Hands Off! That's Someone Else's Guy!

If you look across the table at Olive Garden and you're annoyed by all the things that guy is... you may be on someone else's dream date. But it isn't yours. Now, you can complain, nag, and try to mold him into someone else – all the while hating that he doesn't love you “for yourself.” - or you can wake up and realize... You're dating someone else's guy. Your guy is out there looking for you, and you're wasting time with Becky's guy, and wasting Becky's guy's time. 

A man isn't something you construct like Build-A-Bear or Mr. Potato Head. Just as you have been encouraged to “be yourself,” by people you love – his people told him the same thing. He won't turn into an animal lover just because you drag home 4 cats and 2 dogs – so if that's a deal breaker for you, be a big girl and break the deal.

Some of us have married someone else's guy. Years of feeling unaccepted and unaccepting, unloved and unloving inside a marriage isn't worth the time you saved by not waiting for YOUR guy and running down the aisle with someone else's guy. I wonder if we think he'll fit better when we break him in... like cute shoes that are made for someone else's feet. 

Many marriages are unhappy because the wrong two people are in them, not because there's something wrong with one spouse or the other. 

So, how do you not marry someone else's guy? 

Don't date him once you realize that at least one of you doesn't really like the other. Sometimes dating feels like a stock market investment. You hate to call it a loss and pull out for fear that the next day incredible riches, or in this case a complete personality change, would fall your way. People don't change into other people. They may learn something, improve some bad habits.. but someone's identity isn't a bad habit. 

If you are already whining (even if only in your head) that he is selfish and won't do what you like to do... perhaps he doesn't like doing what you like to do. Sometimes women can be happy as long “as we're together.” I've learned many many MANY men do NOT share that quality. It isn't that you aren't irresistible enough and you aren't going to win this one in time. You will never have more power in being irresistible than while you're dating. In 5 years he will do LESS of what he doesn't want to do, not more.

If you feel as though you're suffocating or more lonely than when you're single – examine your needs for intimacy. If you have commitment issues – see a therapist. If commitment isn't an issue for you – get out. People with vastly different needs for emotional intimacy should not marry one another. The tendency will be for one will feel suffocated and the other intense loneliness.

If you're a Christian and he's an atheist, agnostic or follows another religion, you date at your own peril. Intimate relationships impact the people in them. Winning a man and losing your faith is foolish. It isn't something to play around with. If you think you've been brokenhearted over a man, it's nothing when compared to being brokenhearted over losing who God is to you. I've been there and you truly need to trust me on this.

He stands you up, you stand him up, you text him so often he has to take his phone with him to pee, he gets a little crazy because you didn't take his call and you happened to be “in the stirrups.” Move along. Nothing good is happening here. 

So, what if you're already married to someone else's guy. Well, it isn't going to be a Cinderella story, but that doesn't mean you have to abandon your commitment. You will need to grow up and rise to the occasion if you don't want a life of constant bickering and disrespect – unless you'd rather sulk and feel sorry for yourself.

• If you need help coming to terms with this, see a therapist. If you're emotionally unfulfilled, dig deeper into your relationship with God. I mean REALLY deep. 
• Develop close relationships with other women. Don't play the martyr and waste away – do the things you like to do and allow him the freedom to do the same with friends of the same sex. Don't play around with platonic relationships with the opposite sex. For your situation, it's unwise. 
• Put some effort into finding common interests rather than sulk that he hates the ballet, hates NCIS, and hates folk music. 
• Accept him for who he is. Be kind. Be honest about seeking to find common ground and ways for you to find contentment as a couple. I have news for you – he isn't as oblivious as you think. Chances are pretty good you've been blaming him for “being himself” for quite awhile and this new approach could be a breath of fresh air.

If you have words of wisdom – or a funny story about dating someone else's guy - to add to this topic, please share them in the comments.

Summer, Sunscreen, and Sadistic Swimsuits.

