Does your mate disappoint you and fail to live up to your
expectations? Do you make it a habit to let your spouse know that he/she is not
"good enough"? Do you put him/her down and complain ceaselessly?
This practice will backfire on you, because your spouse
will become disheartened and make less of an effort to please you and make you
happy. Of course, many of us are codependent and serve our mate tirelessly without
reciprocal behavior.
Then we burn out and feel like an abandoned "martyr",
until we run out of energy to put up with their neglect any longer. This leads
us to stew in our negative emotions so long, that we finally over-react
emotionally and cause a destructive scene that is indelibly marked on our
mate's memory and replays constantly in his/her mind.
The age-old, sage advice applies here, "You catch
more flies with honey than vinegar." In the past, I valiantly made an
effort to be kind. I used a job jar, homemade gift coupons, and requests for a
date in order to curb my emotional outbursts, and to kindly and humorously ask
for more focused attention.
Sometime our mate will listen to our pleas for a change
in our relationship and gladly alter their behavior to meet our needs. Others
will try for a while and then gradually go back to their former disappointing
way of relating to us. Then the third type of person will not try at all -
wounded by past experiences, or from our own attitude, they have no energy to
even try.
We reach an impasse, exist as roommates rather than
spouses, and neglect one another more often than not. Some of us get depressed
and others will construct their own lifestyle that takes them away from home
more and more often. Couple time is scarce to non-existent, and resentment
builds a huge, thick wall between us.
Only the Holy Spirit can inspire us to change our ways,
to prefer one another and to make our mate the most important person in our
life. He teaches us to simplify our life, to plan our schedule around God
first, our mate second, our family next, our church family, and then our
vocation after that.
This may cause friction at work, but we can explain our
priorities to our employer, giving him/her 40 hours of diligent work a week,
while taking personal time to date our spouse, attend our children's
performances and to participate in activities that fulfill our soul - our
thoughts, preferences and feelings.
Prayer:
Father God, You taught me that it is not necessary to
look to our spouse to complete us, fulfill us, or to meet our needs. He/she may
not be capable of supplying what we lack in our life. Help us to see that we
rob our self of this blessed fulfillment if we focus only on our self rather
than on one another.
This self-centered attitude and behavior gives others a
poor example of what a Godly relationship can actually look like. Help us to
stop viewing life only from our own perspective and to broaden our viewpoint to
include our spouse's needs as well. Remind us that if we hold on to our egocentric
actions and desires, we will never meld together as a couple that is capable of
fully serving You together as a team.
Thought for the Day:
Only as we focus on Christ in us, and follow His Spirit's
direction each moment of the day, can we ever hope to find true peace and joy
in this life and the next; we can meet our own needs at the same time that we
reach out to our spouse and help them to fulfill their desires, because the
more fulfilled they are, the more able they will be to reciprocate the
blessing.
