Emilee's Birth Story

      Ok, so, here we go.  I know I wrote a post earlier about how freaked out I was about the concept/possibility of being pregnant and having a baby, and as I suspected, that all changed.  When I first suspected I was pregnant I was already pretty sure of it, maybe because I had spent so much time a couple years before looking up symptoms and obsessing over it. haha.  But either way, I was quite certain because my period was late and my boobs were ballooning out of control!  I went up a whole cup size overnight! That was really my first indication.  I had been thinking it was time to start our family for a couple months, but we weren't really trying.
      Just to be certain, I waited until a full week after my missed period to take a home test.  It was January 3rd (I think), my first day back at work after the Christmas break.  I studied the instructions several times to make sure I was reading it right, and since the 2nd line was so faint, I asked Ray if it looked like 2 lines to him too. Not the most romantic way to tell your spouse your expecting, but that's the way it happened.  Even though I knew I was pregnant, I set up an appointment at the doctors office to make sure it wasn't a false positive.  To show how nieve I was, I didn't realize hospitals consider a positive home test to be sufficient proof.  Anyway, they confirmed it and thus began our journey into parenthood.
     I dove into all kinds of pregnancy sites and signed up for a pregnancy e-mail.  I perused a plethora of information on birthing options, labor methods, what to eat/do and not eat/do, the pros and cons of imunizations, how-to's on breastfeeding, etc. Lets just say, I did my research, and it was all a bit overwhelming! Once we found out we were pregnant we began talking about moving back to Maine to be around family, which we both really wanted.  Whether we moved back to Maine or not though, we knew we needed a bigger place, so we started looking into houses.  All in all, with all the changes on our horizon and not being sure where this baby was actually going to be born, I felt as though I couldn't really look for birthing classes and choose a hospital untill I knew where we would be.  My insurance through work only paid for Kaiser care (a western united states company) unless I was referred, and they didn't have midwives, so I chose a doctor & nurse-midwife combination.  I wanted to have as natural a birth as possible, but I also knew my mother had had 3 cesarean's because her body wouldn't dilate enough...the doctors told her her pelvis wasn't big enough for her babies...and I knew that was potentially genetic. Because of that, I wanted to give birth in a hospital in case of complications, but I also wanted to avoid a cesarean if at all possible!  I put together a birthing plan all the while allowing for the possibility that I might not be able to do it vaginally.
     I had a GREAT doctor, I have to say, because he did all he could to help me deliver vaginally.  He took my goal and made it his and I know not everyone has the good fortune to have such an understanding doctor.  However, even though I did have our daughter vaginally (thank God!) I was not able to do it completely naturally.
       I started having contractions Saturday, September 8th, 2012 (a day after my expected due date), but they were not consistent.  They would get up to 5 or 6 minutes apart, then slow back down to 10 or 15 minutes apart.  I had contractions like this all saturday and sunday!  On Monday I finally had contractions 3 minutes apart for an hour, so I went into the hospital around 3pm.  I was 3cm dilated and fully efaced!  They admited me imediately and the doctor came and broke my water.  He figured I would dilate very quickly after that because I was already fully efaced.  However, I did not.  My contractions continued to vary and I made very slow progress dilating.  after about 7 hours I was still only at 5cm!  They gave me something like a shot of novocaine in my back to take the edge off the pain and allow me to sleep, hoping to encourage my contractions that way, but no such luck!  Because I was fully efaced, but not dilating, our daughter was getting a bruise from pressing on the birthing canal, so they put me on a drip of pitocin to help keep my contractions steady.  That was about 12 o'clock I think.  I barely needed any to do the trick and I dilated relatively quickly once the contractions were consistent.  With the consistent contractions wearing me out (I was exhausted already because I had been in early stages of labor for 2 days already!) they gave me another shot of the pain medication (around 2ish?) to allow me to sleep and when I woke up, it was time to push!  I never fully made it to 10cm, but the doctor was able to deliver her anyway.  She was crowning for quite some time, because I just didn't have the energy to push very effectively.  Finally though Emilee Rose made her entrance at 5:43am on Tuesday, September 11th 2012!  She was 7lbs 3oz and 21.5in long! The placenta came shortly afterwards and they were all very interested in it because it had two sections to it instead of just one.
       I am super greatful for an uncomplicated pregnancy (I didn't have any very noticeable symptoms, not even any specific cravings!), and I am greatful to the doctors and staff of Penobscott Valley Hospital for taking my birth plan seriously and really being my team and helping me to delivery our daughter vaginally.  They were really great. :)  My mother and my husband got to witness the birth and both were a great help/comfort in the midst of labor. :)  Here are some pictures of our journey:

