I Really Need to Clean Out My Car...

Do you admit that you have bad habits? I don't always admit it, but I know that I have quite a few.  Some of them are quite obvious, especially if you've ever seen the interior of my car. It's a good thing that I have so many children, because I am almost never have room for visitors in my car, which makes it easy to keep it a secret.
My car is a complete mess.
I've tried to keep it neat and tidy, but to no avail. Dirty clothes, clothes that were  once clean but are now dirty, empty juice boxes, lost notes from teacher, receipts; the list is endless. Its more contained in the summer months because it is easier to make my kids clean it out. But the winter time is particularly difficult. It's just too cold. I avoid letting this messy cat out of the bag because I very seldom have anyone else in my car. However, I'm getting tired of throwing things over the back seat and stuffing papers under chairs on those rare occasions when we do have company. 
Keeping bad habits hidden is hard work. And how I ever get over something bad if I keep it hidden?
I can't...

Revelation 12:11

"They triumphed over him
    by the blood of the Lamb
    and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
    as to shrink from death."(NIV)

I don't know about you, but I've become an expert at keeping many of my bad habits pretty well hidden, but that's probably why I still have them. Because I was ashamed of them, I refused to let them be seen. Once you let something that you know you have struggled with be seen by someone that you trust, that person won't only help you with it, but they will hold you accountable for overcoming it. Especially in marriage.
There are so many things that go on in a husband/wife relationship that the big things are blown up even bigger and the little things are made to look even bigger than they are. If you work hard and stay consistent, you and your husband can overcome the small, the big and the even bigger. And when you overcome those issues, its important to share with someone that you did.
The drama that you see isn't unique to you. There are wives every where that deal with the same things that you do and they have absolutely no idea how to go about working on it. That's where your expert testimony comes in. You may not be in the place to give them all of the dirty details, but you can help a fellow Insane Wife, whether new or old, fight some of the same challenges you face. Then, there are those times when you can confide in someone while you are going through. Maybe a trusted colleague can help you shed some light on a situation that you couldn't see before.And when everyone overcomes, everyone can celebrate.
You have to get to a place where you love yourself and your marriage more than you love the comfort of hiding a bad habit. Bad habits are only as bad as you keep them hidden. Once you expose them to the light, they don't seem so deep and dark.
Unless we're talking about my messy car...

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Choose to Expect...

I haven't heard too many New Year's resolutions this year.
Praise God.
I don't like them; resolutions I mean. I have been the person that tried to make them, but soon realized that I abandoned both the resolution and the effort somewhere around Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. It wasn't always my fault. I tried. The first 48 to 72 hours of my efforts were sincere. But the problem was, I was not actually expecting myself to actually perform the tasks I put into place.
I've never really been one to exercise, but losing 50 pounds in one year sounded like a good plan.
Resolution: Abandoned.
I will cook my family 7 healthy and well balanced meals every week. My children actually decided hot dogs and chips were more their speed. So this wasn't my fault... Totally.
Resolution: Abandoned.
I will spare you the rest of my failed attempts at year after year of abandoned resolutions.
After listening to the failed attempts at New Year's resolutions of others in addition to mine, I began to consider why the attempts were failed and/or abandoned. Our intentions were good. The ideas weren't bad. Our lofty ambitions to become better people or better at what we do are admirable.
But the timing is bad.

Proverbs 23:16

"There is surely a future to hope for you,

and your hope will not be cut off."

We don't have to wait until the end of a calendar year and the beginning of a new one to make changes to anything. The choice is made when you make the choice. Before the end of last year, I made a choice to make a complete lifestyle change:

I will be me. No matter what.

This is where it will all begin. 

I am a wife. Insane, though I might be, I am a wife that is dedicated to her post. I expect to evolve into a better, more loving and more patient and attentive wife, but my status as wife is who I am.

Of course, like any wife, I had expectations of my husband and my marriage throughout the years. Some of them were proven to be unrealistic. I expected to be provided for. I expected to be helped with raising our children. I expected to be loved. I expected to to wooed. I chose to expect. At times I was disappointed because my expectations weren't met. But we have time for that.

The point is, I choose to expect. 

When you don't expect anything, you don't receive anything. When you don't expect better, you don't receive better. And when you don't announce your expectations, how can your husband know what is expected of him?
He's smart, but he's still a man. Not a mind reader.

Do you have expectations for your marriage or your "Wife Style" this year? Please share! We would love to hear from you.

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Fifty Shades of Grey-Inspired Insane...

I consider myself a connoisseur of books. I will read almost anything, really. My family makes fun of me because I'm known to peruse the back of disinfectant cans.
Nothing is off limits around me.
And, much like you, I've been hearing many things about this "Fifty Shades of Grey". I intentionally stayed away from it because if things that I have heard about it. This particular literary work was not on my radar, but after conversing with another book expert, I decided to stop judging the book by its reputation and indulge... For the lack of a better term.
Well...
It wasn't horrible. I was expecting an old-school porn, story line-lacking, chapter after chapter of eroticism. I was wrong. There was paragraph after paragraph of graphic sex acts that made even this Insane Wife blush, but the basis of the story was fascinating. Without going into too much detail, "Fifty Shades of Grey" is about a young, inexperienced woman who falls in love with a deeply disturbed young man who has an obsession with being overly controlling.
 What I found particularly interesting is that the leading man had a standing contract with any woman he "dated". Outside of  a standard non-disclosure form, there were extremely specific areas the their prospective "relationship" that he wanted to be made clear. What was expected of him as well as what would be expected of the female counterpart.
Genius...
So this got me to thinking about boundaries. I know that they are needed before marriage, but what happens afterward? Do the boundaries magically disappear? Do we take the time to modify the premarital boundaries? Are there still things that are off limits, physically? Financially? Emotionally? Or do we just leave our lives open to be lingered into here and there?
Hmmm....

Genesis 3:1-4

"Now the serpent was more crafty than

any of the wild animals the Lord God made.

He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, 

'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?

The woman said to the serpent,

'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,

but God did say,

'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in 

the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it,

or you will die.'

'You will not certainly die,'

the serpent said to the woman."

See? Boundaries, even waaay before when.

I'm not saying that there has to be a typed and double-spaced contractual document. But maybe having the discussion is a good idea. One reason being, so you both will know what is and isn't okay. It keeps down the riffraff. Clarity. Not just, we're faithful to each other and we split all the bills down the middle. I mean real conversations. Doing this will keep your feelings from getting hurt and your husband from trying to read your mind and figure out whats wrong.

Do you expect to have a date night? How often?

Will you maintain control of any portion of the finances? Will you have your own bank account?

Will needs of the children be exclusively your responsibility or shared?

Are we given access to emails, cell phones and mail?
Even intimacy. What's welcomed? What's off limits? 

We have to talk about these things. 

Like I say often, marriage isn't forever; its til death. Who wants to spend that time upset because we could have made things clear but didn't?

Fifty Shades of Grey taught this wife a lesson. Do you have boundaries?

There has to be a line drawn somewhere...

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