Arrgghh. I'm 48 years old. My face has completed a disappointing eight year run. It's worse when I wear my glasses, but if I take them off, I look as good as I did 5 years ago. I had a nightmare a few weeks ago that my entire cheek area resembled the wrinkly bottom of my big toe when I've spent too long in the tub. I slather on that 25 SPF cream from Mary Kay.

I'll guarantee you have rarely seen me dressed for the weather, if the temperature is above 78 degrees. Smaller clothes do not adequately conceal my upper arms, my thighs, or the relaxed nature of my muscle tone. When people have called me uptight – they weren't referring to my muscle tone.

I vow I'll be ready for summer this year, every year. My aversion to sweating tends to interfere with my lofty visions of the knockout body, however. It's July, and I'm not ready – again.

I've waited and waited. My husband, the King of Workout Willpower to my Queen of Next Week, I'll Do Cardio a Minimum of 3 Hours and Eat Only Vegetables, I Swear, lounges in our pool in self confident comfort. He plans tubing outings on the river while I consider the unflattering visual of a swimsuit.

Yes, the swimsuit – let's talk about that for a second. A swimsuit bottom is designed to hold onto your bones or hard muscle, no matter how deep into the flesh it must venture to locate it. When you're 10, you are jumping off diving boards – it's an important feature. At 48, I just don't want it to slide off when I climb the pool ladder. The swimsuit top, however, is less obvious in its intentions. The strap around my back is always good and tight; I spend a lot of time moving it to the most flattering location amidst the back fat. The strap around my neck is a no win situation, mostly because of the inadequacy of the cup area. The cup area relaxes in the lovely summer weather, apparently unaware that it isn't on vacation, it's ON DUTY. As a result, I have to really tighten that neck strap to keep the cup tops in a semi-modest location. About 20 minutes into this wardrobe debacle, the strap becomes part of the spinal cord at the base of my neck.

My husband enjoys telling the story of me walking out of the water at Hammonasset Beach with a big smile on my face declaring the water beautiful, my bosoms completely revealed thanks to failure of structural integrity in the straps of my brand new one-piece swimsuit.

I've decided I'm as beautiful as I make up my mind to be. Why not? It has to be the form of denial with the most positive side effects. In my mind, I look like Liz Hurley at 35, and I unleash beaming, posh British smiles on passing strangers. I possess NO back fat, and believe that my outfit appears just as it did at home – looking on from the front, with my shoulders back in perfect posture, stomach sucked in til I couldn't breath. When I walk away, I believe no one can see me if I'm not looking directly at them. Yesterday, I decided I look better in my underwear and bra than I look in a swimsuit and... so, after my walk, in the privacy of my own secluded back yard, I stripped of my shirt and Capri pants and jumped into the pool. Woo Hoo!

I informed my husband the rest of the world could deal with my lack of perfection, or divorce me... but I'm not missing out on summer this year. I have all these tank tops that are almost brand new, and I can buy shirts with spaghetti straps, and sundresses! I'm packing up my sunblock and my inner beauty and taking them everywhere I want to go.

He laughed and said, "Good, you're much more fun like this!"

In truth, I was quite relieved he responded that way, but I was committed to do this for myself regardless.

You Can Most Likely Survive Until She Turns 18

As our kids grew up, we faced huge paradigm shifts. We were the one person on the planet entrusted to be responsible for those lives – how they grew, the nutrients they received, the weeds we needed to pull quickly. It's the most important job many of us will ever have.

We put our interests, careers, and dry clean only wardrobe options on hold. We gave up cars without the odd french fry stuck in a place too small to reach, leisurely browsing at magazines as we headed into the gauntlet of candy at store registers, and sleep. Not for the sake of duty, but for love. Well … sleep? Maybe that was a duty.

We looked upon their faces the first time, and saw cherubic babies to nurture, protect and adore. God does this for a reason. We need years of emotional investment, late night fevers that fill us with fear, and glittery handmade Mother's Day cards to sufficiently prepare us for the teen years.