Our first ultrasound. 6w3d gestation

 

 

17w gestation

 

 

When we found out we were expecting a girl! 21wks.

 

 

38w gestion. I was carrying it all in the front!

 

 

 

 

in a 0-3m outfit from her grampy.

 

 

Daddy and Emilee napping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appologetically guilty

      Hi all, I just want to appologize, first of all, for taking so long to post again!  A lot has happened since the last post, including all of our life (for 2 years) in Colorado, getting pregnant, and moving back to Maine!  I have every intention of writting a comprehensive tribute post about that time for you all, but first, I want to tell our daughter's birth story before the memory becomes too vauge and because friends of mine who have recently had children have also written a blog about their childs birth and I feel left out. :-p  So, stay tuned, hopefully, for an update post.  I always have such good intentions of keeping up with this, and I'd say I've done better with this than other online accounts since I still remember the e-mail and password to log into it. haha. 

      Anyway, I will be back to write an update...I promise. :) Stay tuned for my daughter's birth story! :)

~Mae

Musings on Love

I’ve been thinking about love, and I think we have it all wrong…people say “I married my best friend”, “You should be friends first”, “He/she needs to like my favorite show”, “He/she MUST be a cat person, “He/she can’t dress like a hippie”, “She/he should have blue eyes”, etc. But all those things are just superficial…I mean think about it, how weird would it be to ACTUALLY marry your best friend? In my experience with couples who say they’ve married their best friend…either they were dating for years and BECAME best friends, or one of them did not consider the other a best friend when they got married. As unfortunate as it is, when people who are best friends hook up, it usually ends in destroying the friendship. Favorite shows change, clothing style changes, people can learn to like cats, and your significant other has no control over the color of eyes they were born with! There are just as many awful people with blue eyes as there are nice people. Can you see what I’m getting at? These things don’t guarantee lasting love, and they really aren’t good indicators of compatibility. Yes it can make it easier, in the beginning of a relationship, to WANT to get to know a person and love them if you have similar likes and dislikes, but when it comes down to love…love is unchanging.

1 Corinthians 13 says, “love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” It doesn’t say “love lasts as long as you agree on restaurants and movies and music.” It doesn’t say, “Love lasts as long as you agree on politics and religion” or “Love lasts as long as you have the same or similar dreams and goals in life.” No. It says love NEVER fails. It doesn’t end. It is constant. If you look at what this passage is saying, love doesn’t even have anything to do with feelings. Regardless of how you feel, or if you get along all the time, Love perseveres. It is a Noun, not a verb. Do you see what I mean? Love is a THING, it exists outside of you, or me, or anyone else, and it is more than an action. Love exists and operates and moves, without any action on our part.

