Humility

One of the best, hardest, and most rewarding traits I’ve learned from my marriage is humility. This is definitely a tough one to learn--or it has been for me. I’ve noticed society is quick to place blame when something goes wrong. It’s never fun to be in the wrong, and it’s easier to find someone else to blame. If we’re willing to shoulder some responsibility, we like to blame it on the circumstances (“I was tired,” “I was hungry,” “I had just had an argument,” “I had a rough day at work,” “I was in a rush,” etc.).

My husband is an absolute saint in the humility category. He is always working to improve himself, and I have felt so honored to watch him become a bigger man in the short 4 years I’ve known him. He is so quick to correct himself. When he makes a mistake, says something he didn’t mean, or even just says something in a way he didn’t mean, it’s often only moments later that he’ll apologize. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Let me back up a tad. A large portion of my interest in this topic comes from how I was brought up…and how my parents were brought up. My dad has joked, “A teacher could’ve pulled a gun on me in school and my parents would want to know what I did to piss her off.” The bottom line is pointing the finger back at yourself. What could I have done differently? What can I do to change the situation? Those are the questions my parents were always making me ask myself. I always knew they were there for guidance and that if I needed help problem-solving, they were there to give me that boost. Instead of solving the problem for me, they wanted me to find the solution because I could. That is one of the most empowering things they ever could have given me, and something I am eternally grateful to them for.

As a society, I think too often we consider a question such as, “how can I improve?” to be a challenge to our sense of self-worth. That’s completely missing the point. It’s only self-deprecating if you’ve taken in a negative character trait as a feature you can’t change. It would be like punishing a shoe for not being a sock. My parents expected the best out of me--they knew what I was capable of and they loved me enough to help me get there.

The same goes for my relationship with my husband. We love and respect each other so much that anything short of our best is just unacceptable. It’s not a challenge to one another, it’s more of “I know you’re better than that. I know the real you--and you’re incredible!” In the process, we expect more of ourselves. Spending time beating yourself up has nothing to do with it. It’s picking yourself up, correcting what needs correcting, and moving on as a more confident person, a better person--for you and for the world around you.

My desire to improve stems most from my relationship with God. Would God give me more than I can handle? Would He want His children to fight and argue and blame each other for every little thing?

In I John we read, “God is Love.” That pretty much sums it up. There was a book I read in high school that reminded me that Love isn’t something God has a large quantity of. God IS Love. So, would Love want people to speak unkindly? To hurt? To blame?

I’ll let you answer that one, because I know you can.

It wasn’t until this week that I realized how much my marriage has made me grow in the humility department. I was running late for work and was looking for the top of the blender to make a quick smoothie before running out the door. My husband was in the kitchen, and in a hasty tone, I asked him if he’d seen it. It turned out it was still in the dishwasher, which he was still in the process of unloading at the time (as I said, he’s a saint). I grabbed the top out of the dishwasher and went on with my morning. He was quiet for some of the car ride to work and finally said, “Sometimes it hurts my feelings when you take your frustration out on me.” He then gave the example of my looking for the top of the blender a few minutes earlier.

At first I was slightly confused. My first instinct was to snap back that I didn’t mean it that way, that I was in a rush, and he shouldn’t be so sensitive.

Ouch.

I took a moment, held my tongue, and thought about my few panicked moments looking for the blender part. I had been totally unaware of the tone of my voice and my body language. Instead of throwing the problem back at him, I thought about what I could have done differently.

Could I have said it nicely?

Yes.

Is it right for me to snap at my husband for something that’s really my fault?

No.

Could I have gotten up when my alarm went off instead of hitting the snooze button that caused the morning rush in the first place?

Yes.

Bottom line: was there anything different I could have done to prevent the problem?

Absolutely.

I apologized for my tone and for snapping at him in my rush, and I made a mental note to work on my tone when I’m frustrated…and to get up earlier.

As it turned out, since I didn’t mean to act irritated, he also wanted to work on not letting something so small hurt his feelings.

Taking those extra steps to express humility wasn’t necessarily easy, but I also know my husband is constantly doing the same thing for me. It’s one of the reasons our marriage is such a safe home for both of us. How we talk to each other and how we come off to the other person is important. I always want my husband to feel my love and support, and I don’t want to take that away from him for even a single moment.

It got me thinking about society as a whole. What if everyone were willing to express humility in every challenging circumstance? Wouldn’t it make it easier to correct yourself? Wouldn’t you expect the best of yourself and others instead of expecting the worst? I don’t think you want, “I don’t have time to be nice,” to start cropping up in your daily routine.  

