The trouble of keeping score

Nathaniel and I have been married for six years. And the longer we're married, the more I'm convinced that what causes marriages to suffer is the little things. The pastor that did our marriage counseling told us this time and time again. Marriage, he said, isn't 50/50. It's 100/100. If you try to make all things are equal, then you'll start keeping score. Then you'll start trying to make sure that what you do is matched by what they do. No, he told us, it won't work unless you both give 100%.

How true we have found this to be.

At too many times, there's this imaginary T-chart in my brain. On one side is the list of all of the things that I've done that day. On the other is the list of things Nathaniel has done.

Every little thing I did that day is on the list. The only thing I count as Nathaniel as doing is leaving for the day and going to work. And what does this lead to?

Resentment.

That's what it leads to. It leads to a big ugly black mess of resentment that sends deep life-draining roots into my heart. I see myself as better than he is. I would never, never in a million years say out loud that I am better than he is. But I would think it. And when I keep that ongoing who did what list in my head, that's what is really happening. It becomes me vs. him.

Marriage is not always equal. There will be times when yes, I am doing more. Just as there are times that Nathaniel does more. 

I'm setting my marriage up for failure when I keep a list. It robs me of peace, it robs peace from us. It makes me watch that equality meter, and as soon as I feel that I've fed it enough quarters, I want to stop. I want all things to be equal, or at least to feel equal.

But you and I know this can't be true. Fairness isn't about equality, its about getting what each one needs. 

Right after Zoe was born and Eric was born, I was in a season of need. Almost the entire first year of Zoe's life, I was in a season of need. Not once did Nathaniel complain about this. He encouraged me and built me up. He loved me. He gave me 100%. Some days it was all I could do to give 10%. Now it is my turn. This is my season of 100%.

This is also when I learn what love is and how little I understand it and how little I can do anything to deserve it. True love is self-sacrificing. 

I love 1 Corinthians 13 from The Message,

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.

Love doesn’t strut,

Doesn’t have a swelled head,

Doesn’t force itself on others,

Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn’t revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

We're in an unequal season right now, Nathaniel and I. It's hard for both of us. For me to give more and for him to need more. Yet what I need to learn, now and forever, is that this is when I need God more. He becomes what I need and only what I need. The excess that I give is more than made up by what God gives to me. And as we keep looking for the best, not looking back, not keeping score, God will sustain us to the end.

Minutes adding up to beautiful

Nathaniel and I had a good long talk on Sunday, sitting on the porch swing in the unseasonable January sunshine.

Something that we started a few years ago that has made a big difference in our marriage is the Sunday check-up. We put the kids down for their nap and then we take a break. We go over what is on the schedule for that week, who needs to do what and who needs to go where, and once that is done, we just talk.

Our talk this Sunday centered around what we want the ideal of our life to be and what it actually is. My morning ideal (ideal, mind you) is everyone waking up happily, and then we traipse (yes, we traipse) into the kitchen to make pancakes from scratch. Breakfast is calm and orderly. Then, Nathaniel and I sip our hot coffee while the children run along and happily play together. We have wonderful adult conversation and laugh at each other's jokes. It's all very nice. The actuality of our mornings is cranky children that wake up very, very early with sheets that need to be changed because a diaper leaked, breakfast is cold cereal (with whatever is at the bottom of the boxes because I need to go grocery shopping) that then gets spilled on the floor. Cups of coffee have to be microwaved and then re-microwaved because there's no time to drink them in between cleaning up whatever the shrieking children spill. Attitudes are poor, all-around. The dog is licking the bottom of the high chair. Conversation consists mainly of questions to each other such as, "Why do we have two shrieking children?" No one is laughing at any jokes.

What I love about this quote from Mitch Albom is that life is made up of beautiful minutes. The hours and the days are often messy, or dreary, or just simply hard. But those beautiful minutes are what makes a life full and rich. The stage of life that Nathaniel and I are living is hard. Toddlers and babies take up so much energy. Teaching takes up energy. It never feels like we have enough minutes for anything.

Yet, in the middle of that not-so-ideal breakfast, we looked out the window at the bird feeder that Nathaniel had filled weeks ago. There at the feeder was a cardinal, with his partner waiting her turn on the fence.

A beautiful minute.

As we were getting ready for church, Zoe so sweetly helped get Eric's blanket and bottle ready for the car without asking.

A beautiful minute.

Everything in the sermon at church seemed to speak directly to what we were going through. Every song had a line that meant something.

A beautiful minute.

Mitch Albom gets it. Life isn't perfect, our marriage isn't perfect, but minutes can be. And those beautiful minutes are what makes life beautiful.

The Unnecessary Burden of Guilt

I've a well-honed sense of guilt. Some days it doesn't come near me, but on others, it causes me to slump around and become lethargic. It creeps over as I'm gazing at some household chore I dread or some task I started and didn't finish. (Although, thanks to Real Simple magazine, I have been given a wonderful insight into chores...they said to check the clock and time yourself on whatever chore you hate the most, and be pleasantly surprised that it really doesn't take that long, and really isn't worth putting off. I mean, really, emptying the dishwasher and reloading it took all of 6 minutes. I dread 6 minutes? But I digress...)

This morning I didn't graciously allow my wonderful, hard-working husband to sleep in. I did let him sleep in, but not graciously. While he was sleeping, I was gracious, and fed Zoe and kept her quiet, but once he woke up, I was decidedly ungracious. I wanted him to pop right out of bed, raring to go, aware of all the chores I was quietly working on and rise to the occasion of helping me clean the house from top to bottom. Well, this obviously didn't happen, because he'd just woken up. He was still sleepy.