I think what has happened to our society, is that people have forgotten what love is, and how to love. Of course it is easy to feel affection for someone who does nice things for you and likes the same things you like. It’s even easy to stuff anger and forgive a person if the majority of the time they are pleasant and you get along. But what love REALLY is, is affection without reason, sacrifice without reward, compassion regardless of situation or temperament, and preference regardless of similarity. Jesus was the ultimate example of love. He died on the cross to pay the price for sins he didn’t commit, for people who rejected him, and for criminals who didn’t deserve it, all because he CHOSE to. He had affection for the people of the world and wanted them to find forgiveness and healing. He gave them what they needed before they even realized they needed it, in the midst of them thinking they didn’t WANT it. THAT is love. God IS love. Can you see that? The reason love is a thing, is because it IS God. It emanates from him and cannot exist without him. It’s like the discussion between God and Scientists. When they say they can make man from nothing but dirt. God says, “ok, show me you can make man without me.” They go to pick up dirt and God says, “Oh no, you need to get your own dirt.” It’s the same idea. We have love in this world, because we have God. Infatuation and physical attraction are not love, they are infatuation and physical attraction! We have built in us a desire to be loved and appreciated, because we have a desire for Love, for GOD, built into us. But that same desire, with the selfishness that entered the world with sin, makes us want to grab at anything that will fill that void and make us FEEL loved and desired, no matter how temporary. Infatuation is mostly in our heads. We THINK the person we are infatuated with fits nicely into our dreams and imaginings, which are concocted entirely in our minds. Physical desire, I often think, is what King Solomon talks about when he says, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (or until it is right). My own mother used to say, “it is easier to never start, than to start and try to stop”…meaning people who never explore the realm of physical desires, rarely feel them until they are awakened at the right time, and people who don’t feel those desires, don’t try to satisfy them prematurely. People who try to satisfy physical desires prematurely, end up giving away intimate, precious pieces of themselves to people who won’t treasure them. They throw their pearls before swine.

So if Love is God, and Jesus is God, and we are called to be like Jesus, then we are called to love EVERYONE. And let’s face it, there is no way everyone likes your favorite TV show, or likes cats, or has blue eyes. Do you see where I’m going with this? Love is a CHOICE, and it doesn’t matter who the person is, what they’ve done or haven’t done, what they look like or don’t look like, what they like or don’t like….love is available to everyone, is freely given, and goes beyond those things to show preference and affection and compassion and concern and desire, regardless of whether or not it is deserved. Now, I’m not saying this means women in abusive relationships should stay there. I have read that women in these situations, when asked why they are still putting up with the abuse, say “Because I love him.” That is utter foolishness. It’s not love. Love despises evil and rejoices in good, and God definitely sees abuse as evil. What appears to me is actually happening in those situations, is the desire to be loved is warped and replaced by a need for attention of any kind. The Man has turned the woman into his instant gratification, and the woman has mistaken this as affection and begins to confuse abuse with punishment for something wrong. If a woman (or man, there ARE some very overpowering abusive women out there) in that situation TRULY loved the man, she would remove the object of the man’s physical addiction, she would remove herself, from his life. And, whether she could do that or not, she would continue to pray for him and reveal his sin to him. Loving people don’t let others continue in destructive sin, they point it out to them, they encourage them to confess it and give it up; they ceaselessly try to help others find love and purpose in their lives. Please remember I am no psychologist, I merely speak as I find, and this seems to me the most likely reason (or any variation of it) for abusive behavior of that kind.

Do you see what is happening here people? Our society is persistently shoving God out of the picture, and love is going with him. Do you really want a world without love? Can you imagine how dark and depressing and woeful that would be? Just people using each other for instant gratification, absolutely no random acts of kindness, no stranger willing to give you bus fare or shovel out your car, no one with any respect for personal property….we are seeing glimpses of this now (as we have since sin entered the equation), but can you honestly imagine a world where it is utterly and completely devoid of love: compassion, affection, redemption, relief, safety….etc? It’s unfathomable! Love is one way we know, God has not forsaken us. God is still here.

So if you think about it, love isn’t about all those things we think we like and want in a significant other. Those things just make it easier for us to love them, and it may be, that the person God has for you, could be the most unlovable person in the world, and God wants to use you to redeem them, to reintroduce them to God, to love, and to life. It may even mean there IS no specific person, and God is just calling you to love everyone you encounter equally. All we are called to do, is be like Jesus and obey God’s will and plan for our lives. This is kind of a difficult pill to swallow for anyone who has even a trace of selfishness in them (I’m thinking everyone), because it means dedicating your energy, attention, thought, heart, and talents towards someone else’s well being. In the process, of course, God takes care of YOUR well being, but it is hard to trust that when you feel you are in a comfortable place. For some reason people think their own plan for their life is going to be better than Gods, but that’s a whole other topic. The point, is that love is a choice, and it’s something that should be given to everyone. Since love is God and Jesus is God, and we are called to be more and more like Jesus, our spouses and other relationships are where we do the learning and growing to BECOME more like Jesus. God is using you to teach them, AND he is using THEM to teach YOU. Love is a lifestyle, a goal, a destination. Stop trying to find it in temporary, fleeting things.

