When I made my vows to my wife on October 25, 2008 I meant them. I promised to love, honor, and cherish her all the days of my life. More than five years later, I have striven to live up to those promises I made with God's help. Some days are more successful than others.
Like most couples, we have our differences and our fights. Luckily, none of them involve yelling much (she doesn't yell and I yell occasionally). Even when we have our arguments, we made a vow to discuss it before we go to bed. It doesn't do us any good to sleep when angry - you tend not to sleep anyways. Plus, it keeps us from dwelling on the situation and to allow it to snowball into something bigger. We may not come to an agreement always, but we make a point to try and deal with it. We try not to point a finger at the other, but relate how the situation makes us feel. Sleep tends to be a little better afterwards.
That being said, I recently feel that I have hurt my wife deeply and in such a way it may take time to recover. This was not something I intentionally did. It was more subtle than actual words and actions would create. The substance of which was my lack of commitment and support to her dreams. Or more specifically, a particular dream that she has had since she was little.
I am not going to give an excuse for my behavior or to give a reasoning to prove my side of the argument. This is a situation where a lack of communication can result in hurting someone you love dearly - even if you thought you were sparing their feelings. The way I feel hurting her in this it would have been less if I had cheated on her. Not that adultery is better - I just feel I caused her more pain than if I did cheat. At least, that's how I feel.
Before I start, I talked to my wife and asked her to forgive me for my actions or lack of action. I also prayed for forgiveness as well. I think they were both important things to do.
Ever since she was a little girl, Susan has wanted to be a mother. Her job involves children with special needs and for years she was heavily involved in children's ministry at church. She has a special bond with children and enjoys teaching them. The way she interacts and bonds with friends' children fills her heart. So, she would be a great mother when the time comes.
However, we have been unable to have children for a variety of reasons. We decided to look into adoption, more specifically international adoption with Taiwan. This was over three years ago when we started with the program. Almost two years ago, Taiwan changed their adoption laws which caused our agency to be unlicensed. Since then, our agency has fumbled around attempting to pair up with another licensed agency or attempt to get their own. While this was going on, we were offered to be in the China special needs program while waiting on Taiwan. We had an opportunity to adopt a five-year old but at the last second found that it would cost us an additional $26,000 to complete with very few of the Taiwan program funds applied to it. Needless to say, we could not afford to move forward.
My wife was devastated by that. Now, I could write about how we were screwed over by the adoption agency or bemoan this fate. I am not going to, because I am putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of who deserves it, me.
During this process, I was not 100% behind it. I was perfectly content to allow Susan to take the lead and do all the work. She made all the phone calls, asked the questions, and gather the paperwork. I went along for the ride. My attitude was if we adopted that was great and if not, that would be fine also. The problem is that I was not as supportive of her dreams as I should have been. If I had been more involved, more questions would have been asked, mutual decisions made, and a plan could have been designed. Maybe we would have gone in a different direction. Decided earlier that international adoption wasn't the way to go, before a lot of money had been spent. We could have changed course earlier and come up with other plans. Instead, I remained aloof as Susan chased her dream by herself.
It's not cool to smash down someone else's dreams. Maybe we will adopt someday, maybe we won't. We could go down the domestic route. All I know is that my wife's heart was injured badly, and I was a major reason for that. She's afraid to go forward as there's the risk we can get hurt again. Plus, she questions her own dreams and what exactly her future holds. I don't know for sure if at the end of the day, I could have fully protected her from all that. But, I left her on her own and let her shoulder the burden.
I left her feeling that she was dragging me through the process and resenting her for doing that. Therefore, she faced her struggles and concerns unable to discuss with her closest confidante that God had provided her. I withheld my concerns or my own wishes for fear of hurting her feelings. So, I was "sparing" her feelings. That was a huge mistake on my part. I have always stressed open communication and I disregarded it here. Sure, we could have disagreed or even argued, but at least it would be open and honest. We could have come up with a better solution.
We are still working on this. I am sure we aren't still discussing it for fear of hurting the other. We still tiptoe around it and still not confronting it. Please pray for us regarding this. I know how I am, and this is tough - tougher than I ever thought.
The other issue I failed as head of the household was that we didn't pray together on this like we should have. The first mistake made in huge decisions is not including God in them. We didn't and this was the result. Hurt feelings, damage to the relationship, and broken dreams. For that, I apologize to my wife.
