SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

I'll Get You, My Pretty!

What's so hard about taking what you get and liking it? Everything. Nobody is perfect, we know that; problem is, we like perfect, crave it, want it, wish it were reality. We've hit the conclusion that we're not reaching perfection ourselves, so we might as well start working on somebody else. Somebody else like our husbands. Maybe we'll have more success with them.

Yeah, right.

Solving Other People's Problems

We try to fix others as a means of avoiding the changes we need to make in ourselves. Not that we don't know we need to change; just that we prefer not to deal with it. Instead we find another victim and focus on his faults instead. It's so much more fun.

This habit, however, leaves us with absolutely no progress made. We can't control other people, not even with all our amazing manipulation skills. But we spend so much energy trying that we have no will or desire left to work on ourselves. So everything stays the same, except that it gets worse.

The Opposite of Acceptance

But we still try, don't we? And the whole time, we keep waving the perfection flag at ourselves as well. That way we can resent our husband's faults and imperfections while we simultaneously deal with the continual guilt and self-imposed pressure of never living up to our own expectations. Our mental catalogs fill with pages full of criticism, disapproval, worry, and fear.

How is any marriage going to survive this?

How To Start Accepting

It's time to clean house and get a few things in order inwardly. Here's your straight-up, tell-it-like-it-is (read: this is going to hurt) guide to becoming a wife who accepts and enjoys her husband.

• Realize that you can change yourself and yourself only. What you don't like about yourself can be transformed, or you can learn to accept what is unchangeable about you. This is possible. You are the only person you are in charge of changing.
• Realize that we're all standing on level ground. Yeah, I know you've been marching to the Equality Tune for a while now, but you haven't really understood what it means. Equality means, yes, that no one else is inherently better than you; it also means you are not inherently better than anyone else. Not even your spouse.

• Realize that we're working with a world of imperfection and preference. Imperfection means that you will never, ever find someone who does what you want, when you want, as you want, all the time. (Would that really be perfection, anyway?) Preference means that a lot of stuff - stuff you like to fight over - really isn't a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of opinion, priority, taste, timing, preference. The universe will not shift on its axis one way or the other.

• Realize that sometimes you have to pretend you don't have any rights. Oooh. You don't like that one, do you? The problem with rights, though, is that everybody has 'em. That means that at some point, your right to do what you want and his right to do what he wants will be in, er, what do we call that? Conflict. Big, bad, ugly conflict that only ends when somebody wins and somebody else loses, on the terms that the winner's rights matter and the loser's do not. You can choose to either fight it out until you win, or give up, feel like a loser, and resent it. Those were your only choices in the past.

• Realize that you have another option; you can choose to willingly lay down your rights and treat your husband as more important. You can do that without being threatened now, because you know we're all on level ground. And you can let him have his preference over yours (even if his is stupid) because you know the universe will keep on going anyway.

What Acceptance Looks Like

Once you've made some inward adjustments, you can start changing your outward habits. It's difficult to change what might have become second nature, but you can do it. Heck, honey, if you can spend years of your life in a futile but never-ending attempt to control and change other people, you can drop a few bad habits.

It's great to be able to smile and accept who a person is (even yourself) without a nagging need to fix. It creates room in your mind for interesting ideas, and space in your life for goals you want to reach, and energy in your being to go after them.

5-Minute Marriage Check

None of this acceptance stuff sounds fun, but you're going to have to try it (more than once) and see.

There's something that you learn if you stick to this accepting long enough: it's nice to let it go. It's nice to be free. It's nice to be free from controlling, criticizing, worrying, and instructing. It's nice to just roll with whatever happens.

Acceptance is the key to a truly liberated, joy-filled life.

What is difficult for you to accept in your husband? List ten quirks, habits, behaviors, failures, etc. that you find yourself resenting or trying to change.

Ask yourself this question: if your husband doesn't change any of the things on that list, would you still love him? So start today. Choose to accept your husband as he is – with all those ten irritating things in place – and love him anyway.

Quit trying to fix him so you can love him more and just love him more anyway.

5-Minute Action Point

Sometimes acceptance is the most difficult thing you've ever done. These four steps are the key to keeping yourself on track.

Identify Your Job

Know what you need to take care of and what you need to leave alone. Ask yourself, “Is this my job? Am I responsible for this?” Make a list. Think about it. Ask your husband, if you're not sure.

Get Busy

Do your job and leave the rest alone. I'm not saying you can't help out; you can. But while you're all new and fresh at this acceptance thing, or whenever it is a struggle, it's going to be hard to help without taking over. So back off. Take up knitting. Read a novel. Put together a scrapbook. Do your nails. Take a nap.

Quiet Down

Don't instruct. Don't complain. Don't nag. Don't critique. Don't whine. Don't mention it, whatever it is. Smile and shut up, sister. The more you practice, the easier it becomes. Pretty soon you'll be enjoying the beautiful, blessed quiet that you have created. You'll have a secret little smile on your face. No one will know why but you. Enjoy.

Let It Go

When you feel your shoulders starting to tense up, your teeth starting to grind, your eye starting to twitch, take a step away. Whatever is happening may not be what you want; that's okay. It may not be ideal; that's okay. It may be stupid; that's okay. It may be painful; that's okay. It may be the stupidest, most painful, least ideal thing-that-you-do-not-want ever; that's okay. Take a deep breath, release, and let it go.

Enjoy the beautiful, blessed quiet in your own spirit. It's a nice change, isn't it?

---------------------------

This post is part of the Build a Better Marriage Challenge running February 2010.

It's a 30-day challenge to be deliberate about building a better marriage. We'll talk about some of the common obstacles to a better marriage (marriage killers) and some of the important habits for a successful marriage (marriage keys). We'll also work through some of the misconceptions that affect our marriage, faulty thinking we've picked up from our culture, our pasts, and maybe even from the church. Each day's reading will end with a 5-minute marrige check and a 5-minute action point, so you can take it on home.

Join in via the Mr Linky on the challenge page. You can also just read along, but remember that all challenge participants will receive a free copy of the ebook at the end of the challenge.

Here's to better, stronger, happier marriages!

---------------------------