It was those tender memories which fueled the denial sustaining us through 12, 13 and 14. By the time she hit 15, we'd adopted a marathon mentality... one more step, one more stride, one more Saturday night of “ruining our her life.”

At 16, we could no longer recall the sobbing little girl wrapped around our legs if we tried to go somewhere without her. In her place was a creature of fury, slamming her bedroom door, rolling her eyes, and deluded into believing we were excited to sentence ourselves her to a week of restriction – at home – with us – alone – with none of her friends to distract the venomous viper princess of pessimism.

In truth, by the time she reached 14 we were looking for ways to give her some money, the car keys and lift her curfew while still being a good mother. We daydreamed of packing up our things as she cleared the driveway and going on a vacation that lasted, oh, 4 years, and yes... there was giggling involved.

Then there would be moments of laughter, when we delighted in the young woman emerging from the sulky teenager. Of course, young women have opinions on fashion and style ...

Do you remember the style arguments? Half naked is in style and a 14 year old does need that much eyeliner! Her fresh pretty eyes were gorgeous in their cleanest state, as my makeup sunk into newly formed “character lines.” I fondly remembered a time when I didn't have to pull my eyebrows up to locate the contour shadow “in the crease.”

The wearying teen years sucked the youthful optimism from the very marrow of our bones. The image of us reflected in their eyes told us we were no fun, middle aged, uninteresting. I think it's the reason we have that mid-life period of rebellion after they take their shoe collection, electronics and stray socks and move out. It's freedom for everyone involved. Even our men show signs as they parade around the house in their underwear for no other reason than “they can.”

The people we spend our time with like us, encourage us, laugh with us. The very absence of the disapproving and suspicious frowning faces lighten our steps and eases our trepidation about who we are. And somewhere in those last two sentences... I thought … that's how they probably feel also.

A quote from Stasi Eldredge about her mother, “I felt I was a disappointment to her in what I believed, how I dressed, what I thought, and who I was. It wasn't until I was forty-one years old that I realized I made her feel exactly the same way.

Judging the Judgmental and Our Moms

God managed to find us, even though we were rural, poor, and without a car.  We lived along a church bus route. I should have been thanking God for this for 38 years.  Embarrassingly, I've done more pouting than praising.  I can count the souls saved in our family alone at 19, all beginning with that church bus.  The vine tangles out into the world in many ways as we've each interacted and worked in ministries ourselves.


Embarrassment and shame breeds an ungracious heart, and after I left that church, my heart looked back with suspicion, mistrust and blame.  Some deserved, some imagined.  I carried embarrassment for sins committed by me as a young girl, and by my divorced parents.  I've harbored resentment for the legalistic atmosphere, and rarely expressed any words of gratitude for their part in my salvation.  I overlooked the incredible gift of a loving, generous and kind Sunday School teacher.  Mrs. Charlotte Ramsey was both beautiful and happy - and I still smile when I think of her.


Shortsighted, I allowed myself to dwell on the negatives. I was ungrateful for that church's willingness to reach lost kids like me, kids without a dime to put in the offering plate.  That church was where God courted the broken heart of a little girl, as though she mattered.


I've been the same in my recollections of my childhood family life.  We didn't have much, that's easy to remember.  The childhood hurts and disappointments were ugly raw wounds for a very long time, and I believed my parents could have shielded me from all pain.  In our family, this expectation was a tradition.


Those expectations foster woundedness and ingratitude.  I taught my own daughters to hold people accountable and protect themselves.  Apparently, I thought my experiences would make me into a perfect mother, able to fend off every injury for my own children - and thus be exempt from this ever coming back to bite me in the butt.  (In case you're still innocent enough to believe this is possible – it isn't.)


There is only one God.  Only he knows the secret workings of our hearts, the inner needs and the unspoken hurts.  Mothers don't.  (Churches don't either.) And not only do our children belong to God - so do our mothers.  I'm not my mother's judge.  As well as I think I know her, God knows her infinitely better.  She actually had a name before Mom, an identity that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with God, her creator. 


