I have to apologize for skipping the Marriage Monthly the last few weeks. Wedding season was in full force as was the wrap up to the school year, but I am back on track! 🙂 Honestly at times I have a hard time deciding what to share. Because it is vulnerable to share about your marriage and faults at times. And while I want to be fully transparent about things, I also want to think through what I share to make sure it is truly helpful. 🙂
Today’s marriage advice comes from where all great things do- late night chats. Travis and I are notorious for our late night chats. You know, when you promised you were really going to go to sleep this time, but something else popped in your head that you just had to talk about. And next thing you know its been about 2 hours and you just wrapped up a deep and meaningful conversation. This happens to us all the time. Some of our greatest growth in business or parenting or our marriage is in those chats. (see our thoughts on communication here!!).
One night we were laying in bed talking about life. And I asked a simple question that I have asked him a million times. “How can I be a better wife to you?” And he always answers “you already are.” Which is sweet, but I needed more. You know? I have been on a mission of self-improvement and I really wanted to understand the areas of my marriage that I can improve. So I changed the question. “How can I be a more GODLY wife to you?” And while I won’t be sharing his answer, because that is between us, I will share what that conversation did for us. When we started to think in the context of being a GODLY spouse, our views changed. And I started to think that 99% of the time when I am upset with Travis as a spouse, it is rooted in the wrong things.
For example. When I started to think of things that have upset me about Travis, I realized that they were usually selfishly motivated. Something I WANTED that he wasn’t giving. Example- gifts. Gifts are my love language and I look forward to them. And a lot of holidays he would skip the gift and instead take me shopping to pick out something myself. And for years, I didn’t say anything but it upset me because I missed that element of surprise. BUT when I looked at that situation with new eyes, I could see that was selfishly motivated. Gifting didn’t make Travis a more Godly spouse. He was still loving and serving me. He still celebrated me. The gift was just something I wanted.
This was eye opening for me. Because sometimes I get so tied up into my emotions it is hard to see clearly. But when you give it that new context, it makes it easy. While this conversation started with me wanting to know something to do to be a better spouse, I instead got a new way to THINK. Now when I feel angry or upset, I look to see if I am upset because I am not getting my way or is he truly acting in an ungodly way? It changes your perspective. 🙂
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