there is something so fresh and clean and new about the first snow. it feels rather fitting that it would happen tonight as this new life inside of me is as active as she has been yet.
what isn't as pleasant, though, as the snow, the christmas smells and this new little life, is me. my demeanor lately.
i've been snappy, sassy, reactive and quite frankly just plain acting like a child to my husband. tonight i said some truly cutting things--which has become quite a common thing lately, i hate to admit--about love and romance and lacking the feelings i once had toward him.
sure, i could chalk it up to the pregnancy. but that's just an excuse.
but you know what? he said something to me that stuck with me and it's so simple and i've heard it a thousand times before, to the point where you'll see me over there in the corner rolling my eyes, but it's so good. and so true. and i needed to hear it. and i think we all need to hear it.
to love is not about you.
it's one hundred and fifty percent about the other person. so often--like always--i am coming at it selfishly. what can i get out of this? how can i feel in love? how can we work on our relationship so that i feeeel better? the harsh reality, and yet gateway to freedom, is that love is thinking about what i can do for him. how he's feeling. how he can feel loved.
each night as part of our bedtime routine with hadley we sing Great Is Thy Faithfulness and without a doubt every time i get choked up when we get to the line "morning by morning new mercies i see." i feel so very undeserving. especially as of late. and yet, i am reminded by the weather outside on this thursday night, of all things, that tomorrow is a new day. a blank slate. to start fresh. to be better. to try again.
to love a selfless, sacrificial love. to be a blessing to him. to really truly learn what it means to love.
Parenting is so all-consuming (especially for us moms! that it can be hard to have anything leftover for the ones we pledged to love first. I try to remember to tell my husband how thankful I am for how hard he works and all he does for our family. I know he appreciates it when I make his lunch for work or do his laundry so I try to make time for those things. It's hard and we're in a hard season right now so thank you for the reminder to be more selfless in my actions.
ReplyDeleteyou are not alone!! i'm finding myself re-reading this post and needing the reminder daily, to be honest. it's hard because we all want to be wanted and we all want to feel love. so it's hard to change our mindset to really truly put the other person's needs/feelings above our own!! xo
DeleteI love this. Although, for me and my marriage, I've done nothing but love. I've given and given and received nothing in return. Showing love and not making it about you is utterly important, it's your job to love your spouse, but it's also your spouses job to love you, which a lot of couples don't understand. I gave and gave in my marriage and wasn't loved at all. I was emotionally neglected and abused and there is definitely a point where you are enabling bad behavior by loving and brushing everything under the rug. I realized that's exactly what I'd been doing, enabling him.... by making it all about him while completely forgetting about myself. It's important that we remember ourselves too. It's important we remember our right to feel things and be emotional when appropriate.
ReplyDeleteoh i am so sorry! there is obviously a line of when to realize you need to look out for yourself, and take care of your emotional well-being, most definitely. you allllways have a right to feel things and be emotional, for sure! enabling is definitely not what i am suggesting, by any means. i think where i am coming from mostly is that i am the one who needs to shift my focus from myself (because i have been selfish) onto my husband. (and he does a really good job already of thinking of me before himself, so it's just me that really needs to step it up and most of the time it's hard to be honest with myself, let alone others that i have been struggling/slacking/sucking)... i hope you are in a good place now! <3
Delete