Comparison Is the Thief of Joy

"Comparison is the thief of joy," a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt, covers a lot of space.  Whether applied to physical shape, home, lifestyle, marriage, children, job, vacation plans or distance traveled in a faith walk, people of all ages, races and social status compare themselves to their fellow men and commence lining it all up in specific and exacting order, then measuring ... comparing.  The tools each person uses for measuring differ, but all share something: the stressful feeling stemming from our inability to measure up.

The human race seems compelled to compare everything.

Enter Valentine's Day.

My husband and I will exchange cards.  Always do.  We may each have a gift tucked away fro the other, but not always.  We "don't celebrate" Valentine's Day ... officially ... kind of ... in a way.  We don't ever miss the card exchange.
Confusing, isn't it?

 It has to do with not wanting to disappoint each other, I think.  A little dose of loving words (shared by a few thousand other couples) never hurts, and the gesture alone feels right.  We set out to card shop with the nature of our relationship in mind.  We choose a card with love in our hearts, not with pressure to perform in our brains.  Big difference!

As always, we will enjoy a home-grilled steak dinner and Red Velvet cake, and add support to the four pillars of marriage: the intellectual, the spiritual, the emotional and the physical aspects of our relationship.

Ta-dahhhh!  This completes our Valentine's Day. It serves as plenty of celebration for us, not to mention we will have leftover cake. And when anyone asks about it, I happily note it was just what we wanted. 'Cause it always is just that.

Once upon a time, I felt envious of "Valentine Propaganda" -- those tokens of love advertised as the end-all, be-all of love.   I believed the deception that a truly loving husband would cover all or most of those bases, like a Love Checklist. I ached for a bouquet of flowers at my desk and for a surprise drive to a special restaurant or ... something.  I focused my Valentine thoughts through a filter of the world's expectations and through the advertisement of what love looks like, materially.

Love does not look like flowers, candy, food or dress-up clothes.  Love does not look like lingerie or talking greeting cards.  Love looks like a million things that no one person can list, and that no one can measure.  Love, in each of our hearts, feels unique.  It reflects our individuality.  It cannot measure up to a relative's or friend's brand of it.  It doesn't match the advertisement for a local jewelry store or candy shop.

Love looks like your first date, your first kiss, every date you shared before you engaged for marriage.  Love looks like your wedding day full of hope and dreams of a future together.  Love looks like arguments that you settled well, and those you didn't, but survived anyway.  Love looks like wrong turns that God brought back full circle.  Love looks like mistakes that helped you learn more about yourself and your husband.  Love looks like the circle of your husband's arms and the imprint of his kiss.  Love looks like tip-toeing by his chair when he has fallen asleep after a long day, and making sure you feed the kids early and wait to eat with him when he's late coming home from work.  Love looks like giving in on little issues and learning to cooperate on larger ones.  Love looks like tears shed out of frustration that you can't seem to understand each other, and tears again when you do finally understand.  Love looks like working it all out through the years, no matter what.

Love cannot advertise itself.  God invented it and showed it to his people all the time.  Giving is love.  Receiving gracefully is love.  Love is a great number of things that never appear in commercials prior to February 14, because no couple shares the same love, and no couple ever will.

Comparing your love and marriage to anyone or anything else will only continue to thwart any forward motion you make.  "If only ..." and "But, what about so-and-so's husband who did ..." and "I wish he would just ..." serve only to compare.  You may definitely have unmet needs, but comparing "theirs and ours" or "hers and mine" for purposes of discovering what's missing in your marriage will never help.  I guarantee that this kind of behavior will serve only to hurt and divide.

Make a deal with yourself this Valentine's Day -- that you will not think about what the day holds, or what you hope for, or what you want, or what might happen.  Take what comes, or what doesn't, and look deeply at what love really is in your heart and marriage.  Pay no attention to advertising, to what you see around town, or to friends' rehashing of the day -- focus on you and yours.

Then, make plans to continue adding to what love looks like for the two of you, every day, no matter what the box on the calendar shows.  Every day can look like Valentine's Day.


Linking up this 13th day of February with:  Wifey Wednesday, Encourage Your Spouse, What I Learned, Domestic Bliss Diaries, Works for Me Wednesday

How to Start Dating ... Again

I want to start dating again.  I only ever dated one man, and for only nineteen days in succession, so I don't have a passel of experience to offer, or many ideas of what to do.  My brain can freeze just  thinking about it: what to do, where to go, what to wear, how to act, what to say, how to say it.
 Scary. I need to get into it, but I'm so out of practice I hardly know how to start.

Breathe easy ... the object of my dating desire is the man I married.  I want to date him, learn to reconnect in that special way with him.  I want to recapture the simple things, the him 'n me time, virtually uninterrupted, all ours.  Time to look into each others' eyes, to sit long at a table and chat, to choose a movie during which characters might kiss and no one hollers, "Oh, YUCK!"

