What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Uncompromising Rigidity

How many of us are selfish and want our own way? (Yes, you better be raising your hand because we all are.)

found via Google

Found Via Google

found via Google

Truth: When two people hop into a relationship, they are saying, “Hey, let’s do (at least some) stuff together.” They aren’t always going to agree and they aren’t always going to want to give in. Couples don’t have to do everything together. But if you never agree and never compromise then you aren’t in a relationship. You are roommates… maybe.

You cannot expect your partner to change or do things. We cannot change other’s – only ourselves. This means that you, yes you, must be the one to compromise. DON’T GIVE YOUR PARTNER A LOOK RIGHT NOW!

You have to be the one to change your mind.

When Andy and I first got married, I had a very definite way I wanted the house kept. When he didn’t meet that expectation, I had three options: divorce him, keep up the house myself with no expection for him to help, change my mind about how the house should be kept. Option 2 and option 3 are equally acceptable in this situation. Do not expect you partner to do anything. Either do it yourself or give up the expectation that it should be done.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting: This Ain’t No Hollywood Love Story

For some reason, Hollywood loves to present romance and love and all things relationship with the “all you need is love” mentality. Why do they do that to us? Love ain’t enough.

First of all, the older we get, the more our bodies change. We won’t be that wonderful combination of super model and girl next door forever. You can’t expect that a woman will pop out three kids and look like a Hollywood starlet. You can’t expect that a man will work like a dog to provide you with what you need and still have abs like he did when his life centered around working out and playing video games.

Snuggling: well, we all know that peoples limbs fall asleep and a chest isn’t as comfortable as a pillow. Sex is messy and life is hard and we all need a sleep number bed and maybe a CPAP someday so…. There’s that.

image from the Notebook

Love is not grand romantic gestures and kissing in the rain. Do that sometimes if you can but remember that the best relationships are the ones that have a husband who makes coffee for his wife every morning and a wife that jumps up and kisses him as soon as he walks through the door every day. They are the ones who make each other a priority all the time and who just plain treat each other nice.

What has your experience been? Have you been as frustrated with Hollywood’s portrayal of love as I have?

The Adams Family

Small Town Life: A Question of Morality

I read a passage in the Bible the other day that said, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” – 1 John 4:20

So my question to the world: Is the inverse true? If someone says they hate God (whatever the name they use for him or if they even believe in a higher being), but loves their brother, are they a liar? Is a person who doesn’t have any solid belief in a god but is kind and loving to their fellow man still going to go to heaven?

I think so. I think that as much as the God I believe in wants to have us include Him in our lives, if some human uses the idea of Him to hurt someone and that someone rejects that idea of God but continues on in life in a loving way toward their brother in humanity, they are a follower of the true deity in their heart.

What do you think? Do you have to have thoughts on this verse? Do you believe in a deity who is loving? Do you not believe in a loving deity and why? What are your thoughts on loving your brother?

God is Special!!!

Our 6 year old wanted to let everyone know that God is special and you are to.

Small Town Life – Love at First Sight?

Recently I was reading Kylie’s blog and she wrote asking whether love at first sight existed.

The answer is no.

Like at first sight exists. Sex appeal at first sight exists. Attraction at first sight exists.

I remember reading a romance novel (Don’t do it. They are full of lies!). It proclaimed that the lovers had been together for years and heatwaves still engulfed the heroine every time she touched her hairy chested man.

Lies.

When I first met Andy, I wanted to kiss him. When his hand first touched mine, there was a shock that went through my body. But none of that was stuff that hadn’t happened before with other boyfriends.

Attraction is not a choice. Attraction is an instinct and those shock waves will subside like they do with every other relationship.

What makes my relationship with Andy unique from all the others is the CHOICE to love him. I choose everyday that I’m living with someone other than me in a manner that is not my instinct to LOVE him. To cherish him. Our LOVE is not shocking. It’s comfortable.

It’s him getting up in the morning and making coffee for me because he knows I can barely function without it. It’s me taking time out of my day to look at his photos every time he posts them. It’s him setting up the tent, doing all the camp work, and then taking down the tent all while I sit in the car with the kids because he knows I hate camping. It’s me tolerating camping. It’s him cleaning up the house when it’s not what he wants to do. It’s me not getting mad that our work and leisure hours rarely line up. It’s us snuggling in bed with three wiggly children together. It’s me ignoring hair in the sink, socks on the floor and food left out on the counter.

It is him sacrificing himself for me and me sacrificing myself for him. If I’m giving 100% and he’s giving 100%, we are both getting 100%. Love is not 50/50.

Love is a conscious choice. It’s not hard… at least it isn’t for me. But it is a choice every day because infatuation wears off and what is left can be tossed aside as you search for those fireworks again in a different relationship or you can stoke the embers of love (there is still hot and heavy every now and then, it’s just not the same) with choices to sacrifice yourself everyday.

Happy Mother’s Day

Wishing my wife and mother of our three BEAUTIFUL girls a Happy Mother’s day. We love you so much!!!

Motherly Love

This woman has been a steady force in all of our lives. Without her love and constant prayers we would be who we are today. I know we never made it really easy for her growing up, but her presence in our lives has made a difference. Thank you mom! We all love you. Happy Mother’s Day!!!

 

Parents at celebrating 50 years of marriage last summer. I was unable to attend in person, so my big brother was kind enough photo shop me into the family picture.

Young Love birds

Love ya Mom!!!

 

Small Town Living – A Little Love Story

The thing about growing up in a small town is – it’s alot like a soap opera. Everyone knows everyone from birth or not much later and when it comes to dating and love, people are passed from relationship to relationship like the cup game. So the reality is, many young people from this small town want to leave in their adulthood simply to find love outside of all the people they know. They want to escape the soap opera of the town to find love in the big big world out there.

It can really go either way. Either you marry that one that you loved since you were 6 or you go out and find that soul mate who didn’t grow up in the same town you did.

I left. I needed to leave my small town. I had already stopped dating for a while in college. But it was still a place where we all knew each other and the soap opera was prevalent. I went out into the world thinking I would actually take a break from all the crazy dating game I had been seeing and “take a year off.” I moved to Pennsylvania to work at a school that presumably was staffed by married people and where there would be very little chance of me meeting anyone. I was wrong.

First day and Andy sat down my me. He asked me to dinner. We were never friends. We ARE best friends but maybe it was better that we never knew each other in childhood. Maybe the fact that we had both graduated from college before we even met is the reason we are able to have such a great marriage. There is no history or craziness to cloud our relationship. 

The thing is, I met the love of my life and it was IT! I knew I was ready for a real relationship because I had finally stopped looking for a relationship. I wasn’t needy, he wasn’t lonely. We were happy with ourselves and it made it easier to be happy together.

Now we are back in my small town and I’m teaching him about all the people I know and the past and everything but it’s just a story to him. It’s not his life. Our life now is his new small town living.

Sisters

Our daughters…

3 and 5

3 months and 2 years

 

Pine Cone & Frost

Purple Aster