Monday, October 9, 2017

October Reset: Marriage

I've never been shy about how different Mr. Butler and I are.  Introvert, extrovert.  Logic, feelings.  Red, blue.  So from the very start things can get complicated.  The past almost 2 years have been full of life changes and now coming down from having the little racecar, we continue to hit different stages of our relationship.  In line with the October Reset, I have needed to refocus my energies in our marriage.  Between physical healing, sleep deprivation and emotional turmoil in general, it has been easy,  and sometimes even necessary, to make anything else a priority.   A new baby takes the cake for a while, whether it's #1 or #3, and then everyone is deprived of the usual.  Other kids are clamoring for attention, chores pile up, and then heaven help us if there is an emergency or big holiday event.  The freight train just doesn't stop for a few months.

Praise the Lord, I think we figured out the baby's sleep issue and he just turned 6 months old so our freight train seems to be slowing down a bit.  In the midst of children happenings, it seems easy to love sacrificially - unconditionally - because they are children.  Maybe it is a maternal instinct thing, but when it comes to spouses, it seems different somehow.  They are adults so you expect different things from them (of course), but suddenly I found myself refusing to demonstrate the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated.  Conditions, demands, judgments - Instead of a relationship held together with an agape kind of love.  I was finding it really hard to love for love sake - to love anyway.  When life gets stuck in emergency mode or autopilot, it is easy to just react rather than being intentional with your choices.

Marriage Reset for me involves returning to the original order and intention of things.  I've always wanted to be a loving wife that makes life better, but in the chaos of the past couple of years I started reacting from a place of panic.  This month, though, I'm trying to eliminate the panic and replace it with love.  Once love is the starting point, Mr. Butler gets first dibs on my attention rather than last.  After all, he was there first and has weathered so much with me.  Everyone benefits when mom and dad are happy.  How does your marriage need to be reset?

In honor of #marriagereset I asked him to take a picture with me.  As usual, we couldn't really get our act together at the same time so imagine this is photo booth strip.  Here's to love!








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