Meet Him at the Door With Your Lips, Not Your Mouth

Proverbs 25:34  “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.”  ESV

He walks in the door, kicks off his boots, gets a glass of tea, sits in the recliner and throws his feet up.  Then he actually looks at me and says, “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”  Yes!  He said that to me.  He hasn’t noticed the children are running through the house naked, the dogs just tore up a feather pillow on the still damp floor I just mopped, and supper is boiling over on the stove.  I’m standing here, 5:00 in the evening still in my pajamas because I haven’t had the chance to have a shower yet and he wants to tell me about his day.  Wow.

We all remember these days.  Some of you may still be living this scenario.  Once you have children, the days of greeting each other with kisses are long gone. We find ourselves greeting our spouse with our mouths, instead of that warm kiss of days gone by.  “You wait ‘til your daddy gets home,” takes on a whole new meaning.  He barely makes it in the door before unload on him what his son did today.  We have become a nagging, quarrelsome, complaining wives.  

A lot of times I truly don’t think we mean to be quarrelsome. I think that we tend to find ourselves just needing an adult to hear us and share our mommy woes. Even though we have chosen to step into the role of Mommy, we are still a wife and more than that, we are a person.  Women need love and acceptance.  Women need validation.  Women need an attagirl even when they grow up.  Finding the balance between being the girl he married and the mommy you are can be overwhelming on a good day, much less on a day like today has been.

How do you find that balance?  I feel that communication is key.  Not the communication you are thinking of, either.  You cannot lay into your spouse the moment he walks into the door and expect him to empathize with your needs.  That just lays a brick in the wall that sometimes gets built between husbands and wives when problems aren’t solved with communication.  Granted, the world is changing and men are much more into the parenting role than back in my child-raising days, but I’m not sure the typical husband has any idea what it truly means to be a stay-at-home mom.  Or even a working mom.  We have to live our lives in balance.  We have to make sure the children are fed, homework is done, baths, dinner, laundry, and the list goes on and on.

We also set the tone for our household, so therefore, we have to make sure that we are enjoying our roles instead of resenting our roles as wife and mother.  Sometimes, we just need to greet our husband’s at the door with our lips and not our complaining mouth. Give him a kiss and hug, and then ask, “Hey, could you hold me a minute?” Let him absorb the frustrations you have.  Lean on him.  Share with him. Encourage him to listen. If that doesn’t work, you can always ask him to watch the children while you make a quick trip to the store for milk….that lasts a couple of hours, because after all, those chocolate cupcakes the kids just ate should be kicking in any minute now.  They are naked, remember?  You washed off the evidence.  He will never know until it hits them. You can apologize later with that kiss.