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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 1,757
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 1,757 |
tiredwife, I'm gonna make a possibly controversial & provocative comment:
Y'all are putting in an awful lot of time at church.
I'm not a "heathen."  My kids did AWANAS for several years. My wife spent 3 years as Children's Ministry Director. I was on the building team, the deacons' team, and sang on the music team. We were neck-deep in serving the Lord. We had young kids.
I worked full-time, and she worked full-time (between the kids' education ministry and her 3/4-time nursing job) .
I traveled occasionally overseas on business.
We put church first, she put the kids second, I put myself second, we put our jobs third, and we put each other somewhere after that.
And we looked great on the outside, to other people; and we weren't even all that unhappy most of the time.
And my story is, I started talking to one of the women I sang with on the church music team, after she approached me one August day out-of-the-blue to sing a duet. It was that innocuous. She was no one I'd ever even given a second's thought about. I'd always been an upstanding man. There was nothing to worry about. We talked about music, and we talked about child-raising issues, and we stayed after group rehearsals to rehearse extra, and we takled some more. And by the time a couple of months had gone by, I ended up someplace I'd have previously sworn I'd never go, which was, in an emotional affair, that in short order also became a physical affair. And almost lost everything I held dear in life -- but for a forgiving wife, MarriageBuilders principles & the grace of God.
I don't mean to be alarmist. But at the same time, I want to make you think outside your comfort zone. Honoring the Lord is not synonymous with giving the church first dibs on your spare time. Honoring the Lord by building, maintaining and deepening an exemplary marriage, to model for your children, is honoring the Lord no less, and it just might be what He'd most have you doing right now, at this particular time in your lives.
I would humbly submit for your consideration that you & your husband might do well to recalibrate the balance you have chosen.
Dr. Harley suggests 15-20 hrs' per week UA time. That doesn't mean it has to be an even # of hours each day. What my wife & I have found is, we really need to make our weekends count. ('Cuz our commutes suck, and our hours at work are long.) But your weekends are too chock-full of volunteer activities that you've chosen, to make them really count enough.
As your nest empties, you'll have more time to volunteer, and your life will enter a different season. But this is no time in your life to let your marriage get slack. Your children are at an age where they are really begining to be able to see & appreciate what a relationship looks like -- for better or for worse. You'd better be doing your best to model a couple-centric marriage.
And don't fall into the trap of thinking that no one can fill the roles you're filling at church as well as you fill them. We were in a small, start-up church (uder 200 adults attending) that was always struggling to meet ambitions plans on a shoestring budget, and willing volunteers were viewed as gold. And some of us got to seeing ourselves as indispensible. And our pastor and elders did little to discourage that sort of thinking. After all, it was their job as they saw it -- rightly or wrongly -- to encourage us to "push the envelope" in serving more. Never in serving less.
As Charles DeGaulle aptly said, graveyards are filled with "indispensible" men. There is always someone else who can help your ministry work, who can help fill your shoes.
However, there is no one else who can be on the front lines in your marriage. Those are shoes only you & your husband can fill.
Please sleep on this & kick it around with your husband.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 12,357
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 12,357 |
MOds please delete all of my threads. He would be appalled. Thank you. Just take out my membership. Thanks TW, why would you put the brakes on saving your marriage? What are you afraid of? Is your husband stalking you?
D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 675
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 675 |
All of my friendships, family, career, etc serve to COMPLEMENT my marriage. I don't allow them to interfere with my marriage. If they interfere, then it is eliminated. Well said, MelodyLane. We struggle with UA time. We are both involved in our community and church and our kids have several extra curricular activities. I chose my wife; I chose to build a life with this great woman. None of the other stuff was even considered then and yet it has cluttered those original plans.
Married 20 yrs
Me:FBW
Him: FWH
4 children
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Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 35
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Joined: Jul 2012
Posts: 35 |
All of my friendships, family, career, etc serve to COMPLEMENT my marriage. I don't allow them to interfere with my marriage. If they interfere, then it is eliminated. Well said, MelodyLane. We struggle with UA time. We are both involved in our community and church and our kids have several extra curricular activities. I chose my wife; I chose to build a life with this great woman. None of the other stuff was even considered then and yet it has cluttered those original plans. That was me, ShipAtSea. It seams no matter which device I use Anointed is already logged into MB and I keep forgetting to double check.
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