My husband and I had only a few Official Dates.  You know... the kind with dinner or dessert involved, maybe a movie or a long walk to nowhere in particular.  The kind that makes a girl swoon at every little thing, and shiver in anticipation at his nearness.  Maybe a concert or sporting event, or a drive to a beautiful vista.  The kind that finds you holding hands and really thinking about it.  The kind that makes you feel hopeful, full of joy, and still a little nervous.  The kind that ends with hope of a next date.


We participated in some dates like those and spoke for hours on the phone across campus and in person on long walks.  He proposed to me on a date that marked our college graduation and his birthday, and represented the number of days we dated:  19.  Then we started a year-long, long-distance engagement followed by marriage, moving away from family, a few moves to new apartments and homes, new jobs, miscarriage, the addition of business travel (for him), childbirth, and more distance between us without realizing we created it ourselves.

Our days of dating, as few as they were, had made us familiar with each other, bonded us in new ways, helped us see from new eyes, helped us eliminate life clutter and focus on our relationship.  Imagine that!  Dating consists of everything married life should.  We leave it behind for "more mature" endeavors, only to find they're the very activities that divide us or cut us off from the love we have known and cultivated at the beginning.  Instead, we sow seeds and leave them to grow untended.

Life events and overwrought psyches, insecurities and slipping attitudes drew us toward unfamiliar territory, which we began to explore in opposite directions and with greater irritation over the other person not willingly following in whatever direction we each decided felt right.

We forgot to connect.  We avoided discussion over hurtful things.  We forgot to anticipate time with each other.  We forgot to make special plans just for us.  We made work more important, followed by children and then "down" time -- when all the others weighed on us so much.  We had a handful of joy that buoyed us, but not often enough.  We roamed and found divergent paths in order to not have to think about struggling and to avoid discussing issues we found uncomfortable, except in heated moments when we let it all hang in dangerous doses with all the wrong words.

And we came back together.

God allowed us to fall apart so we could fall together.  Unite.  Find pleasure in our purpose together again.  Some people never do that.  They cut the fraying ties and run, often right to another person with similar issues.  They do the dating, they feel the infatuation, and then they start fraying just the same.

We started out by doing all those things we used to do nearly a quarter century ago to get to know each other.  We offered sincere compliments, we found fulfillment in conversation, we carefully noticed each other, we learned what made the other person tick, we learned the other person's joys and sorrows, pleasures and pain.  We made lunch dates, sometimes every day.  We took time away from our children to work on projects together or go shopping.

We made plans.  We looked forward to carrying out the plans.  We looked forward to making more plans like those very soon.  We looked forward to each other.

And that's dating!  

To keep up the great work we've accomplished so far (thank you, GOD!), I had a lightning-strike idea about 10 days before Christmas.  Preplanned, prepaid and packaged date nights.  A whole boxful, allowing for twelve dates throughout the coming year.  I wrapped the huge box for My Dear Man and wriggled and smiled a lot in anticipation of the grand opening.  I could barely stand the wait.

So I told a friend about it.  She went off like a firework finale and drummed up a box of her own for her husband's Christmas gift.  Her husband loved it.  They've already gone on their "first" date.

We're going at our dates a little more slowly.  In fact, as life would have it, we haven't gone on one yet.  I had to cancel plans based on a toothache (who can eat fried chicken and enjoy the severely misunderstood Scarlett and Rhett in "Gone with the Wind" with a swollen, painful jaw, I ask you), followed by children's and potential childcare-giver's illnesses.  Life will still get in the way, but so will this box!

 

It sits in plain sight, and we review it from time to time, anticipating.  This weekend will bring Scarlett and Rhett to our family room in living color, and we will feast on southern fried chicken and drink something peachy or mint julep-like in honor of the Old South.  We will date!  He will not understand some of the connections, I will have too much book knowledge, and we will both cringe when Rhett walks out, and we will have shared many things:

- an uninterrupted evening together -- just the together makes me smile
- a meal
- a movie and all of its history and lessons in perseverance (except for hanging tough in marriage!)
- our thoughts about what we're seeing (and about how much time will pass during it, I'm sure!)
- time, space, energy, self, knowledge, thought, interpretation, reaction, hope, hands, outlook/vision, understanding and anticipation

We're looking forward to date nights without actual dates assigned to them.  It feels terrific.  It feels like having someone pull out a ticket from a hat while you stand in the crowd, waiting and hoping.  Except that you get to win every time.

I encourage you ... beg you, even ... to share your ideas for date nights with those who visit this site.  We come from all over -- the US, Canada, Russia, Ireland, Poland, the Nordic Countries, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, China, Japan, Italy, Spain, France, Malaysia, Indonesia, Kenya, Cambodia and Ukraine.  Each person has much to offer, and all marriage-focused ideas help in ways you may never know.  Someone out there needs your help through your shared idea or offered thought.  Have at it! ENJOY!

Head to the DATE NIGHT: Add Yours! tab at the top of this page (or click the link above) and give us your tips and topics for a great date in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

Looking forward to reading and sharing with you.  We all need it.