Like most couples, we have our differences and our fights. Luckily, none of them involve yelling much (she doesn't yell and I yell occasionally). Even when we have our arguments, we made a vow to discuss it before we go to bed. It doesn't do us any good to sleep when angry - you tend not to sleep anyways. Plus, it keeps us from dwelling on the situation and to allow it to snowball into something bigger. We may not come to an agreement always, but we make a point to try and deal with it. We try not to point a finger at the other, but relate how the situation makes us feel. Sleep tends to be a little better afterwards.
That being said, I recently feel that I have hurt my wife deeply and in such a way it may take time to recover. This was not something I intentionally did. It was more subtle than actual words and actions would create. The substance of which was my lack of commitment and support to her dreams. Or more specifically, a particular dream that she has had since she was little.
I am not going to give an excuse for my behavior or to give a reasoning to prove my side of the argument. This is a situation where a lack of communication can result in hurting someone you love dearly - even if you thought you were sparing their feelings. The way I feel hurting her in this it would have been less if I had cheated on her. Not that adultery is better - I just feel I caused her more pain than if I did cheat. At least, that's how I feel.
Before I start, I talked to my wife and asked her to forgive me for my actions or lack of action. I also prayed for forgiveness as well. I think they were both important things to do.
Ever since she was a little girl, Susan has wanted to be a mother. Her job involves children with special needs and for years she was heavily involved in children's ministry at church. She has a special bond with children and enjoys teaching them. The way she interacts and bonds with friends' children fills her heart. So, she would be a great mother when the time comes.
However, we have been unable to have children for a variety of reasons. We decided to look into adoption, more specifically international adoption with Taiwan. This was over three years ago when we started with the program. Almost two years ago, Taiwan changed their adoption laws which caused our agency to be unlicensed. Since then, our agency has fumbled around attempting to pair up with another licensed agency or attempt to get their own. While this was going on, we were offered to be in the China special needs program while waiting on Taiwan. We had an opportunity to adopt a five-year old but at the last second found that it would cost us an additional $26,000 to complete with very few of the Taiwan program funds applied to it. Needless to say, we could not afford to move forward.
My wife was devastated by that. Now, I could write about how we were screwed over by the adoption agency or bemoan this fate. I am not going to, because I am putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of who deserves it, me.
During this process, I was not 100% behind it. I was perfectly content to allow Susan to take the lead and do all the work. She made all the phone calls, asked the questions, and gather the paperwork. I went along for the ride. My attitude was if we adopted that was great and if not, that would be fine also. The problem is that I was not as supportive of her dreams as I should have been. If I had been more involved, more questions would have been asked, mutual decisions made, and a plan could have been designed. Maybe we would have gone in a different direction. Decided earlier that international adoption wasn't the way to go, before a lot of money had been spent. We could have changed course earlier and come up with other plans. Instead, I remained aloof as Susan chased her dream by herself.
It's not cool to smash down someone else's dreams. Maybe we will adopt someday, maybe we won't. We could go down the domestic route. All I know is that my wife's heart was injured badly, and I was a major reason for that. She's afraid to go forward as there's the risk we can get hurt again. Plus, she questions her own dreams and what exactly her future holds. I don't know for sure if at the end of the day, I could have fully protected her from all that. But, I left her on her own and let her shoulder the burden.
I left her feeling that she was dragging me through the process and resenting her for doing that. Therefore, she faced her struggles and concerns unable to discuss with her closest confidante that God had provided her. I withheld my concerns or my own wishes for fear of hurting her feelings. So, I was "sparing" her feelings. That was a huge mistake on my part. I have always stressed open communication and I disregarded it here. Sure, we could have disagreed or even argued, but at least it would be open and honest. We could have come up with a better solution.
We are still working on this. I am sure we aren't still discussing it for fear of hurting the other. We still tiptoe around it and still not confronting it. Please pray for us regarding this. I know how I am, and this is tough - tougher than I ever thought.
The other issue I failed as head of the household was that we didn't pray together on this like we should have. The first mistake made in huge decisions is not including God in them. We didn't and this was the result. Hurt feelings, damage to the relationship, and broken dreams. For that, I apologize to my wife.
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