Here are some quotes about Love that I think all say something a little bit different about what real love is.

We find rest in those we love, and we provide a resting place in ourselves for those who love us.

~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
~Michael Leunig

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
~Peter Ustinov

We choose those we like; with those we love, we have no say in the matter.
~Mignon McLaughlin

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.
~ Alexandra Penney

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~Zora Neale Hurston

A Crossroads in Life

Perhaps it is just a mood I’m in right now, but it seems like more and more, my circumstances are telling me not to finish my thesis. Now, I understand that seems like a rather big deal, and I am the sort of person who was raised to finish what I’ve started. I have every intention of completing it, and I believe if it was right when God led me to the program, then it is still right and it needs to be done to the best of my ability until it is completed. However, there are also times when God tests us by asking us to fail…or at any rate, give up something we’ve worked hard for, and I just feel like I’m prepared to do that if necessary. Yes, I want to finish my program, but I need to either finish it by the end of april, or the end of May, and if I don’t finish in April, then I can’t graduate in May, I’ll have to graduate in August. Now, if I graduate in August, I need to be enrolled in at least one credit for that summer term. My husband and I are planning on moving to Colorado in early to mid June, so I likely won’t be able to work for my Grad school department, and if I can’t work for them for the summer, they may not be able to pay for the one credit, which for a graduate level, is around 300 dollars. With us moving, I really can’t be throwing that kind of money around. PLUS, even if my department would let me work remotely for them, the university is experiencing economic hardship as well, and is even talking about eliminating some degree programs! So, the money might not be available anyway. I obviously still need to talk to my advisor about all this, but it just seems like everything is saying “It’s time to move on”…like there was a reason why I couldn’t do the student teaching and I need to just accept that. I am trusting God in this, and I know he will provide and bring together the necessary pieces, I just wish people didn’t get so riled up about it.

I hadn’t talked about this to anyone really, but yesterday I mentioned it to a friend of mine when I was talking to her on the phone. She actually got mad at me! I don’t get it. What does my finishing or not finishing my thesis have to do with her? Why do people get angry when something doesn’t work out? How does it affect her at all if I get my masters or not? I just don’t understand. I mean, I expect that people will react that way, it’s human nature I suppose…they probably feel like I’m accepting defeat or failure….but I don’t see it as failure. If it’s where God is leading me, if it’s what he’s asking me to do, then it’s not failure to accept it! God knows what is best for me, for my future, and for the future of my marriage and my family. There is just absolutely no need for it.

I have also been feeling lately that it is all vanity anyhow. The things that really matter in life are not diplomas, or papers pontificating on student understanding, or even having a job or making things….if God is not in it, then it is vanity. I have always been one to focus more on being a Godly example by living uprightly and being blameless before men and God, which I still hold to, and not so much on proactively witnessing. But recently I’ve just felt as though my current life, with my graduate responsibilities, my thesis, my wife responsibilities, and even my hobbies, leaves no room for even situational witnessing. I feel like I don’t have time for family and friends. I haven’t even found time to do thesis stuff, even after I finally found my motivation again! I will probably work on it some today, and hopefully get a lot done, but I don’t really feel like I have enough of a relationship with the people around me to be a witness by my living. I don’t think they see me enough! Plus, the things I find the most Joy in; my husband, friends, kitty, beading, reading, projects, etc…I keep getting further away from them. Work is good, it is from God and it should be appreciated as a gift from God. However, I don’t believe it should be depressing. I don’t believe work should suck your life away. It’s in those little things, and in those relationships that God is seen the best. I want people to be able to see him in my work, but I don’t know how to do that! I don’t feel smart enough or motivated enough to do the brilliant work that some people do. My mind has been all fuzzy lately. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m trying to hold too much in it, or if it’s something more serious, but I just don’t feel capable. I know I am capable of finishing it, but I don’t feel capable of doing anything supernatural with it. Obviously, that is God’s department, and I suppose this is the best place to be in order for God to work through me, because then there’ll be no doubt who’s responsible. Perhaps that is where God is leading me….I just pray that I will not let my co-workers and my superiors down, and that I will live an upright and blameless life before God and men. If he asks me to give up my Masters degree, I am willing and prepared to accept it. I just hope and pray that he reveals his will to me clearly and soon, in a way that I will understand without any doubts.

