"Love...is an Endurance Sport"

The wise Pastor Brown of Grace UCC dropped this sweet nugget of brilliance on us yesterday at church: "Love requires stamina; it is an endurance sport."  Amen to that!  I am sure that he delivered a lot of other soundbites of priceless wisdom, but mostly I could not hear him over the ruckus created by one Ms. Brooke Nicole Holler.  Nevertheless, that one little snippet stayed with me, as it seemed the perfect way to gracefully begin my discussion of the delightful, awful struggle that is my marriage.

First of all, I am not naive enough (anymore) to believe that I am the only one who struggles in her marriage; I do not expect a pity party...well, maybe a little one.  Thing is, if love is an endurance sport, you should feel bad for me because my husband is a freaking ATHLETE!  If I am trying to endure him...let alone keep up with him...it is going to take strenuous cross-training!

My stamina coaches tend to be my mama and my friend, Laura.  Laura lent me a book a few years ago that really has changed my marriage for the better: Created to be his Helpmeet, by Debi Pearl.  In a nutshell, it is a Biblical look at what it really means to be a wife.  Reading it was an eye-opener for me--in some ways it offended my senses, hurt my feelings, and kicked my butt.  I cannot say that I agree with everything that Debi Pearl said, but I can say that out of desperation to improve my marriage and my satisfaction with my role as a wife, putting her suggestions into action worked wonders for us.  Period.  (My mama was very skeptical about this course of action; she did try it for a little while in her marriage, but I do not think that it worked out for her.  Fortunately, she has a beach cottage to escape to...and, as yet, Greg and I have only this ONE house, so we still need Debi...)

Anywho, instead of trying to be the leader of our family and manage EVERYTHING, I tried instead giving over the leadership role to Greg.  I took control of running our home, itself.  I made my best effort not to criticize or argue with him unnecessarily.  Basically, I started to show him respect, as my husband and the father of my children.  This does not sound like Earth-shattering secret news, and it is not.  Honestly, it really never occurred to me before to treat a spouse with this reverence...which is basically the reverence that you with which you naturally treat your children.  I never gave him the best of me before: he got what was left over...if there was any.

Debi said that if you treat your husband this way, he will begin to CHERISH you.  I want nothing more than to be cherished...  So, as I said, Debi was pretty much spot-on.  I did an experiment, quitting cold-turkey all of the nit-picking and criticizing and arguing over dumb stuff...I quit asking him for help around the house...I started treating him like the leader of our family...and he really did come around.  Literally.  Instead of staying out late, he began to come home.  He bragged to his friends about me.  I was cherished.  It was awesome!

I guess I need to read the book again NOW because in this endurance race of love, I am laying along the road, writhing in pain from a side-stitch, fumbling around for my Gatorade...and Greg, well, he took a little too well to the reverence..got a little drunk on the power of my reverence...  He is charging past me, barely breaking a sweat, a pill-popping Lance Armstrong most days.  As I have (at least partially) mentioned in previous posts, our arguments are four:

1.  The "what-did-you-do-today?" variety, in which he undermines the value and rigorousness of my daily  work of keeping our house and our children in pristine condition.
2.  The "I-make-the-money" variety, in which he asserts his power over me because he contributes the vast majority to our joint finances.  (Hence the home-made cleaners!)
3.  The "you-have-all-the-time-you-want-to-do-your-hobbies" variety, in which he asserts that since I do not work outside of the home, I am somehow free to go riding all day long.  Therefore, I should not leave the house to go riding when he is home...and he should be able to indulge all of his hobbies whenever he is not at work.  (Nikki has witnessed this one.)
4.  The "whatever-made-you-say-that-inappropriate-thing-to-such-and-such-person?" variety, in which Greg has a sort-of Tourette syndrome-slash-ADHD moment, where he speaks wildly appropriate things out of turn without any type of normal adult "filter."

I am putting on my workout clothes, because I am going to break a sweat.  I am going to discuss each one separately, and attempt to come up with some valid solutions.  I am going to try to get my Debi Pearl on...

(For some reason, this makes me think of the Will Ferrell movie, "Talladega Nights," when he jumps out of his non-flaming racecar and runs around in his tighty-whiteys shouting, "Help me baby Jesus, help me Oprah, help me Jewish God, help me Tom Cruise!"  In this case, I am Ricky Bobby, and the imaginatively flaming racecar is my marriage...and Debi Pearl (forgive me) is either Jesus, Oprah, or Tom Cruise!)

My reason for going through this exercise is (a) to put in the work to get my marriage back on track again...and (b) to possibly help you guys to work through similar issues in your marriages.  I know that these arguments are not unique to me and Greg...except maybe #4 ;-)