Over the past 5 years, the truth of my mother's identity has slowly become evident to me.  This year, I realized something shocking.  While Mom always accepted and loved me for who I am, I haven't done the same.  My approval was reserved for some sort of superhero - a woman capable of protecting me from every hurt, able to rid my childhood of vulnerability, wounds and disappointment, and supernaturally know me in a way only God could. I believed this SuperMom would customize her parenting style and abilities to be MY perfect mother.  Of course, my sister needed a different model, and my brother...

I don't want to be imprisoned in memories of disappointment, pain and injustice.  There is another option.  There are memories of joy, tenderness and laughter. I don't want my mother trapped in my judgments, feeling as though she owed me something I was cheated out of.  That's the work of the enemy.  I'm setting us both free.


Philippians 4:8  "Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things."

The Champions, The Damsels and Church

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a couple men about why people don't go to church.  There was quite a list, and then they revealed their personal reasons.  Both had church going wives, but they didn't attend.

"I spend all week with difficult people.  I'm peopled out on Sunday."

"Organized religion is filled with hypocrites.  Church should help people, but instead they are judgmental and just after money.  There's no humility."

In truth, both of these men have been deceived.  Each believes it does no good to go and does no harm to not go.  They've been convinced of the lie that this decision somehow serves them.  In truth, they aren't benefiting, but being deprived.  Deprived of the growth, development, respect and blessing God has for them in being the strength, the warriors, the brave men they were intended to be.  Their wives are sent without their champions into an arena these men dare not enter.

This deception deprives the men, their wives and their daughters.  They set in motion a family tradition of men denying their role as leader, as a strong one.  Instead of receiving their inner strength and validation from the God who created them with those attributes, they settle for shallow validations.  Validations from their careers, political opinions, and appreciation from their wives and family are just a few.

In truth, they abdicate their throne and leave it to God and other men to champion their wives and children.  Men who aren't afraid to enter the church, to grow, to challenge themselves, to be adventurers, and willing to carry the weight of providing spiritual nourishment to their hungry wives.  On Sunday mornings all across this country, those hungry wives set out alone as their providers sleep on Sunday morning.

The biggest deception the enemy manages to pull off is convincing men that this "choice" has been made from a strong determined will and the wives and children are similarly convinced.  In actuality, our emperors are wearing no clothes.

But women are not defenseless.  God is our champion, defender, bridegroom.  He stands with our lonely hearts and fills them as we stand in a pew filled with couples  He nurtures, cares, strengthens and protects us.  He is a lover to our soul, capable of intimacy beyond any human being.  After the disappointment of going to church alone joins our comfy homes and sleepy husbands in our rear view mirrors... we feel genuine sorrow that our champions snore through the epic adventure of their lives.

Perspective

I could write a million, well, perhaps not a million.  I could write about many topics with that same title.  It was the difference between feeling like my family was somehow inferior because it didn't look like the picture of other families and realizing that my family knows how to love, and I treasure that above a picture.  It was the difference between believing my best friend had the perfect family and I always felt like an "at risk" teenager; and seeing that she struggled with the same feelings of insecurity and defensiveness that I did.

It is the difference.

It's the difference between feeling alone in the world because you are alone in your home, and surrounding yourself with passionate people - empowered and at liberty to make a difference in the world.  It's the difference between hiding away the pictures taken of us by our young children, 15 years ago - before digital file deleting was an option, and seeing the youthfulness of that face (caught in the middle of a blink or a sneeze or was I puking on the turkey??? - what WAS that expression!?) 15 years later and thinking, "I wish I looked like that now."

It's difference between a moment of pouting that a gifted photographer is focusing on other projects and isn't taking any new portrait clients, and reading the story of her mom undergoing a double mastectomy 9 months ago - followed by months of terrifying medical events.  In October she revealed some of her work from last summer - portraits of women post-mastectomy.  These women are our sisters - sassy, strong, sexy, brave, and beautiful.

