Older and no wiser
Turned 40 on Wednesday, a remarkably uneventful event. Received some thoughtful cards, calls, and Facebook messages, and we're hosting a celebratory open house next Friday.
The "no wiser" part comes in communication, or lack thereof. Since moving to the house last summer, home improvement has been added as part of barlow_girl's and my marriage. I don't love it, and it makes me never want to be a homeowner-things are complicated enough just as renters of a larger home. Amy's more motivated than I am on most of what remains, and we differ on how we deal with the "in the meantime"-for the most part, when I'm not working on something, I'm OK, because if I wasn't OK, I'd be working on it. That's not always how Amy experiences the meantime, however, and I'm not very helpful (or helpful at all) to her in that, because I don't talk about it much and don't tend to be particularly receptive when she does.
It's frustrating, in part because we're mostly done: "outstanding issues" consist mostly of a couple of ceiling lamps and an attic space. Further, in order to make any headway with getting anything done, "What's the next action?" is a key question, and some of that seems (to me) to depend on bigger picture stuff (how we'll move things around if we have kids, etc.).
So we've gotten away with not having much of this stuff in our marriage until now, which makes me feel developmentally delayed when I handle it so poorly. Thanks be to God that marriage is intended to be one of the many places He calls us to love outside ourselves and shows our endless need of forgiveness and grace.
The "no wiser" part comes in communication, or lack thereof. Since moving to the house last summer, home improvement has been added as part of barlow_girl's and my marriage. I don't love it, and it makes me never want to be a homeowner-things are complicated enough just as renters of a larger home. Amy's more motivated than I am on most of what remains, and we differ on how we deal with the "in the meantime"-for the most part, when I'm not working on something, I'm OK, because if I wasn't OK, I'd be working on it. That's not always how Amy experiences the meantime, however, and I'm not very helpful (or helpful at all) to her in that, because I don't talk about it much and don't tend to be particularly receptive when she does.
It's frustrating, in part because we're mostly done: "outstanding issues" consist mostly of a couple of ceiling lamps and an attic space. Further, in order to make any headway with getting anything done, "What's the next action?" is a key question, and some of that seems (to me) to depend on bigger picture stuff (how we'll move things around if we have kids, etc.).
So we've gotten away with not having much of this stuff in our marriage until now, which makes me feel developmentally delayed when I handle it so poorly. Thanks be to God that marriage is intended to be one of the many places He calls us to love outside ourselves and shows our endless need of forgiveness and grace.