On sacrifice and business travel

A few months ago I wrote a post about my struggles - and attempts to find the grace - in being a "grad school widow". I thought, if anything, I'd catch flak for complaining, ie: at least your husband isn't DEPLOYED, and, well, rightly so. But actually I caught flak, in the comments section and my email inbox, for nearly the opposite. The general theme seemed to be, "Stand up for yourself, woman!"

Being me I agonized over these well-intentioned thoughts, but ultimately decided not to respond. I felt I'd explained myself pretty well in the post, and the idea of me being a doormat, if presented to anyone in my offline life, would be laughable. ESPECIALLY in my marriage.

I am now entering the week I wrote about - Phillip left at 4 in the morning for a week away. He will miss Jack's birthday tomorrow. And I'm sitting here, totally at peace with this situation by the way, and thinking of all the things I didn't know when I wrote that post. That Phillip would request another THREE WEEKS of travel before this week (it ended up being only two), that our entire family would be felled by a plague, that we would lose our rental house and buy a new one within the course of a month. That I would do the majority of planning and packing for our move while he was out of town. HO HO! And I thought THIS week was going to be bad!

This week, you guys, is feeling like cake.

It's true, the last month tested my wifely reserves more than anything thus far, but I stand by my previous post. I continue to say yes, I continue to support, I continue to be exceedingly proud of Phillip. We didn't know exactly what these two years of school were going to entail (specifically, a giant ramping up of his professional life!) but this is where we are and this is what we both have to do to make it work.

I've learned a few things though. Perhaps you could say I had A Productive Lent. It turns out that I'm pretty terrible at sacrifice. SHOCKER! Not so much the act itself, I mean, I can play the martyr as well as anyone else, but it's clear all of my "saying yes" has had little effect on my spiritual growth. I find this annoying, because I should at least be getting THAT much out of it, but that's the problem right there. I'm sacrificing (in an admittedly soft definition of the word) but I VERY MUCH expect to be rewarded. And maybe not even just rewarded, but paid BACK. CHRISTIAN FAIL!

The last few weeks while Phillip was toiling away in hotel conference rooms and I was packing up the kitchen, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking of ways he was going to make it up to me. Perhaps a particularly lavish Mother's Day gift. An entire weekend of child wrangling. I envisioned him coming home and me announcing, "I'm off for a pedicure!" and flouncing out the minute he showed up at the door. I mean, WHY NOT?

And then one night we were talking about it and I realized I was trying to get him to say that he would do the same for me. Not just symbolically. Not just "when this is all over of COURSE you can do YOUR things." No no no, I wanted specifics. I wanted him to say, "If you decide to write a novel and you decide that you'll need to shut yourself in your room every single Saturday, I will do that for you, because I believe in you and support you and THIS IS YOUR DREAM." I wanted him to say, "Fostering kids? Really? Well, if that's YOUR DREAM, I will say yes, I will support you, even though we both know the mere idea of more children in my house scares the very you-know-what out of me." Because it needed to be more than supporting me, it needed to be supporting me EVEN THOUGH it would cost him dearly.

As much as I wanted him to cough up those words, even in the moment I knew it was sort of... pointless. The desire to hear those things was not coming from a place of love, you know? It was coming from the part of me that keeps score - an unfortunately large part.

And it's not that I think things shouldn't be equal. Perish the thought! It's definitely not about forgetting to stand up for myself, or thinking true submission requires stifling my hopes in favor of his. It's just that things AREN'T equal. And I can't require some sort of guarantee that he will do the same for me. I feel certain that if I do put my efforts towards finishing a novel one day, Phillip WILL do everything he can to support me, but it's unrealistic to think his "sacrifice" will look anything like mine. Just like it's completely ridiculous to throw out foster parenting, something I have thought about for all of ten seconds, like it's at all comparable. It's not just about me.

The fact is, we are where we are, and who really knows what kinds of commitments life will throw at us years from now? And as stubborn and petty as I am, I've always known that I don't need payback or rewards, what I really want is to be first in his heart, to be the top priority, to have this validated on a regular basis. And when I can let go of the other stuff and let myself be vulnerable enough to ask for that? Phillip totally gets it.

(Gah, that's an entire post in itself - "for your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." ANOTHER DAY, INTERNET!)

As these two years draw to a close, though, Phillip and I have really come to a place of understanding about this. We don't fight about it, we don't misunderstand each other - not anymore. He trusts my support, just like he knows that what I'm really trying to say is that I don't want to be the last item on his to do list. As long as we can agree on that, remind ourselves of it, act in that manner, we get through the days just fine.  

Comments

[Jessica]

I TOTALLY get the feeling of wanting to be the first on the to-do list and sometimes feeling like you're not, even if you are. My husband is running his second marathon in two weeks and I feel like EVERYTHING comes second to the marathon right now. Its obviously not grad school (or anywhere near two years), but running 50 miles a week takes a ton of time and I resent that sometimes. I know he does everything he can to work it around our schedule, but especially since the marathon is so close now its all he thinks about. Sometimes I want to say "some people consider PREGNANCY a marathon. Where's MY medal?"

P.S. Is it just me, or did putting me "first on his to-do list" sound kind of dirty?

[Sarah in Ottawa]

I am so guilty of the 'I want to be paid back' feelings. For me, it's primarily in time and/or acts, usually time off the childcare clock. You've just given me the proverbial smack upside the head with this post.

I never doubt that our family - especially me - is the top priority. Maybe I need to reflect on *that* more when I get all resentful. Thanks for once again providing an insight for *me* as you're working something out.

And KUDOS for your grace at handling the last month's craziness while pregnant no less!

[Meghan]

This post totally validates the FACT that this is my favorite blog. Love the yellow, BTW. Meghan

[Kyra]

Thank you. I just wandered over from Betty Duffy's blog, and this is perfect. My husband has just started teaching twice a week as well as being at the dojo once a week (he studies and teaches Japanese martial arts) and I'm having trouble between being proud and wanting to help him with the beginnings of his business, and feeling restlessly like I should get some kind of enormous reward for being willing to take care of the kids twenty-four hours a day three days a week.

Not that I have any grand ambitions for him to support me in, no. I just want to go and lie around eating bonbons and not have to answer "Why?" questions and take it easy, which is clearly what he's doing when he's away teaching and commuting, right?

Sigh.

[Jennifer]

I had to re-read this post today because my husband told me (from work) the other day that he wanted to go to Pathfinder School (backstory: he's in the Army, wants to get as many schools as possible under his belt, we have a 7-month-old, I am SAHM hear me roar). So I was all, "Great?" UGH. Shoot me NOW. Pathfinder school is in GA (we are in KY) and it is 9 l-o-n-g weeks, potentially longer if he gets "recycled" during a phase, so this whole shebang could possibly last upwards of 3 months. Again, shoot me.

He seems to think this will be a breeze for everyone, but he does not think about how it will affect ME.... I know I should just suck it up and deal with it because, hello, he's going to deploy soon anyway, and if I remember correctly, Afghanistan is a smidge further away than GA, soo... I should just quit my bellyachin' already. But I can't help but feel so incredibly selfish that I want him to STAY HERE and take this screaming child from me after work so I don't hurl him through a wall or something..
So yes, I understand where you are coming from on this hot-button issue, and I wanna be priority numero uno again too ASAP. :)