Last night, at girls' group, Elizabeth was reading a chapter out of a book for us. It's called "Confessions of an Honest Wife" and it's by Sarah Zacharias Davis (Robbie's daughter). The scenario was this: A woman and her fiance decided to wash their cars together. They both drove to the apartment complex's car washing facility and were hosing down the cars. She was meticulously scrubbing her cars as her dad had taught her to do. When her fiance was done with his car, he walked over and began scrubbing the side of her car that she hadn't reached yet. She was started. "What are you doing?" she asked. "We're washing our cars...." was his response. "No, that's not how we wash our cars- you wash your car, I wash my car." She reasoned. "No, this is how we do it- we help each other," he replied. It really annoyed her.

As she thought about this scenario, she wondered about balance in marriage. Essentially, she saw but two doors- behind door number one, was their marriage 40 years down the road- she had maintained her independence and lived the life of "together/separate". They were in a counselor's office as she cried- the 2 strangers having gone separate ways year ago and it was too late to reconcile. The therapist says, "You should've done things 'together/together'."

Behind door number two they stood, again, in a counselor's office, 40 years down the road. They had done things "together/together" and she had lost herself. The wife didn't even know how to go to the gym by herself anymore. Her husband had lost interest and had an affair. She wished she had kept her "self".

The author admits to knowing that there are more than 2 doors, more options than those 2 scenarios. However, it made a great discussion for our girls' group. The fears in a group of women, from all different backgrounds, are varied and widespread. But somewhere we wrestled with that question: where's the balance? I think it's a journey. I think that that two do become one in marriage- but there's two selves- you and you & hubby. Marriage is a exercise in selflessness. It's a sacrifice of pride. But I bring something unique to the table just as Adam does. And it'd be an insult to the Lord, who created me (and you) in his image, to lose the passions that he's placed on my heart. So, there has to be a place of pursuing those. However, there's also sacrifice. Hopefully, mostly the bad stuff get's sacrificed- selfishness, wanting to bring glory to myself/vanity..hopefully, I'm sowing patience and kindness. But my time isn't my own anymore. But was it ever? Maybe marriage is a reminder that we're not our own. But I digress, the point is there's sacrifice- I'm not always going to do the things that I love- I'm going to share things that Adam loves with him and vice versa.
So, it's a two-way street- there's balance, there always is. It's something we have to seek wisdom on, for sure. We want to, for lack of better words, develop our selves- through time with the Lord, time with friends, time loving/serving others, time spent doing things that we love- that the Father loves. Because we owe that to the one who created us and the one we share a home with. But we're also going to sacrifice and love, by doing things we don't feel like doing- laundry, doing something that our hubbies love and we don't particularly, bridling our tongue, etc.
Anywhoos, that was a really long post but it was what we talked about last night. I hadn't ever really thought about it before but it's definitely a fear among women- in one form or another. One girl in the group was talking about her desire to be a stay-at-home mom. But there are fears along with that- because sometimes the world thinks less of a stay-at-home mom (which they wouldn't if they tried it, eh?). She didn't want her husband to, unintentionally, feel that way. So, things to process through- good times.