Bittersweet

I felt uneasy after rereading my last post.
Not the whole thing...just that first part where I made mention of the fact that-

"my husband is not someone I can or would want to, share things with. It's a long story..."

It IS a long story and I'm not going to share the whole of it here, just a bit so you get my drift.
Some of you may know that he is dry...meaning sober, but that he has never gone to AA.
Suffice it to say that if you know anything about AA or Al Anon, you'll know what this means.
His behavior is still a bit askew, and he never found the humility he needed to fully recover.
He doesn't drink anymore, which is great!  but that is/was the only change that he made.
With that, I will say that he is not a bad man. Perhaps he is only a spiritually sick man.

I stopped confiding in him a long time ago. He is not the keeper of my secrets. He is not my best friend.
I know this hurts him but it cannot be helped.
He has, in the past, used my words and thoughts and fears against me, as if he was wielding a weapon.
I have learned to be wary around him when it comes to my personal, private, emotional self.

To put it another way, some of the things that rattle me and cause me to be ungrounded and feel anxious about, come directly from him. 
Again!!   he's not a bad man. Nor does he do these things on purpose. To be honest, he is a sad man.
A very unhappy man. A very dry and sober man who never found the spiritual aspect of a program that would have changed him and his life for the better.

We have been married for 35 years him and I.  Ours is a bittersweet relationship.
We make do. It isn't perfect, and there are some days.....
But I still feel that stomach flippy thing when I see his truck pull into the driveway after work.
And he has always smelled like heaven to me.
He can and does make me laugh quite a bit.
When we are on our Harley life is wonderful and we both notice God's beauty all around us.
We get along great when we ride together, he leans back and rests his hand on my thigh, I lean forward and kiss his neck.

It's the other 350 days a year where I stare at him and wonder how can a body be so fucking miserable all the time.
His job, his boss, his mother, our sex life, the weather forecaster being wrong..again, the weather itself- too rainy, cloudy, humid, foggy, snowy, windy, hot, cold.
Some days I am at a loss as to how to help him.
I usually stand there with a frozen half smile pasted on my face while he rants and rants and rants at the injustices that are always assailing him.
It. Is. Exhausting. to listen to this All. The. Time.

A faithful man shall abound with blessings...-Proverbs 28:20 (KJV)

They say that the person who irritates you the most is your mirror.
Well shit.

Everyone Is Your Mirror

When I decided to take a step back and took a deeper look into him, this was what I saw:

Insecurities and low self-esteem make us ugly.

Our social anxieties prevent us from enjoying the beauty in both ourselves and others.

When I notice the way he dwells on certain areas of life, not only do I feel sad but I realize what I actually see is my own reflection.

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself”.

The imperfections in other people that trigger us the most are the imperfections we loath in ourselves.

Because they are mostly repressed, studying our hatred towards these people can help us come clean with who we actually are.

Thanks to his low self-esteem, I’ve come to embrace and deal with mine.

Our own reflection in others shows us not only who we are, but also how to be better. ~Kolyanne Russ

I don't hate him. I dislike his constant complaining.
And yet what do I do here on this blog but constantly complain?

Mirror, Mirror on the wall....

******************************************************************

So this morning as I was reading one of my many devotionals, I came across this prayer by Brian Doyle and it struck a nerve.

Dear Lord,

Give me the strength and peace and joy

 to love steadily and consistently

 and well and openly for all the days of my life.

It caused me to wonder and it drew me up short...Wow. 

I never pray for my husband. 

Not in that way at least. 

I've prayed for him to quit drinking.

I've prayed for him as he fought fires.

I've prayed for him to shut the hell up.

I've prayed that he would love me the way I need to be loved.

I've never prayed to steadily love my husband. 

I've never prayed to Jesus to help me love my husband well and openly.

Why don't I ever pray for him to be a happier man? A good and faithful servant? 

A pleasant person to be around, a contented worker and coworker?

Six months ago I bought Stormie Omartian's book The Power of a Praying Wife.

And promptly put it on my bookshelf and never looked at it again.

Today I climbed up there and got it down.

I'm thinking that if I want my husbands outlook to change, if I want him to be able to feel better about himself, if I want to look myself in the face in that mirror, I had better get started on this book.

Reading the table of contents itself blew me away.

 1. His Wife

 2. His Work

 3. His Finances

 4. His Sexuality

 5. His Affection

 6. His Temptations

 7. His Mind

 8. His Fears

 9. His Purpose

 10. His Choices

 11. His Health

 12. His Protection

 13. His Trials

 14. His Integrity

 15. His Reputation

 16. His Priorities

 17. His Relationships

 18. His Fatherhood

 19. His Past

 20. His Attitude

 21. His Marriage

 22. His Emotions

 23. His Walk 

 24. His Talk

 25. His Repentance

 26. His Deliverance 

 27. His Obedience

 28. His Self-Image

 29. His Faith

 30. His Hearing 

 31. His Future

I'd say God is pointing me in a direction that I should go.

The Power of a Praying Wife....I like that title.

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly