MEN(tal) breakdown, MEN(tal) anxiety, MEN(stral) cramps: MEN -it all starts with men

      Marriages do not always run smoothly. They take work. A LOT of work. My husband and I started out with challenges even in the beginning. We deal with separation yearly because of his military career. However, maintaining a long distance relationship is nothing new for my husband and me. We were friends for a year before we ever started dating. We both met at the same military base and maintained a relationship while I lived in Southern Ohio and he lived in Upstate New York. Our lives were separated by hundreds of miles. I will never forget how important it was for us to keep communication and to stay in contact. We usually saw one another one or two weekends a month if we were lucky. It was by no means, easy. We shared our lives through communication and learned to build trust through the constant phone calls. During those moments I dreamed of going on more dates and spending more time together in person. Looking back I am beyond grateful that we learned early on how to talk and get to know one another through our conversations. I feel that we learned to love one another for the condition of our hearts. We never had to deal with being blindsided by gifts. Well wait, now that I am thinking about it, the reality is he had it easy. He never had to spend money on frequent dates. I never even got the razzle dazzle of a giant overpriced dinner. I did however get breakfast delivered to my front door when he came in town or there were the quiet nights we spent at my home watching a movie and eating a delivered pizza. Those moments we love remembering.  Each month we would value the time together knowing it would be awhile before we could meet again. Those beginning circumstances truly prepared us for marriage and the frequent separation.

             The separation has gotten more challenging with children.

Such as now. This time around my girls have swapped back and forth a respiratory illness. There have been numerous nights where one finally falls asleep at 1 am and by 4 am another one is waking me up. The littlest is 17 months and on numerous occasions she has pushed me away and wandered through our entire house yelling for her poppa. Two nights ago she refused to be comforted and found her way upstairs to check for her poppa under our covers. My heart felt like it could not take much more. It took me over an hour to calm her spirit so she could fall asleep. If we are lucky enough to have good Internet service, then she falls asleep peacefully by the sound of his voice while on speaker phone. Thank goodness for a sitter so that several days a week all I do is sleep for hours. I am always so tired. These are just a few examples of how challenging life gets. However, there has been so much growth over the years from these deployments. I have gained knowledge about myself and have been able to see the good in mankind because of others kindness. Ultimately I have learned so much about my marriage. Here I sit separated from him. He is deployed to the Middle East and all over again we are maintaining our relationship through communication. Can I just be honest? This sucks!!! I would give up so much to have him home especially on those rough days where parenting is a struggle. Where the housework piles up and I just do not feel like being an adult. On those days more than anything l miss the convenience of having him close by to hug for some encouragement. Those small things are the very things I miss the most and yet most spouses take for granted on a daily basis. The moments where I am frustrated but he is around to help carry the burden. Sadly, I won’t get his help for another few weeks. His deployment ends in about 20 days. Man do I miss my husband! Can we just hit fast forward?

             There has been so much growth over the years. This trip I have reflected about when he is home. During those long stays at home we get into a routine. It is so easy to take his presence for granted. When we fell in love I always loved the way he stared at me. It was so easy to see how everything about him was wonderful, amazing and I always openly told him he was a good man. What man doesn’t puff up and soak up those heartfelt compliments? It strokes their ego. It is like a man who has a healthy relationship with his daughter. She lights up his eyes and a man just stares at his baby girl in a very different way than he will ever look at his son. Have you ever wondered why? Think about it. Every daughter has a gleam in her eye the minute her father walks into a room. Little girls will suddenly bomb rush their father before both feet come through the door. Where he goes, they follow closely behind just chatting away. The whole time they look at their father like he is the greatest man this world has to offer. They always tell their daddy how great he is and they view him as their hero. They don't see his faults. In return a man will try to lasso the moon for her if she were to ask. We as women did the same thing when we first fell in love. Our husbands would conquer us the world if it kept us happy.  Ladies, but let’s be real. As time passes we forget and those pesky issues start popping up for us to see. Suddenly we forget those positive traits about our man that we fell in love with and admired. We then lived together, we learned more about one another and as women we suddenly began focusing on the negative qualities.

You know, those irritating habits that grind on our nerves and rub us the wrong way?! Argh! Did he just leave dirty socks sitting on the bed? Did he throw his dirty clothes on the floor again? Did he leave another mess behind? Did the honeymoon period wear off and we suddenly feel like we are caring for a grown child? Take a minute to think, but in the big grand scheme, does any of it matter?

