Wife Guilt

Ah, we’re hitting all the nerves in this series. Don’t we all feel guilty some of the time, over stupid stuff?

As wives, no matter if we’ve been married ten or twenty years or just a few months, we experience guilt that we’re not measuring up to some unknown, intangible prototype.

No? Then, it must just be me and my low self-esteem. I didn’t get trophies or certificates during my childhood unless I earned them. I seldom received any.

Thanks to Disney and other romantic comedies, we are bombarded with images and situations that teach us from very early on that we’re fairy princesses and should be constantly pedestal-ized.

Woe to the normal, sinful, human man who fails to get that memo.

They all have happy endings. Except those ridiculous movies where one half of the couple has a chronic incurable disease and the other half is brave and despite all odds stands beside the lover until the very end. I just don’t have time for that kind of negativity in my life. And there are no sequel possibilities to those.

Our married lives were once all about being deliriously happy and fairy-tale-like.

In the beginning, the potatoes burned because y’all forgot about the time and were too distracted by each other to remember that dinner was a-cooking. It was a good laugh while he scoured the pot and you made rice instead. There were no crying little faces who had to wait twenty more minutes, starving like they hadn’t eaten in four hours.

Eventually, motherhood and other distractions replace the idol that was The Marriage.

We often begin to feel we’re being mistreated. [Read: when he comes home late for a any reason, when he doesn’t buy you that gift you so hinted at for your birthday, when he doesn’t read that story just right to your son, etc.]

You know the times. Those moments when you’re snappish, and you instantly regret it, but you’d never admit it and apologize and allow yourself to be vulnerable.

The disappointment. Hurt people hurt others. The silent treatment, the cold shoulder. The pouting.

We become selfish and demanding and like to place blame anywhere, on anyone. Not ourselves. Nope. Forgotten are the days when we anxiously waited for The Return of the Husband after a workday simply because we were so much in love and enjoyed his company. Now, we are exasperated and crave escape as soon as he walks in the door.

Sound familiar?

Then we feel guilty. It’s an ugly cycle.

And I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna talk about it. I want to be alone and wallow in my misery. I don’t wanna admit I did anything wrong. I don’t wanna make up. I don’t wanna.

Do you hear the devil’s mantra?

It’s take a stronger, more mature Christian to do those things we ought.

Didn’t we learn anything from Cinderella, Snow White, Belle?

And why won’t those blasted forest animals and/or personified furniture clean the house?!

So, those princesses are rather an example to us wives. They were seldom discouraged. They were often cheerful despite adversity. They were resourceful and strong. They didn’t pout and wallow in self-pity. Not much.

Sure, I know those princesses didn’t have five children under eight wrapped around their knees, clamoring to be held at just that moment when the potatoes decide to drink up all that boiling water and glue themselves to the bottom of the pot. Their husbands didn’t often deploy to scary desert places with weapons of mass destruction. The fairy tale stories never showed the waspish in-laws with their confusing demands. They didn’t have to move house six times in ten years.

Every wife has different demands from her husband and family – and we all have hangups and issues.

Most of the problems are expectations. And those expectations are based on how we viewed our parents’ marriage, others we were influenced by, and past relationships.

It’s important that we pray through those and mature instead of acting like spoiled toddlers [again, preaching to myself here].

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

With Jesus as the heads of our homes, we can work with our husbands as a team.

And stop burning potatoes.

Start working toward your Happily Ever After.