Topic : 12/28 Wifestyles

 I know exactly how Kelly feels. I didn't see this show when it was aired originally but our satellite shows them about a week behind. So tonight as I watched this I wanted to reach out and slap Grant upside his head. I was married to man who also saw the negative in everything I did, nothing I did was right, he was abusive also. I would hate hearing him come home, he yelled and screamed at me and the kids. I didn't clean the house right, I didn't cook right, and at one point he told me I didn't even know how to have sex right!! In more specific words but I won't use them here.  

I was sooooooo glad when Robin said what she did to Grant but still think he didn't get it! I was a housewife but I also worked outside the home with no help from him. He wanted me to do everything his way but when he was out of work, which was often I knew enough to keep working and keep our kids fed. He was a long haul trucker for a lot of years and I did everything myself, but when he came off the road to be home all the time, I was "to independent to suit him!" I told him he made me that way by not being home. Grant has a beautiful wife and kids, if he keeps on making her feel so bad about herself she will soon just be there and not much else. She will get to the point where she resents him and everything he stands for. I would like to tell Kelly you don't have to put up with that. If he continues to belittle you about everything then tell him to hit the road and you will find someone who appreciates you. As Robin said you are NOT his property, he should love you for you and not what you can or can't do.  

I have been married twice and now I'm disabled but single. My kids are grown and they know who made the living for them when their dad didn't. I am proud of my kids but like Kelly said at some point he will make them feel like her. My kids did feel that way for a while, especially my son who is dyslexic, his dad took that as an insult to his manhood! Kelly  I will sure keep you in my thoughts and prayers. My daughter was watching the show with me and said she was sure glad I wasn't at the show because I might not have been able to keep myself in my seat and not come up on stage.  

Kelly take care of yourself and your children you are a wonderful mom and wife even if he doesn't have the sense to realize it. 

I also watched the show tonight and heard both sides of the views along with the question above, and feel that a woman can pull off a successful career and still be a super wife if one understood how to balance the two.  In my book,  "Marriage Rekindle: Making Your Partner A Better Person" which is about finding effective ways to change a spouse, I shared my views on how this could be done. 

The secret to coping with home and career is by pulling in the support of your household so as not to find it very stressful and end up alienating the ones you love.  Get him involved and understand what it takes and what is expected of you in other to get ahead in your career. Discuss upfront how this would affect the family in terms of responsibilities, time spent together and everybody's commitment for the good of the family.  

However, be prepared to compromise and make it up by the selfless giving of your unconditional love, affection and attention where you are not able to be the super-woman of all time.  Let the void that your physical absence left be filled with your emotional ans spiritual presence.  

For me, this is how I try to balance a hectic career and my role as a super wife.  I realized that because I work very hard and often required to put in extra hours at work that I am not always able to be there, so I try to do the extra little stuff to prove my love to my husband in words and actions, and always show my appreciation for his understanding and support.  I put him on notice and never take it for granted that he is supposed to understand that I have to to work so hard, because my main role and most important priority remains with him and my family. I try to practice lovely submission and unconditional acceptance in order to maintain the control of a loving and peaceful home without struggles.   

This way my husband is happy because I validate him positively and I am happy doing what I like doing best (career wise) and coming home to a peaceful home where I don't have to battle him for authority and control.  

For more on this topic and how to influence a positive change in your partner, check bookstores in December or email me with your own views. 

So....should women give up their dreams to be married?  My answer is no, but I would add to that to really look deep into your soul to see what your dreams REALLY are (instead of being influenced by others....society..... as to what you should do, what is valuable, or how you should live).   

I love the above sentence......it really says it all.  That's what Dr. Phil calls finding your authentic self, not being what you think others (family, friends, society) think you should be.   

I also have to comment on what you said about postponing having a family and then finding that it's hard to get pregnant.  That's a big problem and women need to keep that in mind.  Do I think women should have a family before they're ready?  Abolutely not.  But the fact is that fertility decreases as you get older and that needs to be part of the decision making process.  I was lucky.....I had my first child at age 31 and my third when I was 37, and each time I got pregnant the first month we tried (actually, my husband was kind of bummed that we didn't have a few months to really "try"!!!).  But one of the reasons I had my first child while I was still in residency was that I was afraid of waiting until the "perfect" time in case I'd have trouble getting pregnant.  I was lucky to have a boss that worked with me and let me take a one year leave of absence after I had my son and then let me pick up my training after that (using a wonderful live-in nanny).    Sometimes we can't wait until the "perfect" time to have kids (so that we can stay at home for a few years) because by doing that we might miss the fertility boat, so to speak.  Sometimes you need to just do the best you can do given all of the extenuating circumstances. 

