not easy….. Our Lord never said it would be. 😛
You say you do your part, he doesn’t do his. You make the changes, he just stays grumpy and ill-tempered. You are the only one working on this relationship and he doesn’t care…..he’s not making any changes himself! You say, “I give up!”
I listened to a podcast recently. It was from the “Respect and Love” site.
Mr. Eggerich said in it that “you must be married to one pretty bad dude if he does not respond to you being more respectful and loving to him”.
It is true, there are a small percentage of men who are narcissistic and on the other hand, there are women who are divas. This situation can be very difficult because they just don’t see outside themselves.
BUT, if you are married to a regular guy, with regular faults, it is hard for me to believe that he will not respond to your efforts, if you are truly trying to change.
Remember, we can’t change him, we must accept and respect him. We must recall the things we loved about him when we first knew him. Sit down and write those things out. Make the effort, even if it doesn’t seem like it will help. God is not outdone in generosity! He will meet you more than halfway!
We should never give up seeking for ways to make our relationship better. It is what we are called to do.
So do not give up the good fight….run the race until the finish line! Be humble, search for answers.
Read the right books, talk to the right people. Do not talk to those who are giving you bad advice (and there are lots of those out there). They do much damage as they fan the fires of self-pity within ourselves. That is straight from the devil.
Yes, I know the struggles are real. The solutions are, too, if we keep looking and striving. It may not be overnight, but, in time, you will see that your perseverance has paid off!
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Be present in all things and thankful for all things. You may be surprised at what you can accomplish with your eyes on Him and a positive attitude… “Leave sadness to those in the world. We who work for God should be lighthearted.” – St. Leonard of Port Maurice
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Joyful. Faithful.
Living the Liturgy within the home will send those roots of our Catholic Faith so deep in our children’s hearts that they will carry on that legacy throughout their lives and pass the torch on to their own……
A Hands-on Advent Journal for you, Mom….
A good read, and the disclaimer is also good, because there are unfortunately some very serious situations out there.
God bless our good men and help those who are not!
I am thankful for your blog. Mostly a lurker here.
In the past year I’ve decided to be more serious about the faith. Not adopting qualifiers like “trad.” The focus is on the faith and meeting like-minded people, who know the culture is a culture of Death. It seemed the more I fervently I prayed, the less my husband cared about the faith. The more I asked God for help, the more he lashed out.
My husband admitted to me he’s angry at God. It made sense, with all the problems.
Being angry at God isn’t anything *I* can fix, or change 🙁
Prayers for you and yours Kimberly. Thanks for coming out of “lurkdom” and sharing.
Actually, I always thought that “live my life and let him live his” WAS acceptance…..accepting him as he is and not trying to change anything about him….this is the very definition of not nagging and live/let live. I’m not saying it isn’t lonely; it’s terribly so, often. But it’s acceptance. If you keep practicing it enough, eventually I suppose it leads to peace, but nobody ever said life would be happy all the time, nor did anybody ever say that marriage would necessarily be happy…..just my thoughts….”fighting” in this case frequently leads to conflict, and that’s what you are trying to avoid, isn’t it? Unless I suppose you mean that it’s fighting to push down negative emotions and feelings….I used to express them, but then learned that when they came up and I wanted to communicate something I needed to go somewhere private and fight it down, don’t show it. Learn to accept things as they are. I’m not going to lie and say that I am happy — I’m not, not really — but I’m supposed to act like I am happy, and I pray for the grace to be happy with things the way they are. What I feel like inside, what’s really going on isn’t as important as putting on the face and faking it ’till I make it. I suppose eventually I’ll make it.