I'm thankful for . . .

I’m thankful for forgiveness, grace and mercy becuz I am in dire need of them all.

I pray that I will practice forgiveness, grace and mercy with others.

I'm thankful for my mistakes as they've made me who I am and I like who I am now.

I pray that others will learn to forgive themselves, live without regret, and, most of all, like themselves!

I’m thankful that I live in this time, in this country where women have the same freedoms as men to vote, to speak, to pursue their dreams.

I pray that this will continue here and that all people everywhere will be free from oppression & repression.

I’m thankful for the constitution that guarantees my right to practice my religion.  Or not.   Where I am guaranteed the right to speak my mind, to protest my government, to assemble.

I pray that we will remember the price paid for those freedoms and value them accordingly, that all people everywhere will have these same freedoms.

I’m thankful for my parents, Uni & Bill Ball, who not only taught me the rules but taught me to love without condition, to think for myself, to value the thoughts of others, to have compassion for those less fortunate, to appreciate the differences – not to mock them.

I pray that I might be a loving parent, spouse and friend as modeled by them; that I will value what makes people different from me and not try to force them into a mold.

I’m thankful for my husband, Patrick Schoenfeldt, who loves me, not inspite of all my weirdness but becuz of it, who tells me I’m beautiful so often that I believe him, who knows my dreams and works toward them with me, who inspires me to be loving, who understands that domesticity is not as important as passion.  (If you want to know more you can read the blog posts about how he saved our marriage here)

I pray that I will love him as well as he loves me and that he will always be here with me.

I’m thankful for my children, Nathan Opdyke and Dani Turner, who give me so much joy, who actually like to spend time with me, who are affectionate and smart and kind and good friends to their friends; that I can see myself in them yet see how different they are from me and from each other (tho this took me some time to see).

I pray that they can learn from my mistakes, that they will know the love I’ve known, that they will have all they need and then some, that they KNOW they are loved beyond measure.

I’m thankful for my home that is a haven from the craziness of the world, that’s cooler than the summers and warmer than the winters, that is often filled with family & friends, fun & laughter.

I pray that people everywhere will have a safe haven, a place to weather storms; that they can too be surrounded by those they love.

I’m thankful for art – both in the big sense of the word and that I am pulled to do it; that I now have time & space to do it; that it’s brought me in contact with other creative people who contribute so much to my life on so many levels.

I pray that I will never cease to have new creative ideas and the time to try them.  And that people will “get” it and be willing to pay for it. 

I’m thankful for work for both Patrick and myself; that Patrick loves architecture & gets to practice it at a firm that actually has work; that I’m good at accounting & that in these tough times I am able to pick-n-choose between assignments; that I don’t have to do it 60 hours a week any more (see the previous section).

I pray that we will always be able to do what we love and know that that is more valuable than money.

I’m thankful for friends, the ones in-person and the ones on-line who I’ve never met up close; for all they contribute to my life and my art; for the support they’ve given me and the times they’ve set me straight.

I pray that I will be a good friend, honest, loyal and giving.

I’m thankful for Facebook & Blogger where I’ve reconnected with old friends, met new art friends and been able to get to know two younger cousins.  I’m also thankful that I can hide, unfriend, block or ‘mark as spam’ those who only contribute negativity.

I pray that I will be a positive contribution to the online world and appreciate the differences in our great, vast world.

I’m thankful for my mind.

I pray that I use it well and it lasts as long as my body – or longer.

I’m thankful for Diet Coke™, margaritas and dark chocolate (tho not margaritas with dark chocolate).

I pray that I can learn to exercise moderation.

I’m thankful for high heels.

nuff said :)

I hope you have a wonderful day with family, friends and food

filled with laughter and memories

and that your grattitude is known by all

so what did we learn from all this?

first I wrote about how my husband saved our marriage
then he told you his side of the story
now, what we learned:

LOVE DELIBERATELY:
Love is a choice we make over and over again. Feelings might “just happen” but relationships don’t. When you decide to get married you are going to have to decide to love each other many times when the feelings aren’t so loving. Now I heard that at church so many times but I didn’t get it.

