This week I have spent quite a bit of time talking with friends who can not share mundane tasks, like shoveling snow, with their husbands. Some are facing or in the midst of deployments. Their husbands are hundreds of feet under water, out of contact for days, weeks and even months at a time. Some are facing separation or divorce. He walked out, unhappy, looking for something to make life better. For some, it is illness or disability. He cannot help, respond, show true love or affection, or maybe even recognize who his wife is. It is a dark, lonely place to be......and I've been there.
At some point we feel like we are alone in this life we were supposed to share. For many of us our experience isn't as dramatic as what my friends are experiencing. It is a feeling that he just isn't as "in to it" as I am. He'd rather play "Call of Duty" than watch "Grey's Anatomy" with me like he used to. Those long walks that used to occupy our weekends, are replaced with countless hours in a workshop or at the golf course. He spends evening out at movies or playing video games with friends, while I spend night after night at home alone with a house full of young children. My night out with friends ends with a sink of dirty dishes, toys on the floor and dirty diapers laying on the changing table waiting for me when I return. I watch his eyes light up at the sight of his favorite actress, or the woman passing us on the street, but I can barely get a second look.
We wonder what happened. When did the wonder of marriage, turn into the drudgery of life? When did I become a part of his life, instead of the light of his life?
One of the things I have had to learn the hard way, is that much of the time ---- I am the problem. Don't get me wrong. He is not off the hook!! Our husbands are just as human as we are. They fail. They sin. They make mistakes. I have learned that often, though, my actions, words and attitudes encourage those things in my husband that hurt me the most. It isn't that my Prince Charming has disappeared. It is that Prince Charming is just that - a prince. He is a man. He needs respect and he needs a princess. I quite often am neither.
My "prince" spends his days taking care of others. He listens to their problems, offers advice and counsel and then will listen to them again, and again, and again, as they complain nothing is changing (and no, they did not try any of his suggestions). He listens to men who have been through horrific combat and women who have been abused. It is no wonder he wants to spend some time "killing Nazi's" - ridding the virtual world of evil! Then I get upset because he doesn't want to listen....more...to me.....
My prince spends his days trying to fulfill the demands and requests of others. In civilian ministry it was churches full of people, committees and boards who at times acted as if he should be at their beck-and-call 24/7. Sermons that were too long and too short, too liberal and too conservative. Services that are too contemporary and too traditional. He wasn't at the committee meeting at church and in the surgical waiting room with a family - at the same time. No wonder he wants to come home, choose his own book to read, have his favorite beer, or work on a model he can design. Then I get upset because he didn't take out the trash the way I wanted it done.
My prince, as with most princes, is driven by sight and respect. Every commercial and ad is filled with women in short skirts, tight shirts and high heels - if that. The gym is filled with women who are barely dressed and running, jumping, and lifting. Women come to his office looking for advice, protection and assurance. He becomes their "knight". Then he come home to a wife who feels it has been a good day if she got a shower and put on clean sweats and t-shirt. The same wife who wants to know why he didn't bring home the milk she asked for, complains there isn't enough money for a new toaster and then drops into the opposite side of the bed - still in the same sweats and t-shirt. Then I feel hurt when someone else momentarily grabs his attention.
So often, those loneliest and darkest times of our marriage have happened, in part, because I interfered with his need to be The Man. My attitudes and actions communicated to him that he was not worth my time, energy and respect. He could not work next to me, because I would not walk next to him.
So yes, shoveling snow with My Man is a big deal. I have the joy of being by his side, helping him in his task and enjoying the work of life together. Then I can come inside, settle down and organize children and have a sandwich and coffee ready for him when he comes in. Maybe, after kids are in bed, he will be ready to be My Prince and we can enjoy a quiet conversation and reruns of "Grey's Anatomy"!
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