The Waiting Place

Do any of you remember "The waiting place" from Dr. Zeus' book "Oh! The places you'll go!"? Well, people end up there a lot in life...ironically I think most of life is spent in the waiting place...if you think about it, how much of our life is really taken up by spectacular moments? We're usually waiting for something, even if it's just waiting for the mail or for food to cook. We just don't always realize it when we're there. We pass through momentarily and are off doing something else before we have a chance to look around. But sometimes, sometimes it is very obvious. And when it becomes obvious, it can become unbearable!

Currently, I am in the waiting place. It is about 98 3/4% deffinately decided (to use another reference from the book), that we will move to Colorado in June. My husband has been accepted to his school and his program, he's put in pretty much all the paperwork, I've already had an interview for a job out there, and even viewed some appartments....which could be a post in and of it's self....anyway, the point is, I know I'm moving in June, and I can think about nothing else!

However, there are 2 1/2 months untill June 1st, I am still a graduate student, I still have my T.A. responsibilities, and I have a thesis to finish in that time frame! In some respects it seems like more than enough time, and in some ways, it seems scary impossible! I still need to write the majority of my thesis, I need to do at least 5 more interviews, hopefully 7, I need to analyze those interviews, I need to defend my thesis, and I need to submit my final written version and have it all corrected by then....well, that last part I could send in the mail, but it would be best if it was all done before we left. And that's just my school responsibilities. I also have to think about packing up a whole 2bdrm appartment and decide what will go, what will stay, and what can be sold.

I have a particularly bad habit, when I feel overwhelmed, of not doing anything. When I have so many things on my plate that I can't decide what i should do first, I end up taking forever to decide and then rush to complete things days before they should be done. I suppose it's not so bad, I've always operated this way, and in some respects, I work better this way. I've tried the recommended method of working on a large project a little bit at a time, but inevitably it always comes down to getting alot of little things done within a short period of time. AND, depending on what the project is, if it's not something I'm thinking about all the time, it takes me a good 20mins to an hour to get my mind back on the track for that project, so spending a little bit of time every day on it really doesn't help me much. I just wish I COULD do that, or that my house would clean it's self...that would help alot too! LOL.

Because, another bad habit of mine, is that when I am not particularly interested in what I have to do, I am easily distracted by other things I need to do that take less brain power. Like doing laundry or cleaning the house....and sometimes I can get REALLY distracted, and start using a completely opposite side of my brain! (Like writting in this journal or making something) Heh, anyway, the waiting place is a pretty annoying place to be. It's hard to get up the motivation to do things I know I need to do, when all I have any interest in is plans for Colorado! I know I should just let myself get comfortable here,...it's not going to go any faster and it certainly won't make the move any easier if I procrastinate and don't get my thesis done! lol. But still, I just have this sense that it's not going to be so hard to write the thesis, and I know I'll need to write it in big chunks to get all my thoughts out, and just...yeah....it's a matter of showing what I found in a way that other people can understand. It's not all that scary, just, time consuming and uninteresting. My least favorite thing is non-fictional writting...like for reports and such. It's kind of unfortunate that I'm so good at it. :-/

The Expectation of Marriage - Babies

Ok, so it's obviously been a long time since I wrote in this, because it's tied to an e-mail with my maiden name and It took me a good 10 minutes to figure this out.

So anyway, one of the most annoying things, I've found, about being newly married, is how everyone seems to assume that whenever you feel less than par, you must be pregnant. As if the very fact that I am now sexually active means that I'm going to get pregnant imediately! What the crap! I found this particularly annoying for the first few months of our marriage, because to be completely honest, being pregnant was the LAST thing I wanted. The very idea of being pregnant scared the crap out of me! My husband and I do not feel we are in a place to support children right now, and perhaps it's even a little bit selfish; we don't WANT to make room for a child. Either way, being pregnant now would certianly put some kinks in the plans.

