Accepting our Roles to Win at Marriage

To my ladies…….this piece of information is not desirable to hear. However, I’d be lying if I gave you some new age, feminist approving perspective.

Acknowledging our God-given role as a woman is a key to winning at marriage.

Nope, this just isn’t any religious propaganda you’ve heard from your grandmamma… This is the real stuff. The stuff that makes good marriages last.

A major role of wives is to be a help and support to husbands. You heard me! Because we were created to help them, we’re actually equipped to do it! We’ve been given the tools, the wisdom and the insight to help our husbands become their best.

When I just got married, I marveled at my husband’s amazing forgetfulness, his lack of follow-through on some great ideas he had and his cowardly demeanor. Furthermore, I lacked patience and kindness, constantly highlighting my planning abilities and multitasking strengths, my routines and my confidence in taking risks.

Now, I’ve repentantly come to appreciate the fact that my God-given skills and abilities were given to help my husband and NOT to use my giftings to bat him over the head or highlight his shortcomings in these areas. It’s like taking credit for something I didn’t earn.

Ladies…what value would we be to our husbands if we didn’t have anything to bring to the table?  Besides our bodies, we do possess skills that could help them, or greater, words that could encourage them. Men love to be complimented. You can never overcompliment a man. I love watching my husband blush when I dig deep for new material. Oh the power we as women have with our words!

Men by nature are more forgetful than women, in fact, science proves that women have consistently stronger short-term memory than men.

Coincidental or divine that our strengths would be different? When I think about the men I know complimenting their wives, I often remember them talking about their wives being smart. We probably aren’t super smart, but to men who usually have different strengths, we can appear amazing.

I’ve often seen my positive, encouraging words to my husband become like water to a dry plant, it makes him hold his head up high. I see confidence rising and a man who becomes taller and ready to change the world.

It’s sad when we use our words to criticise and diminish their masculinity in response to their short-comings. I am guilty of this a lot. God reminded me that when I do what I’m created to do, I reap the rewards. A man who is built up by his wife loves her, a cyclical effect. He is motivated to help me accomplish my passions, goals and becomes my biggest fan.

Quite often, I’ve seen insecure spouses tear down their partners out of insecurity, fearing that if their partners gained confidence, they will cheat or leave. How sad that the opposite is true! A man who is built up by his wife is more motivated to loyalty. I’ve even seen marriages when spouses cripple each other to self-doubt, convincing them that they are worthless and incapable in the hope that they will be controlled and submissive. This is not only ungodly and evil, it is a marriage controlled by fear that leaves both parties unfulfilled.

Oh if we’d only seek to build each other up with our words! We would reap the rewards of a good marriage!

Living and Loving beyond Heartbreak

Time to put on those Big lady pants, we’re gonna get a bit intense…

If you’ve been a serious relationship that perhaps lasted a number of years before ending, you know that heartache is real pain.

Many years ago, I announced a dissolved relationship in front of some relatives. My Uncle decided to coin in and share that a break-up is one of the worst pains you could ever experience. You go to bed and wake up asking yourself if the break-up was just a bad dream, then you cry until you are covered in tears and ‘runny nose fluid’ and you may even lose weight because you have no appetite. You can no longer listen to love songs, you can’t venture in certain locations that held sentimental value and you keep checking your phone, only to toss it away. That pretty much summed it up.

Back then, I remember many well-intentioned individuals telling me that I would get over it with time and I remember resenting hearing that. It’s true, no one fully comprehends your ambivalent feelings of betrayal, anger, hurt coupled with longing and missing the person……but all in all, it’s true you CAN get over the pain…and move on.

During that time, a friend advised me to look at the movie “500 Days of Summer”. It communicated a most poignant message that was pivotal in helping me properly dissect my emotions. It was a challenge to properly reframe the relationship for the reality of what it was and not what I wanted it to have been. With the heartache, sometimes we hurt because we consider the loss of the good things without the healthy balance of acknowledging the bad. I had to go back in my memory and imagine the ex’s facial expressions and recognise his growing loss of enthusiasm when seeing me. I went back and ‘saw’ things I had overlooked, the growing unhappiness, the growing distrust, the growing sensation of feeling ‘stuck’ and the growing misunderstandings. I was finally willing to accept the whole reality.

I had been guilty of reminiscing the good memories, idealised future plans and ambitions of a life together. Worse, I felt like he ‘owed’ me something for all the years and emotional investments. This I learned is an enemy of truly becoming free. I forgave him for everything and I forgave myself for wanting to hold on to resentment….and kept doing it over and over again.  I allowed myself to mourn the death of a future that would never happen and then I started a gratitude journal. I started being thankful for little things, baby steps, air, potable water, a warm bed, another day, family members, friends, etc. Gratitude became instrumental in healing.

I am convinced that God truly worked everything for my good. My husband far exceeds what I could have ever conceived in my expectations of a husband. I realised that we can limit or restrict our happiness by the lies we tell ourselves. You CAN love again…..

A life without true forgiveness only keeps us in the cage and away from the reality that there are good people who can be trusted and that true love grows over time.