Beauty and the Breast Project

Perspective.

Kimberly posted a portrait of her with her mother and sister at Thanksgiving on her blog.
Today I am thankful for

Perspective.

Usually, It Isn't Enough To Be A Good Wife

We, women of a mother's age, balk whenever we hear of a young woman barely out of high school getting engaged.  At least I do.  Perhaps because I know what she doesn’t know yet.  I know that she will put all of her emotion into this man that she’s newly in love with.   She, if she is odd and knows who she is, is in danger of forgetting all of that in a desire to bond and connect with him.  Most times, she doesn’t know who she is yet.  She’s unaware of the gifts and talents that God has given to her for satisfying her longing soul by moving faithfully within His will. 

In Genesis, when God is explaining the consequences for Adam & Eve’s prohibited snack, He says to Eve in Genesis 3:16 “…Yet your desire shall be for your husband...”  This puzzled me when it was brought up at my weekly Bible study.  I’d never paid any attention to that phrase, most likely because it’s followed up with that “and he shall rule over you” phrase which we have all heard more times than we’ve enjoyed.  My friend from Bible study gave me a fresh perspective on this.  She said, “We will always be longing toward our husband.  Even if he isn’t meeting all of our emotional needs, we will always be longing for that and looking to him.”  Suddenly, I realized how many problems in marriages surrounding me directly reflects back to this explanation.

How many times have I sat in church without my husband and my thoughts distracted away from the message, wishing my husband was there, or, rather than taking the word for myself, I considered his circumstances, his unhappiness, his stress, his needs and applied the sermon to them in his absence. 

How many times has my mother gone to see the changing leaves, out for lunch, to church or a community event and felt lonely because my dad didn’t want to go with her. 

There is much undone by women of God because we want the companionship of our husband but he doesn’t share our desire, interests, mission or purpose. 

It may seem that we are simply living a self sacrificing life - but I believe that we are sacrificing our purpose and work on this earth for God in order to cling to our husband.  In God's design for a marriage, he tells a man to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and they should be as one flesh.  He does not say to leave God and cleave to his wife.  I can't imagine he would want a woman to do so.

How many women have spent years with a physically or emotionally abusive man because she just could not break that bond she felt for him.  A bond that is one-sided and certainly not glorifying to God, as she allows the years of destruction to rob her of joy, purpose, fruits of the spirit, inspiration, thought, or direction from God because her desire for her husband overshadowed it all.  This is truly the worst case scenario of this curse. 

We’ve each been created as individuals.  We’re not appendages of our husbands, nor are we tools or extensions of our husband's spiritual identity.  God addressed Eve personally - he didn’t say, “Adam - you figure out what to do with your wife, as it doesn‘t concern me personally.”  We have an individual identity with God, and though our emotional longings threaten to pull us away - we’ll miss much of the fruits of the spirit that have little to do with who we are married to, if we don’t acknowledge and then move in accordance to the identity God created within us.

Many wives will tell you that the stress from her husband’s job takes him far away from God and from a spiritual dependence upon him.  He doesn’t trust God through the difficult times, or believes that he is on his own, which is obviously an exhausting heart condition to operate from.  Adam’s punishment was to experience exhausting labor because of a curse on the ground.  Regardless of our husband’s profession, we can see the same result of exhaustion due to the stress of obstacles that thwart his efforts as the thistles and thorns have done to farmers for millennia. 

Our preoccupation with our husbands can misdirect us away from God in the same manner.  The true consequence of Adam & Eve’s faithless and disobedient behavior is a distance from God.  Physically they had to leave the garden, and spiritually, we’ve allowed our preoccupation with our husbands to pull us away from Him ever since.