But to get back to my story, for the first few months of our marriage, I barely gave a thought to being pregnant. We have been careful about using birth control, and I just knew that I wasn't. It pretty much never crossed my mind. Then one of my closest friends found out she was pregnant. She was married almost 2 months after my husband and I, and she found out she was pregnant about 3 months into her marriage. I have to admit, that scared me. They decided they WANTED to try for children, and for that purpose, I am excited for them. I know the child is welcome and wanted and I know THEY feel they are ready. But it brought the uncomfortable idea of pregnancy into MY world, and it freaked me out.

Ever since then, all I have heard, from sooo many different sources is baby, baby, baby, pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy! I see it everywhere, I hear it everywhere, and it was making me slightly paranoid! I mean, I'm still scared by the idea of being pregnant, of having children at this point in my life, but the idea of being a mom is starting to grow on me. My mom asked me if seeing my friend pregnant made me want to be pregnant. I can't lie, it does kind of make me feel left behind. I still feel as tho now would not be the best time for my husband and I, but SEEING her belly grow larger, knowing there is a life growing inside...that's a precious and mysterious thought. For about a month after that, I was so paranoid that I was pregnant. I stopped drinking wine, I limited my intake of tuna, because I knew if I WAS pregnant, those would be bad things to eat. The thing is, I wasn't trusting God with it. I mean, I know it's logical, I know it makes sense that I would feel freaked out and left behind and all that Jazz...it didn't help either that my friend confided in me that they were still using birthcontrol when she conceived. That completely took away my feeling of safety, and my poor husband was left with a nervous hypersensitive wife who was paying attention to every little ache and pain and stomach cramp imagineable. It quite literally drove me insane! I finally took an at home pregnancy test, and it came back negative, but even though I should have been relieved (which I was, don't get me wrong), I also felt strangely sad and empty!

Now, as a woman, I know I am uniquely desighned to carry children and to desire children, which is perhaps what came over me in that month, but once I was thinking straight again, I knew I had not experienced any symptoms of being pregnant and I realized that even if I HAD been pregnant, I did not have to obsess over it. Many women don't even know they are pregnant untill they miss their period or go for a doctors appointment or something. I was feeling like my life was being ripped from me and thrown out of control, when in reality, I was trying to cling to control that wasn't mine to begin with. God knows when it is best for my husband and I to have children, and he knows what is best for that child. He will not give us more than we can handle.

All that being said, I have started to experience nausea at night when I go to bed, and this morning I felt pretty icky when I woke up too. I don't know how much of it is in my head, and how much of it is eating bad stuff, but the baby thought sprang up first thing in my mind! I guess I would rather it be that than something more serious like a hernia or something, but it irritates me that I can't seem to shake that concern. It shouldn't even BE a concern. Children are blessings from God. I just need to stop obsessing about the whole thing and leave it to God. I trust that he's not going to give us a child untill the timing is right. I've no doubt it will require my husband and I to give up some things, but as long as we are seeking God's will I don't believe he will give us a child when we are unable to provide for one. Perhaps I am wrong on that, but it helps. I don't feel like I can talk to my husband about these concerns, because he thinks I'm being paranoid, which means he won't take me seriously. He thinks I'm worrying about it too much, which I absolutely WAS before, but saying so does not help me move beyond that...I am just so annoyed and frustrated. Having a child scares me, but being pregnant is starting to appeal to me. My husband thinks I'm paranoid, and I KNOW I have been acting somewhat paranoid, but It doesn't help me get past this worry. When you tell someone not to worry, they inevitably start worrying. That's just the way of things.

I am pretty sure I am NOT pregnant, since I don't feel like i have anything living or growing inside of me, but even if I am, I am determined not to obsess over it. God knows our needs and his plans for us are better than anything we could come up with for ourselves. I need to trust HIM with this. I just wish people would stop getting pregnant and talking about babies!

~Mae

If wishes were fishes we'd have some fried.

I have found, that there is no sense in wishing your life were different. Honestly, wishing doesn't really do much, and even if there are some things you see in other people's lives that you want, chances are, there are things in YOUR life that those same people want. There will always be something you want. Granted, some people have been given lemons, but wishing doesn't make them turn into lemonade.

