Wednesday, February 7, 2007

WFMW - don't be selfish

This week's Works-For-Me-Wednesday has a theme in honor of Valentine's Day - Love, Sweet Love.
I remember as a newlywed being told that the first year is hard, but just wait until year 7 - that's when it really starts falling apart! (These encouraging people also believe that teenagers are genetically programmed to be moody, sassy & hate their parents.)

Our first two years of marriage went like this :
-DH doesn't call to let me know he is going to be much later than expected because he "didn't think about it"
-I sit up on the couch furious & worried that he's dead on the side of the road
-He walks in, sees my face, & says "What's wrong?"
-I reply "Nothing" , which of course is Wife-enese for "You better figure out what's wrong with me & fix it!"
-He says "Oh, ok!" because
a) surely his wife wouldn't lie to him &
b) if she did lie, he is not about to give her the satisfaction of playing along with her little game

Does that sound familiar to anyone? Well, we got bored with that rather quickly & decided maybe we should try it God's way instead. In a nutshell, that means put your spouse before yourself ALWAYS.

Self is such a hard thing to let go of, isn't it. When do I get a day off? Why should he get to do something with his friends when I've been home with the sick kids all week? I've had a long day, can't I just roll over & go to sleep? I'm not in the mood to fix dinner, can't you just pick something up on your way home?

I am happy to say that after 14 years of marriage, we still haven't hit that rough patch. We both try to always put each others needs before our own, and amazingly our own needs get taken care of or we realize it wasn't all that important to begin with.
Warning: Be prepared for no one to believe you if you choose to have a peaceful & happy marriage. I look forward to the day when they also don't believe that I have well-behaved, thoughtful teenagers who love me!

Speaking of love, you are going to LOVE this sale!
A fellow homeschooler is offering a special on her site to pay off medical debt. You get a variety of items like e-books, discounts to other sites, recipes, a lapbook - 24 special offers in all for the amazing low price of $29.95!! You must hurry because the offer ends February 10th. You can check it out here.

4 comments:

Rae said...

Awesome advice! Thanks for sharing. Happy Valentine's Day =)

Jane said...

Great advice! Happy 14th anniversary!

Barbara H. said...

All too true -- self is our biggest obstacle. Great advice!

Barbara H. @ Stray Thoughts
http://barbarah.wordpress.com/

Melanie said...

Love this! It's so true. The times I look and think that something is wrong, 99.9% of the time it's because of my own selfish desires!