Expectations

It seems like everyone I am close to and talk to pretty frequently is having struggles in their marriage or with their kids, including me and my spouse. I have mentioned in previous posts that we grew apart and now we are trying to rebuild and reconnect and it is easier said than done. There are a LOT of conversations about our situation and why we are where we are, how to improve and what is bugging us right now. As I have been thinking a lot about myself, my relationship with my spouse, my kids, and my friends I have realized that there is a recurring theme over and over again in my thoughts and that is, what do I expect from them and from myself in those relationships.

My husband is a great guy and very helpful . . . on things he thinks needs to be done. For example, one day there were literally about 8 baskets of washed laundry that needed to be folded and put away and it was obvious that I was pretty stressed out and trying to get a lot done and when my husband woke up that day instead of saying, "Hey I can see you have been working hard all day so let me fold this laundry for you" he went outside and spent an hour cleaning up the backyard, taking care of the dogs, and sweeping the pool that we are no longer able to swim in because it is too cold. He then had to rush to get ready for work and eat dinner and then left for work leaving me with those 8 baskets of laundry, plus the dishes from dinner, plus the responsibility of making dinner, and taking care of our four children and well you get the idea. The main problem was not so much that he left the laundry unfolded, it was that I expected him to help around the house but didn't vocalize that expectation and therefore he was unable to meet that expectation.

Let's apply this to kids. How often do you expect your children to behave well at the store only to get there and have them try escaping you, scream when they don't get what they want, knock things off the shelf, etc. Or do you expect them to come home from a long day of school and immediately sit down at the table and work on another hour of homework only to have them come home and fight you every step of the way.

The problem is not the behavior of the people in our lives the problem is our expectations and the way we are expressing them. Sometimes we expect too much from people, other times we expect too little. So how do you set the right expectation? The main thing is to look at the individual and their own special circumstances. Is it reasonable to expect a two year old to share his toys with other two year olds? NO, two year olds do not share! You can help them to share, you can involve yourself in their play to ensure they share with others but to expect them to immediately be o.k. with sharing with another kid is setting yourself up for disappointment. If you are aware of the fact that two year old don't share, or that a fourteen year old believes they know everything about life and you know nothing, then when they behave in that manner you aren't disappointed or frustrated (well maybe a little frustrated) but instead you can focus on ways to help them be the best two yr old or fourteen yr old or even 50 yr old they can be. Now this is going to go against what I just said, BUT, it is important to set expectations high so people can stretch and grow to reach that expectation, but you also have to find what you are o.k. with until they reach your expectation. For example, I expect my children to grow up to become well behaved, smart, respectful adults and therefore I am going to teach them how to become that but am not going to become upset or disappointed when my child behaves like a normal 6 yr old, 5 yr old or 2 yr old. Does that make sense?

The other thing you do not want to do is set your expectations too low - because wherever you set your expectations people will meet them (as long as they are reasonable and they know what those expectations are). If you expect your child to disobey you then they will. If you expect your children to be lazy then they will be. If you expect your husband to act like your father then he will. If you expect your friends to take advantage of you then they will. Whatever you expectations you set people will meet them!

I encourage you to really think about and write down what you expect from the people in your life, especially from those who seem to be disappointing you the most. Are your expectations reasonable? Are they attainable for the person you expect it from? Have you expressed these expectations to those people and discussed them with each other? If not, do it! There are so many more things I can post about expectations so keep an eye out for more on this subject!

Keeping the romance alive after kids

The other day I was taking to a girlfriend of mine about how hard it was to go out on dates when you have kids because babysitters are so expensive! We were also talking about how hard it is to be intimate after having a baby because you feel so tired and the minute you hit the sheets you aren't thinking about anything but sleep, where as your hubby probably is.

So today instead of me giving you advice I would love for you to give me some: how have you kept the romance alive after having kids?

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Share your problems with your spouse!

Life has been hard around our house since I had baby N. I have felt overwhelmed, disinterested, lonely, and slightly depressed. I was embarrassed to talk about it with anyone and slowly withdrew more and more into myself and away from my husband and kids. My husband noticed something was off but never said anything because he figured I would just figure it out and then things would be fine again.Which normally would be true, but for some reason I just couldn't kick the melancholy I was feeling. I wasn't mad or angry or overally sad I just felt nothing.