Anyway, I say this because sometimes my husband does thoughtless things. And, when he does, I can't help but think of other people I know you have husbands that do nice things like bring them toast in bed when they're sick. Now, just because that husband brings her toast when she's sick doesn't mean he's never thoughtless, and just because MY husband chooses not to use his brain sometimes, doesn't mean he lets it vacation forever. He is a very sweet, loving, compassionate man.

I believe part of the scenario is due to his past, since our pasts usually have more of an impact than we care to recognize. Actually, MY past probably has a role in it too. My mother and sister both used to verbally "attack" me without provocation, for no apparent reason. So, when I hear that tone of voice, or see one of those facial expressions, I'm left blindsided again thinking...what!? Why did I deserve to be be "attacked" like that!? I don't mean that they actually come right out and say "your stupid" or anything, it just FEELS like I'm being attacked. Like I must be the most idiotic, senseless, uncarring, unthoughtfull person in the world and who do I think I am for even sugesting such-and-such. I don't believe they actually THINK those things, and I'm not really sure why they do it, but that's how it always makes me feel...and except for a handfull of occasions, I'm always blindsided by it. I never seem to be expecting it.

My husband is used to his father never having a logical reason for anything and irrationally opposing things that he wants to do. He's used to having to explain himself slowly, emphasizing the words with tone of voice and facial expression because his recipient is too stubborn and foolish to understand. Plus, since his father is, for the most part, a people pleaser, he never really tried to curb bad or unhelpful behaviors and habits in my husband. So when a suggestion is made, he gets deffensive and automatically jumps to this irrational conclusion that someone is trying to change him, and that's just the way he is. That phrase makes my head ring. It literally blinds me with shock like "Did he seriously just say that!?"

I have made a point of trying to constantly improve myself, and I have always figured if I didn't know about something, I wouldn't know to change it. I don't always like it when people point out my faults to me, but I would prefer that to them just reacting to it negatively and leaving me to wonder why they hate me. Therefore, I try to tell my husband when something particular is a problem. I know he's not doing it on purpose, that's why I try to tell him, because I figure if he KNOWS, then he can try to do it differently. If he doesn't know, then I can't expect him to ever act differently, and even if he does, I can't really expect it...I just hope that eventually we can both find a solution.

This morning, I pointed something out to my husband, because it was the face, and the tone of voice, that makes me feel attacked. I was trying to set up a routine, and he side stepped it like I was a friend or child asking for a favor. I called him on it - "I know you're used to not makeing concrete plans, but this is a routine I'd like to set up if we can" - and the face, with it's tone, came out. So I told him, "I don't like it when you do that, it's like your saying I'm too stupid to understand so you have to talk really slowly and enunciate your words" and he said "that's not how I meant it. It's just the way I am". BAH! That is no excuse! In my mind he might as well have been saying, "don't ask me to change, I'm not going to, I don't need to, I don't want to, and I don't care that this habit of mine makes you feel attacked" I mean, I know he wasn't ACTUALLY thinking all those things, it was simply a thoughtless comment. I don't really EXPECT him to change, but there is absolutely NO hope that he ever WILL if he doesn't know about it. That's all I wanted. I just wanted him to acknowledge it, but instead he got defensive. I understand I react this way sometimes when I feel attacked, and perhaps he felt attacked himself, but I was trying my best NOT to be accusing. And, I was left feeling like I had reached out to touch a person's shoulder and they had jerked around and clawed my hand all up; dazed, blindsided, and hurt. Like little poison darts were pricking my heart.

I love my husband, and I don't want to "change" him any more than I want to change myself. I think he's wonderful just as he is, but people who do not tell you when you're being a jerk do NOT love you. They don't care. Only those people who care about you, will care enough to risk telling you you're being a jerk or an idiot or whatever. In this case I was simply pointing out that his reaction was ineffective and damaging, and all I wanted was for him to acknowledge it...to be open to the idea that he COULD be wrong and there COULD be room for improvement. I wasn't telling him "This is bad, you're bad, and you're a failure of a husband"....although...he might have heard something like that, considering what his mother used to say to him....

Hmm. Full circle. How does anyone ever move forward!?