I also think that a girl should be able to say, even when she's young, "I just want to be a mommy and wife" without being made to feel like she has no aspirations.  Finding your authentic self and finding a way to make it all work is the best we can do. 

Why can't being married with kids be the ultimate dream of all ?  

Because we are all different? I don't agree that any lifestyle or choice is right for everyone.  It would be wonderful if women and men were feel free to choose any path that felt right for them without being told that one path or another is "natural" or "the right way" or "the modern way".  There would be fewer gay men who marry straight, fewer women who have unwanted children and fewer men excluded from parenting by the breadwinner burden. 

For me, having children was essential to my happiness and having a husband to share my whole life with is an ever appreciating joy. But I also know people who don't want children and who really shouldn't have them.  What is right for one isn't right for all. 

I am sorry that you missed having a family because of social pressure. Let's hope that ours is the last generation that is told what we "should" want or do.   

I agree with both of you.  I see how trying to do what society expects or what we think is acceptable is destructive to a person's health & happiness. 

Not being able to conceive children was the one of the biggest heartaches of my life; the biggest of my past several years.  We considered invitro, but didn't want to seem like we were shaking our fists at God and saying "we're going to have it our way."   

If it was meant to be, it would happen.  Recently, I thought I was pregnant.  And although thrilling and fantastic at first, it was terrifying as the days went on until I found out for sure I wasn't.  Everything about our lives would change.  Everything.  And it would be exhausting.  And college education -- we're in our 40's now.  How to pay for that when I've not even completed my own? 

We believe if it happened, it would turn into the biggest blessing in our lives.  But faced with the reality of it, we realized any number of scenarios could play out.  Diabilities, or you work your butt off to raise good kids and then they grow up and you don't hear from them much at all.  Or they turn to drugs.  Or crime.  It's not a guarantee that you'll be strolling down a lane arm in arm happy as can be.  And I'm not saying I'd be parenting to get something in return.  But there is a joy in loving someone so much you'd do anything for them.  There's a joy in having a child that we're missing out on.  So I know it's sad.   

The harsh truth is that my parents were so horrible to have as parents that it took me decades upon decades to get myself together to even be able to consider being a good parent.  So maybe it was meant to be.  After the "scare" of being pregnant in my forties, I'm at peace with it.   

The economy is causing a lot of stress and adjustments in the lives of the middle class & lower class, and I'm not comfortable bringing a child into the world without the assurance I could help them pay for college and have a "normal" life.  I mean, as kids, we never had enough to eat.  And our clothes weren't "cool," so I felt a lot of pain & shame.  And if we were to overcome all that, they'd still have my parents as grandparents, and it's impossible to describe here how unhealthy and toxic they would be for kids we might have.  In my case, it's better to have gone without having the kids than have them before I was able to be a good parent to them.  We could be great parents to them now, but being so late in life, our energy and lack of 1youthfulness would be a detriment to our ability to be the best parents possible.  But that's not so for everyone our age. 

It is amazing when you're not expecting it.  I'm doing bible study in the waiting area, reading about the mass exodus from Egypt & they tell me to come back & the first thing that happens is....well you have to know my husband.... he does all these "fake" groans and moans so I think he's in horrible shape.  And I come to him all sympathetic & right away the nurse, who has his wrist in her hand says, "He's just kidding."  And I want to choke him.   

Then she adds, "By the way, we did find his head in there." 

And my husband says still groggy, "But ironically enough, it was still making all the right decisions." 

Then the doc enteres and thrusts tha photo in my hands.  I didn't think he would do that & I guess it didn't look like I imagined, if I ever imagined it at all.  But it was shocking.  Anyway, it makes me crack up still.  So they give us this page with the three "best" pictures of it mounted on it, and I tuck it into my bible study book, trying to put it out of my mind.  Then in bible study a couple days later, I open up the book and there it is again, and I'm hearing "during the exodus from Egypt, the people...."  It's like I'll never be able to hear about that bible story again without thinking of ....the visuals that seem to accompany it in my mind.