These changes aren’t necessarily easy and don’t always happen overnight. It takes moment-by-moment effort and a desire to improve yourself. Even small goals make a difference. Smiling more or spending an extra second before responding to an annoyance when you’re not feeling particularly loving can be life changing in the long run. No one said humility was easy. I know I could get into all sorts of cliché items right now, but in all sincerity – it does change the world. It changes both your world and those you come into contact with every day. The “old” you begins to fall away and a “new,” nicer, truer version of you comes to light.

Who wouldn’t want that?

The Unconditional Love of Marriage

Recently, I was watching Definitely, Maybe. The opening line to the movie is something I’ve pondered for nearly half of my life: “I don’t think anyone ever imagines on their wedding day they’ll be part of the 46% that doesn’t live happily ever after.”

I grew up in a happy family where my parents’ wonderful marriage was at the center of our household. They were 19 when they started dating and they got married when they were 21. They set a wonderful example for my own marriage: how to talk to each other, how to disagree, how to put the other person first, and how to make a marriage your top priority. In my 26 years, they’ve never yelled at each other. They certainly aren’t the same person, and they don’t agree on everything, but they have so much love and respect for each other that yelling is never an option that crosses their minds.

My Parents

Before my husband and I got married 2 years ago, I spent a lot of time thinking about what made a marriage work. What were the secrets to making it last? What would keep us out of the “46%” mentioned in Definitely, Maybe? I didn’t want to go into what made people call it quits, but rather, what really makes the best foundation for a marriage?

A few months before I met my husband, I did a research project for a final in one of my college courses. I interviewed 10 happily married couples on what makes a successful marriage. I took couples I knew were happy ranging from newlyweds to a couple who had just celebrated their 56^th wedding anniversary (and everyone in between), and I asked 8 simple interview questions.

I remember being particularly surprised in what the number 1 answer to, “What makes a good marriage?” The class I presented it to was equally surprised. While I thought the answer would be love (as did my class), the top answer was communication. Love was a close second.

As I’ve thought about that project more and more over the years since then, I’ve realized that it’s not really just love that makes marriage successful – but unconditional love. As I got closer to my wedding day, I realized that’s really the vows that you’re making “in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, until death do us part.” Those are some of the examples of what you might go through, but ultimately, you’re agreeing to commit to and love your spouse no matter what.

Our Wedding Day: January 14, 2012

It means giving of yourself, striving to be your best, and loving someone else like you’ve never loved anyone before.

Sometimes, you fall short, and sometimes you do a really bad face-plant and need help getting back up. But if you’re in a good marriage, you have someone who is right there to help you pick yourself up, dust the dirt off your knees, and try again. I love knowing my husband is there when I have the best day ever, when we share those days on a romantic getaway, or just have a really good talk about life and where it’s leading us, and when I’ve just had a spectacular day at work.

But, he’s also loves me through the days when I’m not my best: when I get mad, or when I say something I shouldn’t have, or when I have a bad day, when I don’t feel well, or when I just don’t feel good about something. And of course, the same goes for him. I always feel like he has far fewer of these days than I do, but regardless, at the end of the day, we love each other.

Underneath all of it is unconditional love. It’s a love where you don’t keep score, and you care so much more about the other person than you do about yourself.

When I was little, one of my favorite musicals was The Music Man. In one of my favorite songs (appropriately titled, “My White Knight”), there is a line that says, “…I would like him to be more interested in me than he is in himself. And more interested in us than in me.” My dad even quoted that line in his toast at our wedding, saying that we had each found someone we embody that with. My husband and I frequently talk about our priorities and how we make decisions and the list always looks like this:

1.  God
2. My Marriage
3. My Spouse
4. Myself

We expect the best out of each other. I know when I screw up and don’t realize it, I can count on my husband to say something, or that if I’ve done something that’s upset him, he’ll talk to me about it and want to fix it (and help me fix it if he can). The same goes for him. When I see something he needs to change, there’s no sense of fear talking to him about it. I know he’ll listen to me and want to change it ASAP.

Astros Game - October 2013

So, what does all of this have to do with my original pondering of the opening lines of Definitely, Maybe? The whole purpose of my blog is to help other people (hopefully instead of just talking about myself). While I realize that what I have found in my meager two years of marriage doesn’t solve every marital problem there is, I constantly find myself wishing the information were more accessible for people to just read. Plus, reading it from the comfort of a computer screen is sometimes preferable to the well-meaning advice of a relative, friend, or (in some cases) total stranger.

And while this was a more serious post, I hope it was at least slightly entertaining. Happy reading!

This is Lauren – over and out.