Marriage Confession!
Still pregnant! with a MARRIAGE CONFESSION! Through this decade of marriage to my amazing man…I’ve struggled with my wife game.
The early years were the worst. I’d scramble to find churches with confession, often multiple times in the same week! I couldn’t understand how I could be so unloving, so unwilling to apologize?
Finally, one priest woke me up, “You need to stop. Look at your husband, he is your vocation! If you don’t start putting him first, and keep letting the devil in, this isn’t going to last.”
Truth bomb. Far from a day and night conversion, it was the necessary reality check. I couldn’t lose him! I went to a counselor and started to study marriage. What were successful marriages doing I was missing? I’d go the marriage book section at Barns & Noble for hours taking notes. Binged marriage podcasts, learned our temperaments, love languages, and studied relationships. Made my own “pillars of marriage” document, listed our individual gifts, & dreamt of how our marriage could witness to the world.
Biggest lesson: Good marriages don’t just happen. They require effort, prayer, and community. Good marriages are not free from confrontations or arguments. They do include more prayer, more respect, more communication, more date-nights, more intimacy, more forgiveness. Love is a VERB.
I still fail. At best, he gets my 4pm off-camera meltdowns. But perfection isn’t the goal. “A saint is a sinner who keeps trying!”
Like I teach in healthcare, “Knowledge is power.” Learning, mentoring, therapy for our marriage is worth it!
This Thanksgiving, let’s be intentional with our men! Some small ideas:
Print a picture of you & him for the fridge, your wallet, journal or bedside table.
Set a reminder in your phone for 2pm, the afternoon funk, to say a prayer to St. Joseph for him.
Write a note of the ways you’re grateful for him in 2020. Give it to him Wednesday night when kids are asleep.
Plan a last 2020 date-night
Good, mothering, good culture, good holidays – start with good marriages
What are your #husbandgratitude plans???
