I love to complicate the simple things, it makes them more entertaining. I can take a plain anything and spice it up. A plain recipe, it just needs a little bit of me! I am horrible about this, people will share a recipe, been in their family for years, and before they can even finish explaining the ingredients, I have tweaked the dish in my head. I am borderline rude!! I am sure the dish is beautiful all by itself, just the way it has been prepared for years, but I seem to feel if you stir in a teaspoon of ______, it would be all that much better!! I just love to mix things up, swirl it around and entertain myself the whole time. Let me see, how has this worked in the area of my marriage? Hummmm, let me look over there ...yep, I would have to say it has brought up some challenges!!
Things in my world do not have to be in order, as long as I have a general idea where they are, I am relaxed and fine. My husband, however is not. He is a man that likes order and organization. I am a constant source of irritation to him, bless his heart with the straight edges! He loves me dearly and thinks I am sexy so he doesn't hound me too much about my creative style. We have been marries for 15 years and we are passionately in love with each other. The intensity of these passionalte feelings are stronger at some times, more than others. There is an ebb and flow to our relationship. When the ebb gets too grand, and it dams up the flow, we head to a therapist. If the water isn't flowing freely, if there are rocks in the way, if it starts to back up and the dam starts forming, chances are I am already talking to someone; friend, minister, counselor, strangers in the grocery store, anyone who will listen to my plight. I have to be talking to someone so I can sort it all out. I need help deciding if I have a leg to stand on if I ever decide to open the discussion with my husband. He is clueless at this point that the water has begun to shift in the slightest, that I might not be 'happy'. He is busy protecting our family and providing for us. That is his Job, (Thank you Steve Harvey for your wonderful book, Act like a Lady, Think like a Man) I agree that my husband believes that Providing and Protecting is his most important job as a husband and father. His uniform for this job is a beautiful coat of devotion to me. He works hard at this job, he is good at it, it is how he was raised. That I am expecting a whole lot more than that from him, is just ...well...unreasonalble.
The challenges in my life have come about when I thought I would try to switch up and change, just a little, the man I married. Because I felt I needed something more than he was offering, more than Protection, Provision and Devotion, I tried to make my 'NEED' his fault. "He is just not THERE for me!! Poor me, my husband just doesn't understand all the many facets of the wonderful person I am!! My husband doesn't feel the pain I am in right now, he doesn't care about me!! Poor me!! Wah wah wah!!" On the therapist couch, (yes, there are really couches in there.) I discovered this is not about him. It was about me. I had to do the work, I had to find it within my self to stand up and ask for what I need. Find what I need from ME, within me. If my husband can't add all of my ten thousand, ever changing, needs to his list of things he is responsible for, (which, according to his JOB description are: keeping the mortgage paid and the burglars away), maybe I just needed to work on it myself. My husband can not fill all my needs. Period. I said it. He knows it. I have explained this to him. He is tremendously relieved that the misconception is cleared up. God gave me amazing women, incredible women all around me, to help me, to be there to listen, support, sympathize, strengthen me. I believe if my husband loved to talk and process life as much as I did, NOTHING would get accomplished!! He would never leave for work!!! We would just lay around all day drinking coffee and laughing.
Sitting in my cave, with all my girl friends around the fire, I love that my man is with the other men, outside guarding the entrance. He is keeping the saber tooth tigers away. He is very brave. He has a big club!! He was gone all last week on the big hunt. He brought back a huge Mammoth that we will eat off of for weeks. I can't wait to make his favorite dish: Mammoth kabobs! From the hide I can make some righteous new outs for me and the girls. I love my cave man. And I love my girl friends around the fire. Life is good!
God is good, all the time. Amen!
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