Nothing coasts uphill – you have to exert some effort to reach higher ground. Work at it.

LOVE WELL:
People won’t know you love them if you don’t love them the way they need to be loved. We tend to do for others what we’d like done for us but that might not be what they need. When I ask Patrick what he needs he always says “you’re doing a great job” and while I appreciate the thought, I want to get even better. So I asked him, when you were unhappy in a relationship, what were you upset about not receiving? This made it much easier – we all know what upsets us.

People won’t know how you need to be loved if you don’t let them know. You can’t tell them if you don’t know yourself. I’ve always been pretty self-analytical (one ex told me “you think too much”) so this one is easy for me but if it’s not for you, then ask yourself what I ask him.

No matter how “silly” you think something is, if it’s important to them, it needs to be important to you. For instance, I can be insecure (hello?!? two failed marriages here!!) but instead of telling me that’s stupid or silly, show me you love me and are there for me.

(OK, I know some of y’all are thinking “but what if he wants me to …” about something sexual – well, sex is NOT what I’m talking about here but I will mention it briefly later.)

SELFLESSNESS:
This goes along with the first two: Put your mate first! I think most divorces are the result of putting your needs and wants first. Selflessness permeates the successful marriages I know and is a very predominant theme. Selfishness creates an environment of a test of wills. There is great satisfaction in knowing what your spouse wants and providing it to the best of your abilities.

EVEN IF SHE/HE DOESN’T:
Okay, I know that both partners should work on the marriage. But I also know sometimes that doesn’t happen. Even in good relationships, there will be days when somebody just isn’t trying very much. In bad relationships, there may not be many days when anybody is trying.

But you try because you decided to, not because s/he is trying. You do it because you committed to it. Sometimes you’ll wear them down with your love like Patrick did and they’ll start trying too. Sometimes you’ll try and nothing will happen. Then after you’ve tried you might try something else like professional help.

(OK, let me be clear here – I am not saying to keep on loving a jerk who hits you – again I have some pretty strong opinions about this and they are mainly YOU DO NOT DESERVE THIS and YOU SHOULD NOT ALLOW THIS to happen to you. Even more so if there are children around to see it. And in cases of infidelity, if you want to work things out then definitely both people need to be working and it would probably be a very good idea to have outside help. I’m talking about the normal ins & outs, ups & downs of relationships.)

GUYS, LET YOUR WIFE KNOW YOU WANT HER:
Remember how much you desired her before you were married, and during the honeymoon. Let her know her know how desirable you think she still is, believe me there are a lot of benefits in it for you too.

LADIES, LET YOUR HUSBAND KNOW YOU WANT HIM:
You must have wanted him before you married him ~ why marry someone if you don't want them?  Be sure you let him know you still do. And if you don’t still want him, then do something about it!

THE OTHER STUFF IN LIFE:
Life’s other problems are easier with a good relationship; the good things in life aren’t very enjoyable with a bad relationship. Put your marriage first and everything else kind of falls into place. Not saying there won’t be incredibly difficult times in your life; just saying your perspective will change.

****************

Okay - we're done with this series.  Phew! Boy, it's tricky to be so brutally open, yet we often think we're alone cuz nobody speaks up and says, "oh yeah, been there, done that!!"  Especially about our shortcomings.  I am so grateful to Patrick for doing this with me.  And proud of him for going outside his comfort zone. 

Please let us know what you think or if you want to discuss something more. 

Next week I'll be running some repeats from my other blog about change and fear.

and now in his words

photo courtesy of Katelyn Swanson

Last time, I wrote about how my husband saved our marriage - today I'll let him tell the story:

I don’t know if I single handedly saved our marriage, because it takes two to do that. I do however know that I made a conscious decision one day to try to improve all things in our marriage.

