All posts in Marriage Monday

My husband can’t read my mind. My husband can’t read my complex or masking emotions. SPELL IT OUT FOR HIM and please stop assuming things about him… ask!

I used to hurt Garnet every time I was hurting. Why? Because I would burst asunder with many intertwined issues that I needed to communicate about after cramming for too long. I would try to be strong… I would thus come across as at first cold and then angry and how could he assume anything else but that he was being accused or blamed?

I had developed a habit of hiding my feelings, then when the cramming couldn’t be contained I would mask them with anger. My theory was anger hurt me less (I eventually learned this less pain for me was at the expense of my husbands feelings). I felt anger made me come across as strong, even when revealing hurts and worries (emotions I believed to be weak). I assumed men preferred this and saw tears and fears as manipulative… thus I told myself I was doing my man a favor.

Garnet is unique, as all men are, and yet has basic male tendencies, as all men do. Because he is unique I never should have assumed the assumptions I had about men lined up with him perfectly. Because he has basic male tendencies he wants to be my hero and find solutions right away. For him to feel like I was attacking him made him feel the failure and hopeless in the finding a solution part.

One day HE figured me out. In the midst of one of my moments he pointed out that everything came out anger and he was tired of trying to discern what was really behind that. ‘Trust me enough to be vulnerable and real,’ he asked and with that my anger wall crumbled.

To love him more I have learned to be honest with my emotions, clear with my issues, and not a crammer till the dam of emotions are so intertwined they burst forth like a flood.

If you really love your husband let him love you and be vulnerable with him, when your pain or worries make you feel that way.

(pssst, please note: I recommend you go to my music play list on the right side panel and select Fernando Ortega’s song STORM, to listen to while reading this.)

The most beautiful things in life are often something one has to strive for and seek out with great effort. Beauty can be simply hard to find. The fact is, things that are lovely become BEAUTIFUL with hard work involved. We will treasure the beauty we find when the path has been long and difficult… it is just human nature to appreciate the dawn more because of the darkness it followed.

There are times in my marriage where I feel intense love and desire for my man that can only be compared to the years of our young romance before marriage. The word spark is often used for such feelings but I feel more like they are an explosion in my heart. It is a fire that makes my heart feel too small, an urge that makes it unbearable not to be with him, a stabbing pain that makes me tear up with joy to touch him. I find these times in life BEAUTIFUL! I treasure them all the more after many many years of marriage and I feel blessed with them, as one receiving a very valuable gift, when I reflect on all the hard times we have had.

There have been deserts in our marriage, I believe we are not unique in that regard. When we make it through still holding on to one another we are often tattered and warn, broken and bruised, dirty and just plain unlovable in many regards… and yet… with a little time to heal, a little repose from the battles we find time to build a fire again… we didn’t give up, we fought for the oasis… now we fan that flame when we have the chance and we enjoy the beauty of a crazy long lasting love.

When I thought about the suggestion of ‘beauty’ as a topic this week this concept filled me up till I felt burdened to release it. Listening to my husband play his piano, a moody passionate piece I must add, has greatly aided my paper and pen time today.

I just want to close with the idea that if a marriage is still together it is BEAUTIFUL.

I strongly believe the three above statements aid greatly in the necessary but sometimes difficult area of trust building in the marriage.

Because my husband and I where friends first we talked about everything and still do. Today he remains very much my best friend. When something happens, good or bad, my fault or my victory, I naturally want to tell him first. When I need help it is he I rely on first. When I am in need of advice, again, it is my husband I seek out. He has earned my trust and this role of best friend by being my best friend. He values my salvation, my person, our friendship and our marriage. I think I already expressed how being friends makes the necessary quantity of communication happen easier. It also makes quantity of time spent together easier to do willingly. I can’t think of anyone I would want to hang out with more. Despite bad experiences in married life, if there is friendship, communication and lots of time spent together, loving and valuing one another, the trust will grow.

I would like to say it has been easy but, as I mentioned before, all the practical advice just HELPS in the growth of trust.

It takes a lot of faith, and my husband and I choose to put that in Jesus Christ. We are both very much human. With our backgrounds trying to define how we process the now we can often be geared in different situations to be mistrustful, even of our life long lover. We will also fail one another. It is to be expected. When the mistake has been made it will take great faith to see beyond the hurt, beyond the harm and toward trust. These are the moments of true trust growth. When we are hurt by our lover it is all the more painful because of who they are and to choose to love and trust in spite of the wrong is when it all really counts.

Finally, I find trusting myself to be often a harder task then trusting my husband. I am all to aware of my faults and I fear hurting him or continuing to hurt him. Again, faith is what helps me carry on when I have been the one to cause harm or cut away at our trust. I don’t think I would continue to trust myself in this relationship if not for the transformation power that is available in Christ, for me just as much as it is available for my husband.

Christ can change any and every part of who I am for the better and so that is what makes me worthy of putting trust in. It makes my husband, my Garnet, worthy of trust. It makes our marriage a commitment worth trusting in.

TTFN