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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Peaceful and stressfree

This pregnancy, just about every day I can't help but feel blessed.  I feel blessed I have the wonderful kids I do and that I have the wonderful husband I do. 

When I was pregnant with Peter - I did not feel this way.  Sure, I felt blessed to have Rebekah.  But William was under a huge amount of pressure (financially) and we weren't in a good place relationship-wise.  It wasn't by any means rock bottom, but I would dare say we weren't healthy either.

And we have both been noticing the "health" in our marriage lately.  You can't help but not.

I'm not going to speak and say what changed for William.  I have no idea.  I know what changed for me...I took a class called "Love and Respect".  It was through church and we watched the video series.  William took it with me.  Each day after class we'd get in the car to go home and I'd say "So...points A, B and C that we learned about men today?  Are they true?"  William would reply "Yep".

It was all completely new information for me...totally foreign concepts that I had never ever heard before.  For example, men are respect driven.  And when William says "Hey, I was thinking about doing this home project this way..." and I reply "I don't think that is a good idea, how about this way?", he hears it as me not respecting him.  Which in turn hurts his feelings.  It would be if as if he were to say "Ya know Miriam, that outfit makes you look fat."  Uh yeah.  That would hurt my feelings.

Respect is to love.  Women hear love.  Men hear respect.

I learned so much, and if I have the opportunity I'd totally take the class (or conference) again.  It was the first time I heard the information and so I'm sure there is more to learn and more I've forgotten.  I've been thinking of picking up the book too, as a refresher.  Even though things are really good with my relationship, I do want to be a good wife.  And I think learning to speak a "language" that William understands is just one little thing I can do.

After the class, I prayed for William from a little card they gave us.  And between those two things I saw God perform some rather large changes in our lives and our relationship.

Anyway...I have just been pondering the differences in attitude.  I can't help but tell William nearly daily how much I appreciate having him as a husband.  This doesn't mean I don't get irritated.  There is a sink full of dirty dishes right now I find very irritating.  But this doesn't mean I don't appreciate having him as my husband.  :-)

1 comment:

AshleyC said...

Good to hear. Good to know this baby is blessed by all the good "vibes" around him/her! I was telling our neighbor (who just got engaged) about the Love & Respect stuff--- thinking the same thing. I feel like things are great---but I'm sure I've forgotten A LOT! :-)