So finally one night while we were folding laundry I started talking to T about it and telling him how I was feeling. I expressed to him how overwhelmed I felt with getting everything done and not being the mom and wife I know I am capable of. It didn't help that he sprained his ankle pretty bad and then ended up getting bad headaches which put extra work on me with a newborn baby. I told him that I needed more help around the house - he is an amazing helper already but only on certain things, he doesn't know what a broom or toilet brush look like I swear! I told him that I needed his help for me to not feel guilty about spending time working on my blogs or photography or digital scrapbooking.

He was such an amazing listener and not once did he get on the defensive, instead he kept telling me that if I was unhappy then he was unhappy and it is his responsibility as my husband to ensure I am happy. He thought he was being helpful already (which he was) but after explaining to him the help that I really needed he realized his help wasn't much help at all.

Since we have talked I have slowly started to feel happy again. I am far from being my normal happy self but I am closer today than I was before I talked with him. Just being able to tell him what I was feeling and not have him go on the defense was a huge help!

The day after I shared with him my problems, we began talking about how both of us sensed something wrong was but never said anything about it and why we thought that was. I honestly think that we let our fears and insecurities get in the way of sharing our problems with others and so we internalize them and we just get further and further away from our family and then it's not that hard to find connections elsewhere and fall out of love with each other. But by talking about it and sharing in a loving and supportive way brings you closer together and unites you guys in a battle against your problems. Sharing your faults and weaknesses, in my opinion, with each other can only make you stronger.

So if there is something in your life that you are struggling with but are too afraid to share it with the one you love find time this week to share it with them, and before you begin express to them how important it is to you that they don't go on the defensive but stay open minded and help you both find ways to help you through your struggles. I will be doing posts this week about great ways to communicate so stay tuned!

It wasn't me!

The other day I ran out of my pills and went to call in a refill and when I called the pharmacy said they needed to call my Dr. and verify the refill, which I thought was odd because I had just gone in last month and had my blood done and the Dr.s office supposedly called in for 3 more refills. So I asked the pharmacist about that and they said they didn't have any record of the Dr.s office calling it. I told them and I would call my Dr. and get back to them. When I called the Dr.s office I was very polite and just said that I think there was some kind of mix up and I needed her help to straighten it out. She took great offense to the fact that I would even suggest she did something wrong because she knows for a fact that she called it in and that she has it in her notes so I needed to tell the pharmacist to contact her directly. I called the pharmacy back and told them that she thought she called it in and that they needed to contact her and I gave them the number. A few minutes later the pharmacy called back and said, "We got it straightened it out, it wasn't our fault she called the wrong pharmacy and your prescription will be ready in an hour." After I hung up the phone I was a little annoyed that he made the point of saying, it wasn't us. Not once in my phone conversations did I get upset or blame anyone for the mix up I just said I need the pills and so how can we straighten this out, so why did both the receptionist and the pharmacist feel the need to put the blame on the other person, I didn't care whose fault it was I just wanted it fixed. The more I thought about it I realized that it was probably just a knee jerk reaction because we live in a world where everyone is so busy pointing the finger at everyone and assigning blame that nothing is done to fix it.

Take our economic disaster for instance. Is it the home-owners fault because everyone bought houses they couldn't afford on crappy loans and then walked away from their homes which crashed the market. Or is it the banks fault because they refuse to work with people and let them lock in interest rates even though they are upside down in their house, and the banks funded the crappy loans to people who couldn't afford it. Or is it the politicians fault for allowing the loans to be legal and then on top of that spending a ridiculous amount of money trying to fix the problem but didn't fix the problem instead made it worse? I personally think it is everyone's fault the economy is so crappy, it is the banks, the homeowners, and the politicians because they all made choices that added to the problem. The problem is that the country is so busy pointing the finger and trying to assign blame that nothing is getting done to fix it and we need it fixed!


Then you have the adults who blame everyone else for why their life is so screwed up. It's your mom's fault you are such a terrible mother, it's your dad's fault you have trust issues, it's the banks fault the check bounced, it's your friends fault the relationship fell apart, its your husbands fault you are so miserable, its your bodies fault you are overweight. You have no control over your life whatsoever it is always someone else's fault. Right . . . WRONG! It's your fault, sure those people might contribute to the situation but how you react is what determines your life not them. You are in charge of you and your fate, your happiness, your success, your pain everything is from you and NO ONE ELSE.

