aterrell:
I think God is telling me to offer it up. I don’t want to. At all. I want to fight for my right. I’ve given it up every year. I’m asking for something small. I want my husband to love me enough to care.
It seems you’ve nailed the **real **issue here. It may not be about Christmas day (that’s the symptom)…the problem seems to be that you are not getting the feedback you need from your husband which shows he cares about you.
If he gave in and let you have Christmas home this year or next, you may end up in tears that day because 1) it won’t live up to your expections and 2) your husband still won’t be showing you how much he cares about you in every other thing going on all year.
IF your husband all along has been showing you how much you mean to him would Christmas Day still be an issue for you? or would you find yourself more in a giving mood about it since you know how much he does for you and loves you and so you don’t mind so much giving this one day to him on his terms?
That’s the question I have to ask myself every time I start feeling what you’re describing. Is it really XXX that bugs me or is it what
not having XXX “means” to me? If I don’t get A that means he doesn’t care, doesn’t love, doesn’t whatever…bottom line I’m feeling rejected and I’m trying to blame something instead of someone for feeling that way.
Could it be hormones are wreaking havoc with you which is leading you to feeling not loved, not appreciated? You could just be worn out overall and you’re finding that whenever you think about Christmas it triggers the worst anguish…so then you think the Christmas issue is the problem when it really isn’t.
If it’s not hormones, then maybe something is going on in your marriage which is feeding this sense of rejection. What things can your husband do now, once a week perhaps, which would help rebuild that sense of emotional security of his love you seek? Perhaps if you two tackle that issue between now and the holidays, you’ll be able to get through this holiday round happier.
And since your relationship will have been nurtured, from that, the two of you should be able to begin discussing future holidays. You aren’t getting anywhere with the discussion now because there may be an underlying problem going on here. Sounds like it’s time to go back to the courtship phase of a relationship…you might be relying on body language and mind reading over what is actually said between the two of you.
To be honest, I ended up giving up several of these ‘needs’ of mine over the years, especially once I started looking at the core of the matter instead of the symptoms. Funny how I don’t regret giving them up, and I have only fuzzy recollections of what the issues were any more. But I do know praying to Mary helped me to see clearer, and I know that taking inventory of all the good things I already had helped me to appreciate him much more.
I got caught up in wanting my husband and my children to demonstrate their love/appreciation for me the way **I **wanted to see it. Because I was looking for a hug but never got it, I wasn’t able to see the picking up of the dishes or doing their homework before dinner without my having to remind them as
their ways of showing how much I mean to them. When the kids hit middle school they were able to tell me that those were the ways they were trying to show me how much they care. It made a big difference in my feeling loved and appreciated by them after that, and they give me more hugs now too because I was able to tell them I missed those.
With my husband I wanted him to sit down at night to ask questions about the kids but it was only small talk about current events. I took that to mean he didn’t care about the kids, really, and feeling like he was dumping the entire parenting burden on my shoulders so he could focus on his own needs (me not being able to give any attention to myself because I’m always having to deal with the kids’ and his needs)…and I’d take out my frustration on him in small ways which pretty much irritated both of us.
Finally, after praying I was able to sit him down and tell him what I was doing - that I was taking his attitude to mean X. He was able to share with me his true feelings about the kids and me, I was able to offer suggestions on ways he could demonstrate that to them daily or weekly, which would also show me he wasn’t expecting me to “do it all”, and he was open to that. And finally, I was able to listen to the ways he was trying to show me he supported me. As with my kids, from then on, I was able to feel loved just because hubby did the dishes that night - go figure!
I hope this is making some sense to you…it’s kinda jumbled, I know. I may be off base, but it’s another perspective to take on this whole issue that is worth my sharing it with you.
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