Everyone Makes Mistakes

 

Right after I got married, I had a friend who was having difficulties with her fiance and wanted to know if she should get married. Why do people always ask me the heavy questions? Yikes!

I didn't feel like, as a newlywed, that I had the wisdom yet to give this sort of advice so I told her what my mother told me: if you are marrying him expecting him to change...he won't.  So make sure that you can live with the things he does that irritate you. If you can't accept them, don't get married.  Well, she got married, he didn't change and unfortunately less than 4 years later, they divorced.

I feel like I have a bit of wisdom that I could have given her then, but only after having lived it.  If you want marriage advice about having a successful marriage, ask someone who has one.  Don't ask the single person in the next cubicle whom has never been married and complains about the opposite sex all the time, or for that matter the newlywed who is still in a state of bliss from her honeymoon.  My brother used to ask me dating advice when I have been married for 13 years and haven't dated anyone but my husband for 16 years.  I can honestly say that I am not an expert in the field of dating dear brother, maybe you should ask someone who is.

What do I wish I could tell my friend now?  Marriage is hard.  Those little things that slightly irritate you now...will drive you bat shit crazy in a few years if you don't do something very important. 

Accept them. 

Accept the fact that you can "love" and be with a person and not "like" everything that they do. 

To clarify, I am not talking about abuse, alcoholism, etc. etc.  I am talking about those little things that drive us all nuts like leaving your shoes all over the place, not being as OCD as you are in the cleaning department (which is one of the things my friend was upset about...the slobiness of her fiance), ignoring you when they watch sports, not being able to see something of theirs that needs to be picked up that they just walked right by, and the list goes on.  I would have told her that she needed to

accept it

or

talk about it

or it would fester and get worse.

Levi used to do something that drove me nuts...actually, he still does it; it just doesn't drive me nuts anymore.  What's changed?  I flipped the acceptance switch and I stopped taking it personally.  This is his problem, not mine.  What can I do to help him? Because throwing my hands in the air and grunting as I walk away is probably not helping. 

Levi does not like to make mistakes...EVER.  It's completely unrealistic.  I don't know if it is because he is the oldest in his family, a perfectionist, afraid that I will not think him worthy or a combination of all three (or even something completely different).  We are all going to make mistakes.  I grew up a complete klutz.  Ok...I am still a complete klutz, but I think that this helped me learn to laugh at myself a bit.  When Levi makes a mistake he is nowhere near laughing it off.  This irritated me when we first got married, but over the years it got worse.  And I am going to be completely honest with you: It is unattractive.  There, I said it.  Getting all upset and down on himself when he makes a mistake makes me not only irritated, but chips away at my attraction to him. 

Here lately, with my attempts at being a better wife, I have come to realize something.  I can't change how my husband reacts to something, it is probably so ingrained in habit as to be a part of his personality, but I CAN influence it in a positive or negative way.

We borrowed a pressure washer from a friend in order to make our house and driveway sparkle for our upcoming move.  He started it up and we took turns (cause I had to try it...that looked like fun!).  Then, it ran out of gas.  We pulled over the gas can and filled it up, but, oops, we overfilled it and now the darn thing won't start.  Levi is quite upset, calls himself an idiot, stomps around the garage, trys to start it so many times I am concerned that he will make things worse, and I could feel myself starting to get upset.  Was I upset that he had overfilled it? NO.  I was upset because he called himself an idiot in front of his daughter, upset with myself and guilty for how unattracted to him I was at that moment because he was being down on himself. I didn't know what to do.  I never seem to know what to do in these situations, but I stood silently for a moment, took a deep breath and decided to not take it personally and thought: what can I do that will not hurt his ego, but will help him see what he should do?  I wanted to try to be a helpmeet.

I very quietly said, "You are not an idiot.  I wish you wouldn't say that."

He said in a blustery way, "What?" like he really didn't want me talking to him in that moment.

I said, "I said you are not an idiot. I don't like it when you say that about yourself.  It is not true." in a much more forceful, firm, loving way.

He looked up at me, as he was now sitting next to the pressure washer grumbling about how he shouldn't have overfilled it and he should have stopped, and seemed...flabbergasted.  I wonder now if it was because he expected me to be upset or disappointed in him cause he overfilled it.  Since I had his complete attention, I said, "We can't undo what we did.  What can we do to fix it?"

He got up, and after thinking a moment got a cup to drain some gas and after a few tries and a few more drains we got it to start.  Before he started to pressure wash again, I gave him a big kiss, smiled, and said, "Thanks for fixing it babe."  I then took our toddler back inside and let him finish.

I know this may not seem like a big deal to everyone else, but this was BIG STUFF at our house.  I didn't think before how he may have taken my reaction to mean something other than what it was.  My typical reaction may have made him feel like I was upset about his mistake and not the way he was handling it.  Now I have something I can do to help.  I feel empowered instead of helpless and guilty.

Do I think I will handle it perfectly every time? NO.  Everyone makes mistakes:)