Sherry was absolutely correct that we had let things slip in all aspects of our relationship and we were essentially roommates living our own lives. I was not happy with the situation or finding any satisfaction in my life. Sherry and I have always had a good relationship. However, I hate to admit that I never really was totally committed to it. I had never thought seriously about what Sherry needed from a husband or what she needed on all levels of her life (though as you know she isn't bashful about telling you). I know that was a big part of the problem because I had never totally invested in her and our relationship.

At this very same time I was in some accountability groups with other men in our church and I began to really understand the biblical view of a family where it is the husband’s responsibility to set the tone for the entire family especially his wife. The Bible is very clear on this point in Ephesians 6:25-28 and I began to see that if I don’t show my wife that she is loved more than any other thing in my life, how is she to respond to anything else?

So I made a decision to try to show Sherry that she is the most important thing in my life. It took a big examination of my own life to understand where I was falling short. I didn’t like what I saw, a self-centered, half-committed moron that was concerned more about trivial things than my marriage.

I deliberately did not tell Sherry about what I was doing because I didn’t want to make a big deal about it because, first, if I wasn't able to pull it off nobody would know and, second, I wanted to approach this with as much selflessness as I could and see if she noticed. I knew I had a lot of mending to do so I was prepared to be in this for the long haul.

The first thing I did was try to do as much for her as I possibly could. If you know her at all, you know that Sherry has never been a fan of housework while I don’t mind doing household chores. So I knew if I helped there it would help out on a lot of fronts. Also, having a diet coke ready for her when she got out of bed was a cheap but effective way to get her attention. Sherry was incredibly skeptical at first, wanting to know what my angle was but my sole purpose was to give her some relief so she would be able to focus more on her artwork ~ I wanted her to have the opportunity to spend her days doing what she loves.

The other thing I concentrated on was finding out what else was important to Sherry. I never really understood the importance of knowing until I really concentrated on it. And I got a wonderful benefit, I found out who my wife is, that I was in love with who she is and that she is more important than anything in the world; I was falling deeper in love with her the more I understood her. My love continues to grow each day; the more I am around her the more it grows.

To say the least, Sherry saw a profound change in my life and she began to embrace it and have confidence that this was permanent. This meant wonderful things to our marriage because as the love grew, the intimacy began to grow which just reinforces everything else and makes the love grow more. (Not to mention it smoothes over many potential potholes.)

Looking back on it, this is one of the prouder moments in my life; that I was actually able to change its outcome. And I found out that I was married to the most beautiful, creative, intelligent, desirable women in the world for me. I just didn’t have part in saving my marriage, I made my life.

Next time - the lessons we learned from this

How My Husband Saved Our Marriage

my handsome architect

“Your mom and I are in hell right now and the bottom line is marriage is hard. It’s really bleeping hard. It’s just two people slogging through the shit, year after year, getting older, changing — it’s a bleeping marathon, okay? So sometimes, you know, you’re together so long you stop seeing the other person...” (by Stuart Blumberg & Lisa Cholodenko except using real f-bombs, not bleeping ;-p)

Being married IS hard. I’ve said that before (though maybe not as bleeping eloquently as Julianne Moore in the movie THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT) and I’ve said before that the hard work is so so so worth it.

So I think now would be a good time to tell you the story about how my husband saved our marriage.

About five years ago we let things get a little too comfortable between us. No, comfortable isn’t adequate – we let ourselves grow complacent. And like the character in the movie, I didn’t feel like I was being seen which to me translates as “you don’t love me”. Like so many of us, I need to feel understood, accepted and wanted in order to KNOW that I’m loved; for goodness sake, pay attention to me!!

