“Some Fruity Little Drink”

Tags

faith, humor, marriage, opinion

Right now, he’s probably buying
Her some fruity little drink
‘Cause she can’t shoot whiskey….

 

Smiling here, but I just love how everyone hates country music……until Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” comes on. Suddenly everyone knows all the words and they’re singing at the top of their lungs. I kid you not, I saw a bunch of women in a car the other day and they don’t even speak English, but they were sure singing that song.

Next week is our anniversary. I’d tell you exactly how many years, but once we hit 25 to life, no chance of parole, hubby just started counting backwards. That man’s math had me so confused the other day, I actually went looking for my birth certificate. Nah honey, I’m pretty sure I still know how old I am. Of course, I can’t seem to remember where I put anything…..

Also, he seems to have managed to erase 4 yrs off my age, so I think I’ll just…. let it be.

Recently I’ve been listening to lots of people struggling with relationships, and all in good gallows humor here, but I’m busy singing, “I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped-up four-wheel drive,” and pondering the fact that I’m the first one in 3 generations NOT to be arrested for domestic violence. Ha! True story. So I probably really shouldn’t be giving relationship advice. But then I thought, nah, let’s just get real here.

I  like men, so that helps right off the bat. Then I have a sense of humor and a sense of absurdity about people in general, so that helps too. She who laughs, lasts.

The thing about men is that you’ve really only got three choices. You can throw in the towel and decide to go it alone, you can just punch them in the head, or you can learn how to empower them to meet your needs. That last one is the most fun. Maddening, but fun. It’s also a real art form. I don’t think women give themselves nearly enough credit for the skill that goes into animal husbandry, I mean marriage.

It’s not so easy. Takes some real talent. We live in a broken world full of wounded and outright sinful people. A harsh truth to confront sometimes, but if you married a defective unit, you are actually the defective unit who chose him. It’s nearly impossible to complain about a man’s poor choices when he is obviously one of yours. That’s a tough truth.

Everybody wants a spouse who is proof of their own ability to make good choices. I don’t know anybody who believes that is true of their spouse every single day. I think even the 90 yr olds who have been married for 70 yrs sometimes go, “what was I even thinking?”

You can learn how to empower them to meet your needs. Keep in mind that my grass is currently 3 feet tall, hubby won’t ever go to church, and we’ve made no plans for our anniversary.  So I’m either really lazy or not very good at it, but still, you can empower men to meet your needs.

That’s where things can get really complicated. As people we can have trouble understanding the difference between needs and wants. We can have trouble managing our expectations. We can get tangled up in not knowing what is my problem, versus what is his. Then we often bring all our generational baggage with us, too.

Women can have a whole lot of needs too, especially as mothers. I mean emotional needs, spiritual needs, physical needs, social needs, clean house needs, grocery needs, car needs. So, so many needs. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. No human man can actually meet all those needs. You have to shrink the list way down and try to keep it simple. Some of your needs are going to have to get met in other ways.

I talked to a couple of unmarried guys sharing their own list of needs, what needs in their life they think a wife is going to fulfill. I just laughed. Should this amazing woman suddenly show up, she is so going to out-need you in about 2 minutes. A far better attitude to have is, what needs of hers can I fulfill? In what ways will I make her life better?

How can I serve? That can be a tough one for some guys because they all want to lead. Some seem to miss the part about how we lead by serving. Even the President leads by serving in office. I think some people must confuse “service” with “servant.” They’re thinking servant like subservient, like Downton Abbey.

There’s a much older definition however, one I rather like, one that goes quite well with marriage. A servant is, a devoted, loyal, and helpful supporter. Ahhhhh…..

 Blessed are those who have learned how to try to out serve one another.