So this matter of feeling guilty. I felt guilty this morning about not being gracious, but mostly what I was upset about was that he DIDN'T feel guilty about sleeping in. Because I would have. So he should have.

Isn't that the most warped thing? So as I took our in-laws' dog out for a walk, I pondered my attitude. I feel guilty a LOT. And I know I do, and I know I shouldn't. And so I feel guilty about that. I feel that I should use my time better. I should read the Bible more. I should volunteer more often and take more meals to sick people or people with new babies or the neighbors across the street. (Although I did make a blueberry tart for our neighbors last week but they weren't home at the time I tried to take it to them, so then I brought it back home and stuck it in the fridge, forgetting about it until I threw it away this morning. But I don't really feel guilty about that, just forgetful.) When Nathaniel is gracious (and he is much, much better at this than me) and lets me sleep in, once I wake up, I feel guilty. I feel that I should have gotten up and taken care of Zoe and done all these things that he did while I was sleeping.

So I'm still working through all this and trying to figure out why my first inclination is to feel guilt. Perhaps it's my background of Calvinism? Sin is ever before me and in me? I long to move into the wideness of God's mercy, and as I learn it, to pour it out over others. And this thing of wanting others to feel guilty because I would have really has to stop.

Is it a faulty view of myself in light of God's grace and mercy? Or a correct one? The church we attend has a saying they often repeat: Until sin is bitter, grace cannot be sweet. When I first heard that, I thought, "Yes!" Until I can see myself in the light of God's incredible perfection, I can't realize how much I need Him and what He did for me. But on the other hand, He sees me as His child. When I think of Zoe, even when she does something I tell her not to (like throw Pooh Bear in the kitchen trash can), I still love her immensely. Do I feel that I let God down in my actions or inactions? As His child, He looks on me and smiles. This burden I carry over things that don't matter is unnecessary. An attitude of guilt keeps me from God's purposes of fully living.

And that's what I mean about moving into the wideness of His mercy. I want to learn to accept that for myself and be able to freely give it to others.

Blessed are the flexible

Many people told us that our first year of marriage was going to be hard. We'd be challenged. We'd fight. We'd struggle. And pretty much, we didn't. Marriage was wonderful and easy. We'd hear about other newly married couples that fought a lot, and we'd pat ourselves on the back (humbly, of course), and smile sweetly at each other and say, "I'm so glad our marriage is so strong!" And it was. And it is.

But this first year of being Zoë's parents has been harder on our marriage than I thought it would be. We've been stressed out by our darling shrieking ball of energy that is already highly opinionated and can't talk yet to tell us what she wants or needs, so she shrieks. And as the tired evening hour approaches, and the shrieking gets louder, the stress builds. When Nathaniel is stressed out, I get stressed out. When I'm stressed out, he gets stressed out. A well-known marriage series calls this "the crazy cycle." We didn't think we had one. This year our crazy cycle was born, and we named her Zoë.

Having a baby brings out the good and the bad in a relationship. The good is obvious: you see your partner being a mother or a father, and the emotion this carries is enormous. When Nathaniel comes home and Zoë lights up and waves and shrieks Dada, my heart gets all mushy. The bad is less obvious: for me, all the little things add up and turn into resentment. It becomes all about me, and the things that I have to do, and the things I don't think are fair. I begin to keep a running mental list of all the things I've done that Nathaniel hasn't. I begin putting my needs first. I get resentful: my desires and wants are more important than anyone else's.

I ran across a photocopied quote that Nathaniel's Mormor had mailed us several years ago.

Blessed are the flexible,

 for they shall not be bent out of shape.

I've learned this year that I'm not as flexible as I think I am. When things happen that make my list longer or cause me to not get things done that I want to, I am decidedly inflexible. It's funny, because this picture I have of myself is someone that is easy-going and rolls with the punches, but when the stresses of life come, I just want to know what's happening next and then what and then what. I feel this little ball of stress begin to form in my very center, and if I'm not careful, it grows into anger.

Learning to be flexible means learning to let go. It means letting little things stay little things.  It means leaving lists undone. It means leaving dirty dishes in the sink (horrors!) so that I can pick up the baby that has attached herself to the back of my legs. It means giving shoulder rubs without asking. It means not keeping lists of who has done what.

Lord, I need your grace to help me to not get bent out of shape.

What marriage should look like

When I was in college, there was a professor teaching in the Biblical Studies department named Jim Walters. I didn't actually take one of his classes, but we all knew him and looked up to him. His wife, Lynda, was diagnosed with MS in 1977. We all watched as he took care of her and loved her completely. She went to be with her Savior this past Thursday.

The article I'm linking to was written earlier this summer. Their story is an amazing one of what a marriage can look like and should look like, through sickness and health.

Absolutely worth the few minutes to read. Click here.

4 and counting

Happy Anniversary to my hubby!

I’m so thankful for you.

God blessed me wth an amazing man who is thoughtful, intelligent and funny. You’re a wonderful Daddy to Zoë. You consistently get up in the middle of the night to check on her if she wakes up. You take over babysitting duties when you know I need a break. You know what to say when I’m having an off day. You work so hard for us & never complain. You make amazing eggs for breakfast. 

2011 was a huge year. We've become true partners as we've stumbled our way through parenthood. I love that we're learning how together.

Thank you, God, for giving me the man of my dreams.

I can’t believe it’s been four years. Here’s to 4 times 4 times 4 more. Love you forever, babe.

then

 

now