Deliberate Love - stage 1

Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 5:33


After giving birth to my daughter I found that everything had changed.
My husband and I had spent a few wonderful years after being married building a strong foundation of love and respect. We had many hard times and went through them together. We learned how to fight fair, how to apologize to each other, and how to show each other love.

When I was pregnant things started to change. I was very emotional and struggled sometimes with showing my husband love and respect.

When I actually had the baby things changed even more. I didn't want to be touched, I was touched and sucked on all day. I didn't want to do anything other than sleep when I finally got to roll into bed.  It was very straining on our relationship.

After a few months my hormones started to change again. But instead of making things easier for our relationship it just added more problems.  I was feeling jealous of him for being able to go and do whatever he wanted. I was feeling trapped at home.  I felt like all I ever did was give of myself. I was really feeling unpursued and that he wasn't putting any effort into our relationship or showing me romance.

It eventually got better, we both started to try and do whatever we could to show that we cared. Little A got older and it got easier for me to go out, or do things that I enjoyed.

And then we got pregnant.

And it started all over again. But this time it was worse. ( I blame it on the crazy hormones that came from growing a little man in my belly)

Now three months postpartum, I am feeling similar to how I felt last time. But this time we are attempting to sell our house, renovate our new place, and my husband has a new job.  So now we are struggling through emotional, hormonal, and environmental stresses.  Its been a little nuts.

Anyway, Mr T and I have decided to put effort in. We have both tried separately to do whatever we can, but it hasn't really changed much. We recognize that we both haven't been showing love and respect so we are purposefully working on this together. A united front. We both recognize that we dont want our marriage to fall apart, or end up being like those people whose kids move away and they have to start their relationship all over again and figure out why they were together in the first place.

We feel like if we make the effort now things will be different in the future. It may take a while of being intentionally romantic and considerate and caring, but eventually it will be second nature and will flow out naturally. ( I will be sharing our adventures in this deliberate, intentional love, through the good and bad of the experience in hopes that it inspires others going through the same kind of struggles. )

We decided that starting small is the best option.

So this week, stage 1,  we are intentionally going to hold hands whenever we have the opportunity. Driving, watching tv, walking to the park with the kids,  or at church;  whenever we can.

Our hope is that we will make it a habit.  That our kids will see that we value our relationship. And that it will remind us how much we enjoy being near each other.