St. Valentine's Day

St. Valentine's Day brought with it the conclusion to the Love Dare. I am not going to sugar coat this. The last two days were very hard. My husband scheduled himself to work both days. This made it hard for me to get too excited about anything.

Saturday I got home at 7 and had dinner, bathed the children, did the dishes, swept and mopped, folded and put away laundry. All this while my husband proceeded to fall asleep on the couch with Max. Max I picked up and gingerly placed in his bed. My husband I didn't even attempt to move or wake. I simply covered him over with the spare quilt.

Now I am all for serving my family and husband, but I have a very difficult time dealing with do it all while he is oblivious to my efforts. I get lonely and tired. The dare for Saturday was to write a letter of re commitment to our relationship and marriage. So after all the chores were done I sat down with pen and paper and I tried to write this letter. It took a while. I had to remind myself to be positive, to not be condemning. I spent most of the letter reflecting on all the dares had asked of me and how I had struggled with them. I wrote about how I knew that all those would make us stronger. What I really wanted to write was about where he could shove the letter. But that would not have been very christian. I left the letter on the kitchen table for him in the morning.

Sunday's final dare asked that we consider renewing our vows. Since I was once agian alone with the children, I was feeling rather discouraged. I didn't feel like even talking to him let alone renewing our vows. I made a hand-made card for him and I spoke of my hope that this year for our 10th anniversary that we might do that. I think that it would be awesome to go to church and before God and our family and friends reiterate our feelings for each other and follow it by a pot-luck picnic. It would make for a beautiful spring day.

My husband was receptive to the idea, but not nearly as enthused as I. He did bring home some beautiful flowers for me and seemed more engaged with the family last night.

As an aspiring supermom, I want to pose these questions. How much should we tolerate? How many times do we ignore their short comings and pick-up their slack to remain sane? How many apologies that we know they are just saying do we accept only to find nothing will change? And if we are not to complain about them, if we are to overlook what they don't do and we have to, if we are to only say positive things, how do we stay sane? How do we not explode with frustration? How does a supermom be a superwife without losing herself?