            My husband leaves every year and honestly I never once think about the negative qualities(at least not hardly). All I ever miss is his presence. I miss his hugs and his kisses. I miss all those simple things. I miss him always sitting down to listen to me talk on and on. Lord knows I can talk into his ear for hours. He is a quiet man and willingly sits for as long as I need him. He may not say much but he sure can listen.  I would give up so much just to be able to fall asleep next to him. He has always made sure that I feel safe and when he is around, I sleep soundly. I miss seeing him driving through our gate after 14hours of work. I miss him taking me on long car drives. I miss him just sitting down eating dinner with us as a family. I hate waking up every morning and not seeing that he made me breakfast. Instead I am left home thinking about how much I miss my husband and all those precious qualities that he brings to our marriage. Every night we eat dinner and there our daddy doll sits in his absence. My heart hurts to see his empty chair.  I value that he wakes up every day and goes to work in order to provide for our family. I miss having him around to keep up on the maintenance of our vehicles or to fix all the things that break around the house. His absence constantly forces me to view life with a different perspective. His deployments allow me to miss all his positive qualities.

            When he returns home that is all he usually hears. I build up his ego with an ear full of all the things I appreciate and value about him within our marriage.

Hear me out. We do still have days where we just irritate one another but I try to stay focused. Oh, did he just help in the kitchen? You will hear me congratulate him like he just won the lottery. Those habits are worth encouraging. I have learned that compliments lead him to help in other areas. He loves the compliments and truly enjoys knowing how much I value him and his help. It has not always been this way. I have had moments and there are still times that I start to have some negative nelly days. However, I have learned that if I focus on all the negatives, his positive qualities will slip through the cracks and go unnoticed. After awhile he will stop helping. That huge heart that I fell in love with will suddenly get lost. The good will disappear among the piles of dishes or forgotten about after I see his power tools sitting AGAIN on our kitchen table. We HAVE been there. He has seen the ugly inside of me. He has heard the negatives plus been there for the times I openly mentioned I wanted to change him. It is then that I start to see that sparkle in his eye for me begin to fade. Do you know that not once has he EVER wanted to change anything about me? If you ask him, every time he will say he wouldn’t change a thing. Now that is a powerful thought for me to consider at times. That to me tells the character of my husband, regardless. I pray that my husband never loses that sparkle in his eye for me. When he started too, those were scary times. It was then that I realized that instead of trying to change him, I needed to correct MY behavior. I couldn’t change my husband but I could change myself. To my surprise, he went right back to trying daily to lasso the moon for me even if I didn't ask.

            I pray that other women learn to appreciate their man for all his GOOD qualities so that he does not get lost among the rubble of negatives. If we don’t build them up then chances are they will be tempted to find someone else who will stroke their ego. Honestly we all have problems and irritating habits. What if your spouse were to go away? What if you had to spend long periods of time separated? Would any of those irritating habits even matter? How much of the small aspects would you miss?  Marriage is not easy. It takes work every single day. I place my marriage as a priority over my children some if not most days. The kids will one day grow up and live their life. However, I am connected to my spouse for life. That means we had better figure this out. Maybe if more people would try to change their own faults instead of changing their spouse, the world would have a lot happier people. The moral of the story; despite the dirty sock you might find for the 15^th time that was not in a laundry basket, be grateful for your husband. Appreciate what he DOES do around the house. 

When To Draw A Line In The Sand

      

            When we first bought our house, we found numerous peculiar things about the house. One of those being locks we found on almost every interior door. The doors all had latches that would go across each door and a few of them still had padlocks hanging from the latch. We never really noticed nor paid much attention when we did a walk through before buying the house. As odd as that may seem to not have noticed, it is true. The house was in pretty bad shape all over that there was plenty to look at. With all the doors sitting open, we never noticed. Discovering the locks took us by surprise once we bought this worn out fixer upper and with my vivid imagination, I ran a thousand possible what ifs by my husband as we tried to make sense of the padlocked doors. I could only conclude that the previous owner must have been some drug dealer who hid his stash of cash and/or goods inside. We were never quite prepared for the real story.

