I started writing a post on a completely different topic because I guess I didn’t want to get too personal-as in, talk about my marriage. Ironic, since I can so easily talk about the hard things in mothering as evidenced by yesterday’s post. Apparently, I have more inhibition when it comes to talking about hard things in marriage.
Here we go. My husband and I have a pretty incredible relationship. There is so much love, respect, support, and compassion. I honestly feel like we are at a 10 most of the time. But I won’t go on and on about how wonderful he is because that isn’t the subject of today’s post. Once in a while though, something small will happen that will hurt my feelings or his feelings. Things will be said that make one of us (or both of us) feel like the other person doesn’t care about us, respect us, or appreciate us. We will try to repair things, but it will usually take a few days. There isn’t yelling or arguing, just pulling back and being quiet. This happened a few days ago. We were having a conversation over whether we should pay for part of the cost for our kids to go to dances or not. We have a family economy system where our kids pay for almost all of their own things: clothes, shoes, dates, activities, treats, birthday presents for friends, gas, car, etc. Our son was going to his first dance soon, and I was surprised by how much the dance ticket and corsage were. I felt it was beneficial for our kids to go to the dances, and I wondered if we should pay for those things. My husband disagreed. Which was fine. But what wasn’t fine was that in the course of the conversation he said things in a way that made me feel bad, and I said things in a way that made him feel bad. We ended without a resolution and both of us falling asleep on our separate side of the bed. Over the next couple of days, attempts were made to reconcile, but we weren’t successful. We both weren’t feeling enough love.
I took some youth from church to the temple last night and sat praying and pondering about an entirely different question I wanted help with while I waited for the girls. I pulled out the scriptures sitting in front of me and started reading, hoping I would receive an answer to my question. God gave me an answer, but not to my question. He gave me clarity about what was happening with my husband and what I needed to do. I was reading about two prophets who had been imprisoned. The prison was full of people who had come to mock and torment them. In the scenes that followed, the people were surrounded with a mist of darkness and they couldn’t see what was happening around them. They couldn’t see the light that was surrounding the prophets. As they sought understanding, the darkness lifted and they saw that everyone, including themselves, were surrounded by light.
As I read this story, I felt it related to my life and what was happening in my relationship with my husband. We have the potential to do a lot of good in this world, and we want to! But we won’t be doing any good if we are caught up in feeling bad because we think our spouse doesn’t love, respect, or appreciate us. As I sat in the temple, I could clearly see the ridiculousness of feeling like that. Of COURSE we love each other. Of COURSE we respect each other’s opinion. Of COURSE we appreciate each other. We’ve been together for almost 20 years. There is 20 years worth of evidence that he loves me, respects me, and appreciates me. Sure there might be a handful of circumstances that might stand as proof for the opposite, but there is absolutely no way that such a small amount can even compare to the overwhelming amount of evidence that says he loves and cares for me. As I sat pondering this, it seemed so silly and juvenile that we would ever get upset and have hurt feelings because we felt like the other one didn’t care about us. Completely silly.
I know that there are works that God has in mind for us to do. I also know that the adversary wants to prevent us from accomplishing them. Surrounding us in a mist of darkness that makes us feel like our spouse doesn’t love and care about us makes it so we are unable to see and follow the light. It stops us, prevents us, blocks us from all that God has in mind for us. I don’t want that. I don’t want to be shut down. So from now on, whenever I start to feel sad or hurt because I think my spouse doesn’t care about me, I’m just going to tell myself I’m being ridiculously silly and move on. Because of COURSE he cares about me. No question.
Work In Progress 