Humble Pie

In my last post, I talked about an experience through prayer that I think will help me finally move past the anger.

Here is what happened:

After my amazing experience at group on Sunday, I came home and Ben acted like a complete jerk because I got home later than he expected and the little man really wanted his mama to help get him to bed. So, he was screaming, and Ben was stressed and maxed out and couldn't handle it anymore. We've since talked about it and things are okay now, but Sunday night and Monday morning "Ben is a jerk" was in my head. So I was, um, really mad. To put it nicely.

I had a really good Monday, though. I went out with a friend from my group. We went to Babies R Us and Joann's. By the time I got home, I was feeling much better about life. My back was achy though (remember how my back completely went out about a week and a half ago?). But I took a nap with the little man, and by the time we were done with that, Ben was done with work. Awesome. I had big plans to clean and start getting things ready for our trip to Utah.

Ben said he had a headache. Not too long later, he said his whole body was achy. Then it escalated from achy to "I really don't feel good at all. Everything hurts." And I kind of flipped.

I've been really angry for the past five months. I've been struggling to love him and feel dedication to making things work in our marriage. I've kind of just been passively floating. So I did NOT feel like I had it in me to take care of him. Or do anything without him, for that matter. I was angry that he felt sick because that meant I had to do dinner, clean, and keep the little man entertained (he gets pretty fussy at night) ALL BY MYSELF.

It wasn't Ben's fault. He felt sick. I knew he wasn't faking it, but I was still just SO MAD that I really wasn't very nice to him. Then I felt guilty because when I get sick, or like when my back went out, he has always taken very good care of me. Why couldn't I return the favor? Because I have been mad at him for basically five months.

I was so irritated at myself for feeling so mad about Ben feeling sick. But also irritated at God that He let Ben get sick. So I put the little man in his bouncer and went into another room to pray. I started sobbing uncontrollably and just repeated over and over that I couldn't do this, that everything had been so heavy for so long, and I just couldn't handle Ben being sick and me having to be nice and compassionate to him.

My prayer went like this:

"Please, God, make him better! I can't do this!" *cries*

God: "Yes you can. I'm right here, it will be okay."

"No it won't! I can't do this! Please don't make me do this tonight!"

God: "You can. You just don't want to."

"You're right. I don't want to! Please don't make meeee!"

He told me during my prayer that He was helping more than I realized, that He was answering my prayers to help me love Ben more. Love is developed through charity. And He was giving me the opportunity to selflessly love and serve Ben, just as He has always served me.

You can't really argue with that. So I gave up arguing with Him and just accepted His embrace. Then I got up and got to work. Thankfully, the little man was pretty happy in his bouncer for a while, so I did some major cleaning. When he started getting fussy, we went for a walk, and that helped hold him over for a bit more so I could keep cleaning after we got back. Ben had taken a nap, and when he woke up, I was able to humbly apologize for being such a stink about him being sick, and we had a really good evening together.

I had a real change of heart last night. I went from irrationally angry to peaceful and loving because of my communication with God. I felt Him by my side the whole night, just like He promised. I felt my love increase a lot as a result of my prayer and understanding from my communion with God.




Lately, I've had this thought about our relationship: Ben is the one ruining things. He has to be the one to make it better. It's not up to me. I've done all I can do. Remember that time I did the Love Dare? I did the Love Dare even though I'm not the one destroying our marriage. It's his. effing. turn.

That's not very Christlike. Obviously, I'm not going to do anything stupid, and I'm really going to make efforts to have boundaries and stuff so I'm not enabling his addiction. But I've been begging God for help, and He told me that the answer is Christlike love. Service. Charity. 

So I'll take a little slice of that humble pie and press onward.

And I do feel way less angry than I did last week.

Satan is already attacking me. So I'm working on keeping an eternal perspective and keeping Satan's attempts at destroying us at bay.