The same goes for parenting. How many times a day are you asking your children if they did something, i.e. did you hit your brother? Who spilled the milk? Who lost the remote? Did you put your clothes away? Who threw the ball that broke the vase? I know I do it and I am resolving right now to stop! It doesn't matter who did it, the fact is that it happened and now what are we as a family going to do to fix it? I think when it comes to kids it is almost always two peoples fault for things happening - the parents and the kids.

For example, the other day M, J, and O were bouncing a ball in the house. I was watching them bounce the ball and didn't think anything of it until the ball bounced and hit a decoration I had on a shelf and the decoration broke. Now it is both the kids fault because they threw ball, but it's also my fault because I allowed them to bounce the ball in the house and blaming the kids doesn't fix or clean up the broken decoration. Not only does blaming not help fix a problem, but I also think it causes more fights among the kids. When you are constantly looking for the culprit it puts the kids on the defensive and they will automatically throw their siblings under the bus. Wouldn't you rather teach your kids to be united and know that they can trust each other and get each others back? Plus aren't you tired of being the bad guy?

So here is what I have been doing to stop the blame game, I am no longer asking the question, "who did it?" Instead I am simply asking for help to fix it. For example, the other day one of my kids decided to get ll of the board books off the bookshelf and leave them all over the floor right in front of the bookshelf and the kids doors. I didn't care who made the mess all I wanted was the mess picked up. I knew that all of the kids had been playing in their rooms and hallway for most of the day so I told them that they needed to pick up the books and put them back on the shelf before going to bed, I also expressed that I wanted them all to work together and because I wasn't watching them when they made the mess I helped them clean up as well. Guess what, not once did I hear, but I didn't make the mess! All that happened was my kids saw me willing to help and they all dove right in and helped clean and in all honesty the only help I gave was helping straighten the books on the bookshelf because it's pretty hard to get books on nicely when you are 6, 5, or 2 yrs old!

So my challenge for you is to stop asking who did it, and stop placing blame on everyone else in your life this week and see what a difference it makes!

"Choose your love. Love your choice." -Thomas S. Monson

I have been thinking a lot about marriage lately and wanted to share some of those thoughts with you guys. I have been married for almost 9 years and I can honestly say that I am still head over heels in love with my hubby! He is an amazing husband, friend, father, provider, and every day I strive to be a better wife for him. Our marriage hasn't always been perfect. When we first got married we both had very different ideas on what a marriage looks like. T is a checklist kind of guy, he has a to-do list that NEVER ends! When we came home from our honeymoon he literally sat down and wrote out a schedule for our week and he scheduled me in at 10:30 at night because he felt that he was finally able to check "get married" off of his to-do list and now he needed to focus on his other life goals. So after he wrote up this schedule and showed it to me I walked over, picked it up, ripped it to shreds and threw it in the garbage. He was shocked and a little bit bothered that I would do that until I told him that a marriage isn't something you check off your list and pencil in to fit into your life. A marriage is a partnership where his goals are my goals and my goals are his goals and we work together all the time, we spend more time together married than we did dating, we support each other and we have to work at it every single day to keep it going. He quickly agreed and our lives have been better for it. Over the years we have had our ups and downs like most couples, but we have approached our struggles with a positive can do attitude and have been able to grow closer because of it. Here are some of our success secrets:

1. Love your spouse more than you love yourself. I never think about what is my husband doing to show me he loves me, but I always think about what I am doing to show my husband I love him. Literally from the time I wake up in the morning until the time I fall asleep at night I am always thinking about how my actions will affect my relationship with my husband. I know T appreciates a clean house and so before I ever sit down to read a book, or get on the computer, I make sure all of the main rooms of my house are clean, so when he wakes up he won't have to worry about cleaning and he can spend more time with the family and less time cleaning. And guess what, because I am so focused on showing him that I love him, he constantly shows me he loves me! In all of the marriages that I have seen that have problems the root of their problem is that they love themselves more than their spouse and they are more concerned about what their spouse is doing for them than what they can do for their spouse.

2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! My husband and I are not psychics and we can't read each others minds so we have to tell the other person what we are feeling, what our plans are, what our expectations are, etc. If I am upset about something that T did or did not do it is my responsibility to let him know I am upset and why and vice versa, and then I need to be willing to listen to him explain his actions, reasoning, etc. Just because I am mad he did something doesn't mean he was wrong, I might have misinterpreted his actions, or had a different perspective than him. There have been times when I have been upset and after talking with him him about I have been the one to apologize because I might have overreacted. My husband and I are both extremely busy people so it is also extra important for us to communicate our plans to each other. Every day we ask each other, what do you have planned for the day, and whenever we make plans we let the other person know right away. If we both make plans then we compromise and decide which one is the most important. Church is always number one priority and trumps all other plans. If the other person still wants to go out then it is their responsibility to make arrangements for our kids. This way there is minimum fighting.