      Over the last year I ran into people here and there who happen to know us through “so and so” within the local community. Each person was born and raised within the same town so we began to generate several different background stories on the house. My husband and I really just shook most of the stories off because like all small towns they are filled with plenty of gossip. The gossip is always the same where there is two sides to every story and yet the truth lies right down the middle. However, despite my strong belief in trying to live right I am still human. I too get caught up in a good story and especially one that relates to us. All the stories we kept hearing were told almost exactly the same.  I could not help but fish for more information. I had a need to know and like most people I still find myself getting caught up in some downright dirty drama. That is life.

            Here goes the gist of the deal with our padlocked doors. The people drug me elbow deep into this story and I nearly fell off my seat from how juicy the details were even down to the affair. A couple previously lived here. The husband worked for the school district. I can leave out some other details or else it might get too personal. Anyhow his wife stayed home and was not allowed to work outside the home or drive. Whaaaattt? I know, right? Anyways apparently he started having an affair and it had gone on for years. The husband went as far as too even buy his mistress a new car. Mind blown! He ran off with her and left his wife here at the house and he took the kids. The kids got in the way so they got shipped back to their mom. The husband came back and kept locking doors and rooms just to keep his wife out of parts of the house. It got worse over time where he kept coming back and even pushing her more and more out of parts of the house. It got so bad that he and the kids ended up kicking and locking her out of her own home. Let that sink in for a minute.

            Scary and so very, very sad all at the same time. How in the world could that happen? I know I pondered over that.I see how not only was the guy the scum of the earth but let us look for a moment at the wife. She was so beaten down and so insecure that she failed for years to even have a voice. She failed to know her value and worth otherwise she would have never even allowed some man to drag her that far into such a messed up situation. The issues started prior to the man’s affair.

        I am by no means meek, mild and or quiet. I have been referred to occasionally as kind but bold. I have a bleeding heart that does and will break for anyone hurting, going through trials and I will do everything in my power to help those willing to help themselves. However, I know when I am being stepped on and I often find myself wishing I had sat on my hands. I stand up for those unable to speak for themselves. People close to me know I can speak up when pushed. Some have heard me call my own husband out on his nonsense. Of course I know which battles to pick and I know when to take a seat. He is the head of our house and I have nothing but the utmost respect for my husband. However, he can have off days where he lacks sleep and he can have days where his pants get a little too heavy.  I find him getting short with me and thinking he runs this ship alone. I have also over the years found him making just some poor choices and I know then and there it is time for me to let him know I disagree. My job and goal is too encourage him to be a better man and human being. I expect the same from him in return.

In the community around it seems that women are expected to be meek and to be mild and to let the husband run rampant when and where he feels necessary. Girls are taught or encouraged to be the weaker sex and to feel intimidated by boys. That mentality grows into adulthood. Ladies, teach your girls at a young age to be strong, to be fierce and to find themselves. Help them to love who they are and to encourage them that no means no and that their yes, means yes.There is absolutely nothing wrong with approaching your husband and out of a place of respect and love, letting him know you disagree. There is nothing wrong with knowing your value and if and when a situation arises where a man refuses to hear your opinion, take a walk. No woman should give up her voice, give up her dreams and more importantly, find herself locked within the confines of her own home. How incredibly sad. My heart breaks and yet it is a huge reminder to me that teaching my girls to maintain a voice is the right path. They know their likes, dislikes and are encouraged to speak those openly while maintaining their class.There is a line between standing up for yourself and being down right rude.

         To this day my husband laughs and brings up one Christmas long ago. A dear friend, bless her heart, but she bought me a book for Christmas. I guarantee at some point she showed up unannounced only to walk in and hear me giving my husband the business. She leads her life very differently and in return she felt compelled to buy me, “A Spirit Controlled Woman” as a Christmas gift. I took that as constructive criticism and read the book. I figured I had nothing to lose. The book only fueled me to realize that yes, in fact I do have a very free and strong willed spirit. It is who I am and God is teaching me daily. I have found tact and other ways to get a point across without stamping a foot and insisting immediate changes. However, you best believe that my husband knows where I stand. He knows that I won’t hesitate one second to speak up.

          I pray my girls grow up to be the same way. I pray they grow up to know how to look for a good man. A man with a kind heart and a willingness to better himself daily and a man willing to recognize that marriage is a unity that should be lived with both people equally playing a part. I hope that I guide them daily to trust God and to learn to recognize discernment so that if they do date a man with a controlling spirit that they learn to jump ship. No man is worth chasing after just to lose yourself. I hope you too will join me in helping to guide these young girls so that they never find themselves living with padlocks on their own doors.
-Sarah