Kicking "Prince Charming" to the Curb

OK, so, yesterday I watched The Notebook for about the 15th time. Love that movie, cry like a little baby every time. (So unoriginal, I know. Barf! Whatever.) But amidst all the sniffling and snotting, I started wondering if a love like Noah and Allie's really exists and why doesn't my husband come after me like Noah did for Allie and blah, blah, blah. That movie made me start feeling sad and wistful even though I in fact, have a very handsome and romantic husband and a wonderful relationship with him.

Thankfully God didn't let me wallow in that place for very long. In truth, I know that love like they show in the movies exists but it's not as pretty as they depict it. I started thinking about love in general and how we perceive it in our own lives. What really makes us feel loved? Is it making love with the same passion they do in movies? Is it coming back to someone after a long separation only to find that your feelings for them have grown instead of diminished? I don't know, I guess it's different for everyone. But I do know that by watching movies like that and reading books like that, we can start to examine our own love lives and often find them falling short of what we see and read. We get these expectations formed in our head of what other people's relationships might be and wonder why our own are lacking. We start to wonder why we aren't being loved like that. We may start to to question the choices we've made concerning our mate and that is precisely where the devil wants us to be.

By nature, by God's very own design, women are built to desire being pursued. We want to feel passionately desired and not just physically. We wish to be faultless to our beloved because they're so enamored of us. We want (even if you tell yourself that you don't) on some level to be romanced. The world has told us that these attributes make us needy and codependent and desperate. Conversely, men are taught to be the hunters, gatherers; our protectors and providers, our spiritual leaders and bread-winners. (and hey, I know these aren't very modern ideas. Sorry. Move on if you don't like it) God made these natures and ways of men and women to complement each other and work together, to flow in a system that works well when we all act like we're supposed to. But the common popular belief systems of today have perverted and tempted and taunted our very God-given natures to work against us. How can we be passionately pursued by our husband if he's off pursuing the American dream instead? How can we feel wanted when his head and heart are instead filled with wanting things? So as a result of our needs going unmet, we're left feeling restless, hurt, disappointed and unsatisfied. Then compound these bad feelings with exposure to these utopian visions of fictional relationships and WHAM!--dis-as-ter. We can start feeling like we've settled or chosen wrong. We get angry with our spouse for not being the man we think we ought to have. We start thinking that our love life should be like a fairy-tale.

The overall takeaway I wish people would get from this post is to stop wishing your mate and your life were different. To stop holding your relationship to the same standard of an invented life someone else has created. We need to stop comparing our beautiful (perfect-in-their-own-way)apples to their make-believe oranges. We need to stop being resentful of the circumstances in our lives and discounting the blessings God has given us. We need to stop being angry at our men and start being thankful for the good they do. And if they aren't yet who we need them to be, to pray for them until they are; to help them realize their potential in Christ. Stop using your leisure time looking at things that are going to make you think of things you don't have and instead spend it seeking things that add to the beauty that is your life.

It has been widely acknowledged that watching porn has changed how men see women in their sexual relationships and changed their expectations of our activities, performance and appearance. They've changed because of these "New!" and "Improved!" things they're exposed to and what they've seen these fake people in this fake situation are "enjoying" (yeah, whatevs.) It isn't fair to women to be held to these new standards, right? Especially when what folks have been doing since the world began have been working just fine. Well, the same is true of women and our hyper-romantic t.v./movie watching and book reading. Those are like emotional porn for women. Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else, guard your heart. For everything you do flows from it". I feel like this is relevant in this situation because we need to learn to guard our heart from things that change our expectations of our mates to this unattainable standard. We need to guard our mind and what we put into it. If you don't curse, why would you want to see or hear or read things with cursing since that will only put those words in your head? Like it or not, we are influenced by outside sources. It is not only children who are susceptible to peer pressure and the allure of "fitting in" to societal norms. Even if we are confident in our salvation and our beliefs and our marriages, we still have the very real potential of being led astray if we aren't vigilant.

Another risk factor that can lead to disappointment in our mate can not only come from things we watch or read or listen to but maybe from our own possibly dysfunctional past. It's not at all fair to place the burden of "fixing" our self-esteem on our partner. Our self-worth should be coming from God and who we are in Him. We can't realistically place all of our emotional needs on our spouse because that will inevitably lead to disappointment every time. If you have a history of neglect or abuse, there is absolutely no way at all possible that one man is going to attone for that unless His name is Jesus. So we have to quit punishing our husbands and being angry with them for not being all that we need because they weren't designed to be. Our spouse was never intended to fill the God-sized hole that exists in all of us. Only He is able to handle all our needs and carry all our baggage. We are in no way good enough for Him, but He treats us as though we are and in fact, tells us in a love letter (the Bible) that we are beloved and precious. His Word tells us that He is so aware of us that He knows the number of hairs on our head. We are reminded that He cares even for the sparrows, so how much more does He care for us? We can't be dependent on displays of affection from any earthly person or a slave to attention from any man because we are assured of our worth to our Father.

I pray that instead of me nagging or begging for love, my husband will allow God to show him what I need. I pray that I won't be misled by pretend love stories about other people but that I can appreciate the love story that God is writing for me and my husband. I pray that I can quit finding fault with all that my husband is not but find a genuine appreciation for all of the awesome and desirable qualities that he does have! I am so blessed beyond measure and I want the Holy Spirit to remind me of that on a daily basis so that there is no room for wishing, longing, or dreaming of things that don't exist. I don't want to constantly be looking for what is right in front of my face. Constantly ignoring what is in our hands in order to cultivate a desire for what can't be will only lead to constant defeat in our heart. God wants us to abide in joy and victory in our marriage and our life!! :)