As women, it’s important that we teach a young woman that she will always have an identity with God that is her own personal intimate relationship and responsibility.  Her husband cannot live that out for her.  She will of course feel love, desire, devotion and a deep connection to her husband - but she must also have a conviction to not allow it to push God so far into the background that she can't hear his voice.  She may have a work or mission that she shares with her husband, or she may have one that is completely personal, and she must have faith that God wouldn't fill her with the talents, passions, purpose and conviction to complete that work if it doesn’t matter to him whether she acts on it or ignores it.

A young woman should know who she is to God before she commits to being a wife to a man.  She should know God’s voice and hear it clearly before she tragically reduces it to background noise as her desire turns toward her husband.

And ALL of that was what I’ve heard in my spirit for the last couple days that I was quiet and obeying God’s recent mystifying, yet persistent conviction that I needed to hang up the telephone, go to a festival by myself (while my husband gathered our last cord of firewood and I was unable to help because my hand was burned), paint my nephew’s bedroom (in solitary quiet without so much as a radio), and enjoy taking the long way home - so that I could hear Him tell me to believe Him, trust Him, and write this - because it's always the right time to hear God and act upon his instruction.

The Beauty Of Microplush Skin Of The Over 40 Woman

My mother is in her sixties.  A couple decades ago, I noticed the back of her hand was so soft, I  barely registered that I was touching something.  It was similar to the cheek of a newborn baby... that soft.

I'm 46.  My hands do not have that super-soft condition.  My face, however is another thing.  It's actually very nice to touch... and yet... I know that it's become that way because the elasticity previously holding it up, firm and taut and smooth is wearing out... like the elastic of the bra that was put through the hot dryer one too many times.

Last week Terri Hatcher was on Oprah.  She took pictures and videos of herself with no makeup - fresh from the bathtub.  Guess what?  Under fluorescent lighting, with no makeup, hair untamed - she looks as scary as the rest of us do! 

My daughters are in their 20's.  They are pretty, fresh, and lovely.  They are still learning that sometimes there is no rational reason why something won't work - and yet it just doesn't.  They over-schedule their time and their energy levels.  They still lose their keys and their wallets.  Their cars get dangerously close to an empty gas tank and they are sure they will still make it "there and back" before they have to get gas.  One day I was dangerously close and called one to see how many miles I can go on one "dot" registering on my Honda.  The answer was about 30 - 40 miles.  (I won't be held responsible for you running out of gas... but if you are 3 miles from the gas station, don't get frantic.)

I fill up at just under the half tank mark.  I live 20 miles from the affordable (cough, cough) gas station, and I drive a Jeep - so I don't play around with this stuff.  An emergency could arise and I don't want to be getting gas on my way to the really good (no cough, cough for that) hospitals in Pittsburgh, which are a 90 minute drive.

Perhaps I'm not in the majority, but I get caught up in the desire to be ageless.  To look 35 at 60 would be OK with me.  After all... my husband's eyes aren't going to fall out at 49, and there are entirely too many people not making love in their 50's, 60's and 70's - and while I'm sure there are many reasons for that, it breaks my heart to think of my husband not desiring to experience that with me.  I live in fear of losing the woman I was.  But, let's face it... much of her exterior has already changed... arms, thighs, butt, elevation of the bust line, that flesh above my knees, the sharpness of my jawline, the place where my eyeshadow is now hidden.

On the other hand, I like the woman I am today more than at any other time in my life.  I never lose my keys or run out of gas.  I know that time doesn't stretch just because I've scheduled 8 hours of stuff in 4 1/2 hours, which saves me so much misery.  I've gotten to know God in a way that is more deep and honest than when I thought he was a genie and answered all my wishes.  I see my husband's flaws have a positive side and wouldn't change them, even if I could.  I know I can't change anyone but myself, but I also have the wisdom to give advice in a way that other people can actually hear it instead of bashing them over the head with it.  I'm not offended when they don't take it.

In truth... I like the way my face feels.  It's like those micro-plush blankets in the store that we all have to touch, even if we aren't buying one today.  As the internal woman becomes more wise and holds a more distinct shape, it seems God sees fit to wrap that smart cookie in super softness.