Heck, I make it pretty easy to know me – it’s pretty evident from this young blog that I’m not exactly the type to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself – so you also know that there was no way my husband could claim he didn’t know that I was unhappy. But still, nothing changed and we were soon just co-occupants of the same house. I was starting to not care that he wasn’t paying attention which meant we were going down a very dangerous path. I think complacency causes the death of more marriages than anything else – probably because a lot of the “anything else” is done because of the complacency.

Then I few months later, I realized something HAD changed. But cynic that I am, I immediately assumed he was only paying attention to me because I lost some weight. Naturally I accused him of that but he just said no and wouldn’t fight with me about it.

Instead he kept paying attention to me, showing me I was wanted and doing sweet things for me. Little things that meant a LOT to ME. I mean, diet cokes before getting out of bed? Heaven!! It took a little while but his love wore thru the shell I’d started to build and our marriage was back on track. Almost without me realizing what was happening.

And then one day I woke up and saw how different everything was. He loved me!! We were closer than ever before, even closer than that initial period when you think you love each other desperately. Closer because we knew each other more fully and still loved each other more. People even started commenting on our relationship.

The close, good relationship had crept up on me just like the boring, bad one had. Only, while we had coasted downhill, someone had to work hard to push us back up hill. And I figured since it wasn’t me, it must have been him (I’m pretty smart, in case you didn’t know).

And being me, I just flat out asked him what changed.

a truly happy couple

He told me he decided that loving me was the most important thing he could do. Then he decided that he needed to love me the way I needed to be loved.

And he did.
Patiently.
Despite me not seeing.
Despite my accusations.
Until.
And still.


next time: what he has to say about all this and after that: the lessons we learned

Marriage 101 - part B

When I wrote my last post about marriage, I barely mentioned something really, really important ~ that

the hard work is so, so worth it.

In other words

JUST CUZ IT'S HARD WORK DOESN'T MEAN IT SUCKS

I didn't want you to think that I was saying something negative.  We have to work hard at almost everything in life in order to be successful.  The most talented athlete in the world would still need to work hard.  And hopefully s/he loves the work ~ if not s/he loves the results and the rewards.

But I know that when I say work, you might think back to a job you hated.  But really did you hate working hard or did you hate the type of work or the jerks you worked for or the lack of appreciation or all the above? I've even had a few jobs where there wasn't enough work and they were too boring.
 
But I'm not talking about a job.
I'm talking about a marriage that we want to be special and meaningful.
I'm talking about putting in the effort to get what we want.
I'm talking about exchanging our time & energy for a good marriage.

And in addition to getting that good marriage, we'll learn to appreciate it becuz it cost us something (time & energy) and we'll learn to appreciate what our spouse has done becuz we see it cost him/her something as well.

You work hard at your marriage becuz you love and value it.

You value your marriage because you know the work it took.

That makes working hard a wonderful, cyclical thing.

   

I appreciate the comments I got to yesterday's post about what that hard work looks like and we'll talk more about it later.  So please keep letting me know what you think ~ it's so much fun to me to get your emails and comments. 
Thank you ~ Sherry

 

 

Marriage 101

this could just as easily have read:

Three Strikes - You're Out!

But I learned some lessons from strikes one & two. There is actually sooooooooooo much to say on this subject that the entire blog could be about the lessons I've learned from my three marriages. But here's the biggie :

Getting married is easy
Getting divorced is easy (legally - not necessarily emotionally)
Being married is hard work
Hard work that is so, so worth it
(read more about this in part B)

we don't want to hear that when we're planning our big day
we don't want to admit it when we're married and something isn't "quite right"
we all want to think that what we have is special and transcendent and different from the rest

we're absolutely right of course
but we can't ignore the fact that even special transcendent love requires effort and maintenance! 
I mean, why would marriage be different from everything else in life???

knowing this is just the first step
but it's the most important step
because if you know it's hard work you can make the decision to do it
and reap the rewards!

I'd love for us to discuss more about this work from two standpoints ~

the work that needs to be done if you're considering marriage

the work that needs to be done when you are married

Please let me know what you think, what you've learned, what you want to know