"Where, O Where, Are You Tonight?"

                “Why did you leave me here all alone?  I searched the world over and thought I found true love.  You met another; and pfft, you were gone.”  I remember watching the TV show “ Hee Haw” as a child, and this was one of the reoccurring songs that my brother still finds funny to this day.  My dad let us watch it along with a few other shows he enjoyed, but I remember my mom really disliking this show.  From what I remember besides money, TV was one of my parent’s main sources of conflict.  My mom would call the TV the “boob tube” with great disgust and only turned it on to watch the weather.  Every marriage goes through conflict.

                In Jill Savage’s new book, No More Perfect Moms, she talks about the impossibilities of a perfect marriage.  She says, “If we’re honest, real marriage brings our ‘yuck’ to the surface.  Selfishness and pride raise their ugly heads in the everday life of a normal marriage.  After all we like things the way we like them.  Our way is the right way.  Our rationale is always more logical than our spouse’s rationale.  Right?”  She goes on to talk about how pride really is at the core of many of our problems by saying, “Perfect marriages don’t exist because they are made up of two imperfect people.  Unfortunately, pride keeps us from admitting just how imperfect we are.”  The chapter tells about more of her own challenges in her marriage along with resources for dealing with divorce, infidelity, pornography issues, and male depression.  This is coming from someone who has experienced pain, even recently.  She talks very openly in her book about her husband’s decision a little over a year ago to walk out on her and their family.  I really admire her honesty and willingness to share about her personal life because in many ways we can all relate.

                The lines about pride have resonated with me recently because of some conflict that I’ve experienced with my husband.  He expressed to me his desire for me to come to bed at the end of the day with him.  I’ve been aware of this desire for the past few months, but I’ve really struggled not falling asleep when I cuddle my little ones at their bedtimes.  What I never really considered, until he pointed it out, was that this has been an ongoing problem since we were first married.  At first, I was furious and could only see my point of view (and I had a million reasons/excuses).   I felt like he had no perspective on how hard it was for me to accomplish this.  I apologized, but I honestly struggled with the criticism.  I don’t take criticism very well.  The next day, I still felt grumpy about it while I ran…but the more I prayed about it the more I realized how wrong I really was.  This was one area that would really help my hubby feel like a priority, so why was I being so stupid about it?  Wouldn’t I want him to change if something he was doing (or not doing) was making me feel like low man on the totem pole?  I love my hubby.  He is my best friend.  It’s time to be intentional about a change, so he no longer has to ask the question, “Where, o where, are you tonight?”

                What about you?  Is there anything that pride is getting in the way of you changing?