a year of love

we argued last night and it made me feel hurt. you felt hurt by me also and said words that stung deeper than you knew…you called me disrespectful. you had planned a “date” for us to go to your work for a guitar clinic and i jokingly said “thats not a date, that’s your thing!” and it hurt your feelings, making you feel that i am never satisfied by you. later when we got into a conversation about it, i interrupted you and got riled up and you felt unsafe by that. 

i’ve been studying respect and i’m realizing where i’m falling short. but i’m not giving up. i can’t. i know that pivotal growth is taking place right now and i know i need to change. i hope you never call me disrespectful again because i’m not that woman. or maybe i am. but i certainly don’t want to be.

LORD change me!QUICK!! seriously…ugh. i don’t like the ME in your eyes….i wouldn’t have married her.

ok, so tonight i will continue my intentional acts of love. we have marriage counseling tonight, then we are going to some friend’s of our’s house to worship and hang out.

so i’m not exactly NERVOUS to write this post (ok, maybe a little…) and mostly for the fact that i know strangers are reading it and i guess this post is more for them, since you already know, which is fine, they don’t know me or you but its just a hard thing all around. BUT…

the reason you sleep in a separate bedroom right now and have since Jan 13th is because on that weekend, on 2 different occasions, i put my hands on you, and not in a loving manner. the first time, we were in the car and we were in a heated argument and when you wouldn’t let me get out of the car, i hit you in your chest. what made it especially damaging is the fact that you had chest surgery a month before and were still recovering. the other thing i did was the next day, in yet again another heated argument, after you were cussing in my face and then you accidentally broke my phone, i lost it and started hitting again, this time in your head.

we are on the road to recovery, so to speak, a type of “marriage ER” but the aftermath has been hard. this was one of the reasons i started this blog. i need to back up and remember what matters. that i DO love you. that i was wrong. that i truly am sorry.

so now, on the other side, you don’t trust me still, sleep separately still and feel unsafe around me at times. and i totally understand it. i dont like it but i get it.

we have both apologized and repented and we are seeing a counselor together (as well as separate therapists) but i just wanted to make the admission here. no, i don’t have it all together and i am the farthest farthest thing from the perfect wife. but i love you,my husband. and i want to be a GREAT wife to you and i will do what it takes to love you, understand you, acknowledge you and MOST importantly respect you better and better each day.

saturday evening, i stumbled upon the Mars Hill Church app on my phone, downloaded it and discovered that they are in the middle of a sermon series on….marriage! how surprised i was and very interested to learn more, so i began listening to the first sermon entitled “new marriage, same spouse”. when i started listening to it, after hearing the first line that was something along the lines of “marriage starts out in the bible [between adam & eve] as a war”, which was exactly what i had just been telling someone earlier that day describing how i felt our marriage was now, six months in, and i knew that i had stumbled upon something great, something deeper than just me listening. so i sent you a text saying that i had something i wanted us to watch together about marriage and i was going to wait for you.

so sunday, after church, when we got home, we ate lunch and had a picnic in the driveway and we did a bible study that you found online that focused on : psalm 1 &  2 tim 3:16 and we answered questions and really focused on the difference being a tree planted by water and the chaff that is discarded. we had a good discussion then we ended up watching “new marriage, same spouse” from pastor mark driscoll, mars hill church.

seriously…it may be a life changing message. we watched the first 2 messages together and the 3rd one, which focuses on “men & marriage” you watched by yourself (mostly because i fell asleep lol). the first one focused more on intro’ing the series and the pastor and his wife giving their marriage testimony and talking about what they entered marriage with, baggage and sins and all. they talked about coming from different types of families of origin and how it affects the new family you are trying to start.

the 2nd message was called “friend with benefits” and talked about how your spouse is your first friend beyond Jesus. he posed the question “how is your friendship with your spouse?” we had a great conversation about where we feel each other is at as a friend and we talked about ways to enhance and work better at our friendship, after all, we were best friends way before we were ever together.

we had a great saturday together. we got to sleep in and although we are still sleeping in separate beds, we still got good rest, sleeping 3 extra hours than we normally get—it was GREAT and much needed. we hung out a little and made coffee and breakfast then you did my hair. we went to church to go to a wedding shower for our friends and then we went back home. we ended up sitting in the driveway and talking for about an hour or so and thats where my “love act” was.

i opened up and you opened up. we had another one of those “breakthrough/revelatory” conversations that really speaks to both of us and where we realize something pivotal about ourselves and how it impacts our marriage. you admitted that you have had a hard time trusting me because of past things….things from 3 years ago that i did before we were even together officially. you said you hadn’t really looked at it from the point of view of us not being together then because your heart was mine even if it wasn’t “official”. but you want to trust me. and i said that i don’t truly  believe you have ever forgiven me…for a lot of things. you reassured me that you have, but that you must forgive me again.

so my saturday “love act” i believe, was listening. i tried my hardest not to argue with you or express what i disagreed about but i made an attempt to hear your heart and allow you to speak, free of interruption or conflict.

i can’t remember anything specific that i did on friday besides keeping our home straight and continuing to maintain what i started.

well yesterday, i was tired when i got home and couldn’t think of something specific and super significant to “love” you with, but i thought “maintenance is key” with this new organization thing i’m going for. i made sure dishes were washed, i chopped and froze some bananas for you (you use them in your smoothies) and i made sure our clothes were put away, keeping our extra room clean and straight.

this afternoon, you sent me this IM:

you: Thank you… u made me feel really loved with cleaning and freezing bananas and stuff and the bedding and the [sandwich] last nite and the laundry. Thank you.

 me:  awww! i forgot to tell ya about the bananas

you: Thank you lady. Means a lot to me.

when i got home, you were already at work but since i am focusing my “love acts” on cleanliness and organization for now, i finished laundry that i started yesterday and put the towels up, finished cleaning the kitchen, cleaned out the fridge (mostly), folded up your clothes and put them away, washed your bedding, cleaned the bathroom and made you dinner so it was waiting for you when you got home. this morning, you thanked me for your dinner last night and i reminded you that i also washed your bedding.  i could have gone without reminding you that but i got so excited that i felt like i’m making progress.

i left you a note on your door that said “i will be by your side forever and ever. i love you. no matter what.” i also left you a note on your bedside table that said “welcome home” and refilled your “middle-of-the-night” water cup.

its funny to me that even though its only been one day, i now keep find 129387377462182763 more things to do…this will be a very productive year lol.

last night we went to marriage counseling for the first time. we had a good session and you seemed hopeful for us. then we got home…and fought. we ended the night early, me going upstairs to our room and you sleeping downstairs in the guest room where you have slept for the last 4 weeks. i have vowed to renew our covenant with a year of loving you intentionally, on purpose, mindfully and as completely as i can with the help of Holy Spirit. i love you so much and feel inadequate lately but i know that God is for us and we will be stronger soon.

{not forsaking small starts…}

this morning i thought “well, what’s my first day of “love acts” going to be if we got in a fight last night and never really got over it?”

well, apologizing is my obvious answer. i apologized this morning but i don’t know how it was really received.

i also washed the dishes so they wouldn’t be left in the sink all day and i started to clean off the kitchen counter which is one of your pet peeves.

i am messy and not an organized person, but in the coming weeks, that will be my focus of ‘love acts” because you are very organized and you really hate my messiness.