3. Be a support to one another. I have a dad already and so I don't need my husband to be my dad. He already has a mom so he doesn't need me to be his mom either. What we need is a supportive spouse whose main goal in life is to ensure that we are happy. So when T gets a crazy idea (which is very very often) he doesn't have to worry about me telling him yes or no, but instead we talk about how we can make it work. If I want to go out with my girlfriends once a month I don't have to ask him permission I just have to let him know I am planning on doing it and I know he will support me and take care of the kids so I can have some me time. We never ask each other for permission, we simply ask for support.


4. Have friends outside of your marriage. I think it is important to remember that we were friends with other people when we were dating and it is important for us to have friends outside of our marriage. Friends can be a great support to your marriage, they can give you an outlet that your spouse can't. Let's face it your hubby will never be a great girlfriend, he doesn't understand the intricacies of how the woman's mind works and you will never be a great guy friend because you don't have a male brain. So it is important that you each have friends that can fill that need. However, your friends should never be more important than your spouse and they should never encourage you to do things that would harm your marriage.

5. Teach other how to be the spouse you need. Before our wedding day I had never been a wife and my hubby had never been a husband so we had to learn and what better way to learn than from your spouse! I have heard so many friends complain about how their husbands treat them, and all I can think is that you taught that to them. I look at controlling relationships, where the husband tells the wife what she can and can not do and I blame the wife for part of that controlling relationship because she has allowed her husband to control her. If my husband ever told me what I could or could not do I would let him know that he can shove that notion up his you know what. I am a grown woman and I can decide for myself what I can and cannot do. But too often the wife or sometimes even the husband is too nonconfrontational and even though they are upset that the spouse is dictating their life they allow it because they don't want the fight. But believe me your needs and wants are always worth the fight! If you don't teach your spouse how to fulfill your needs then they never will and you will live in an extremely unsatisfied marriage. A great book about this is called His Needs, Her Needs - I swear by that book!

7. Teamwork! My husband and I are a team. We work together to raise our children, save money, clean the house, and build our relationship. My husband is amazing in this regard! He never complains about doing the dishes, vacuuming the living room floors, cleaning the toilets, taking the kids with him to run errands, taking care of the kids while I take a nap, etc. Our attitude is that we both live in the house and it is both of our responsibilities to keep it clean. We both chose to have kids and it is both of our responsibilities to take care of them and ensure our needs are met. His contribution to their life is not just his sperm and yet too often I see dad's having that attitude. Heaven forbid they have to take care of their own children every once in a while so their wife can have a break! We are also a team when it comes to our spending habits. I know my husband works hard to provide for our family and keep us out of debt so I work hard to manage our money in a way that doesn't add stress to him.

8. Always look for the positive. If I look for the negative aspects of my husband's personality then I will find them and focus on them and that's all I will see of him and I will miss out on a lot of positive aspects of his personality. The same is true if I focus on the positive aspects of who he is and what he does for our family and our marriage and that is what I will see. I encourage my friends who are struggling with their marriages to every night think about ten positive things about their spouse - maybe they remembered to put the toilet seat down for you, or they helped put the kids to bed. Maybe they gave you a kiss when they walked in the door and told you you looked beautiful. Focus on the good they did and they will do more god things. I also think it is important to tell them the things you love about them. I love hearing my husband tell me all of the things he loves about me, or when he first walks out of our room from sleeping and he immediately tells me how nice the house looks. It makes me want to keep doing those things.

9. Always be honest with each other. I believe in honesty in all aspects of my life and if you want to know the truth about something you can come to me and I will tell you. There is no bigger marriage killer than deceiving one another - just don't do it, no matter how much you think the truth will hurt them, lying will hurt them 10 times more.

10. Respect one another and not just to each other's face but behind their backs as well. How would you feel if you found out that the person you love was trashing your name behind your back? How would you feel if he treated you like an idiot or called you insulting names? Treat your spouse the way you expect to be treated!

There are lots and lots of more things my spouse and I do, but these are the main things. How do you keep your marriage alive? What is something you struggle with in your marriage?