Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.
~unknown, as printed in The Hoosier Farmer
The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid. ~unknown
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid. ~unknown
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966
At the risk of dating myself, I ask, do you remember that song ‘Stand By Your Man’? I know, you do. I’ve always loved that song but what I love the most about it now is what made it most controversial to women’s rights groups – the title itself. But I don’t care about that or even the words to that song. What I care about is my man. I found someone in this wild and crazy world that I absolutely love and cherish and that same man loves and cherishes me for who I am. There is nothing more special in this life than that, than my Warren.
So, in normal instances (not in abusive situations of course) when I see a woman consistently not standing by her man, I am utterly baffled. She’ll give him a dirty look because she is displeased or she’ll mutter or spout out something unkind – when all the poor guy did was not live up to her tall expectation of a certain chore, duty or responsibility he undertook or ‘was about to undertake’. Other times, she will tell him how his life must be run, not letting him be the man of the house - which is all he really wants. When I see her treat her otherwise excellent husband like a piece of dirt I want to pull her aside and say “Hey, what’s up with that? That’s your man! Seriously, that – is – your – man, girl. That’s the man that you, yes you, gave your full heart to and now you treat him like this? He loves you so much, can’t you see that you are building this huge divide between eachother that soon will be a chasm so deep that love can’t find it’s way back to repair the damage?”
How you love and how well you forgive is the only thing that really matters – with the heart open wide, without judgment, and endlessly and genuinely forgiving eachother. We all have these genetic mutations that we are born with and that we pass on to our children. These genes make us teeter on the edges of becoming an irrational firey bitcharoonydoony, making us just a wee inadequate and a little imperfect at times. Ok, ok, we definitely go off the deep end once in a while right? And I'm sure for good reason! But anyway...
So, in normal instances (not in abusive situations of course) when I see a woman consistently not standing by her man, I am utterly baffled. She’ll give him a dirty look because she is displeased or she’ll mutter or spout out something unkind – when all the poor guy did was not live up to her tall expectation of a certain chore, duty or responsibility he undertook or ‘was about to undertake’. Other times, she will tell him how his life must be run, not letting him be the man of the house - which is all he really wants. When I see her treat her otherwise excellent husband like a piece of dirt I want to pull her aside and say “Hey, what’s up with that? That’s your man! Seriously, that – is – your – man, girl. That’s the man that you, yes you, gave your full heart to and now you treat him like this? He loves you so much, can’t you see that you are building this huge divide between eachother that soon will be a chasm so deep that love can’t find it’s way back to repair the damage?”
How you love and how well you forgive is the only thing that really matters – with the heart open wide, without judgment, and endlessly and genuinely forgiving eachother. We all have these genetic mutations that we are born with and that we pass on to our children. These genes make us teeter on the edges of becoming an irrational firey bitcharoonydoony, making us just a wee inadequate and a little imperfect at times. Ok, ok, we definitely go off the deep end once in a while right? And I'm sure for good reason! But anyway...
It certainly helps to regularly throw the routines out the door and burn the ‘how to’ books and just live by the moment. What’s the worst that can happen really? I mean really, will life as we know it come to an end? I seriously doubt that. And Love doesn’t happen to everyone all the time, so be careful with love, hold it gently. Stand by your man and give him some air and sunlight, he can’t grow in the shade and neither can you.
Amen sister Amen!!!!
ReplyDelete