Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
I believe in love at first sight because I am a mother. Unknown
I’ve heard of women who have problems bonding with their babies. My heart goes out to them, how must they feel. Everyone expects us to fall in love with our baby. What if we fell in love at first sight with our first baby, but not with our second? How horrible would we feel as a mother? Would the bond between mother and child grow? Do some mothers and children never develop this bond?
I was lucky; I fell in love at first sight with both my babies. They fit so easily into our life it was like they’d always been there. I don’t remember the problem I hear about husbands feeling displaced. Everything we had before we still had only now we had a little family. We worked together, we raised our children together.
I remember envying women who worked and others who stayed home with kids because I thought it would be easier some days to not look after kids and work at the same time. Most of the time I was grateful for the life I had and the opportunity to look after my children and work at home. We built our life around each other, our work, our children and it worked.
When our work is integrated into our life it is a blessing. Most of us need to work. We need to find a balance between our work life, our family life, our couple life, our personal life, and our creative life. We need to keep all our love tanks full according to John Gray. Where we fall into difficulty is one tank is very fulfilling so we overfill that one, thinking somehow it will help with our empty tanks.
If I seek to fulfill my own needs at the expense of my partner, we are sure to experience unhappiness, resentment, and conflict. The secret of forming a successful relationship is for both partners to win. John Gray
More family togetherness won’t fix an empty couple tank. Success and work satisfaction won’t fill the family tank. More pet love won’t fill self-love. This is our great job to find balance in our life and show our children balance is possible.
A happy family is not one that never has problems. A happy couple is not one that never has challenges. Learning to deal with problems, knowing there will be problems but we can deal with them is the answer. Knowing we are better together weathering our storms, creating resilience over a lifetime. There is often not a better partner out there, only a different one.
Marriage and family is our Petrie dish. Where we work out what we need to work out. This is where we are vulnerable, where we are trusting, where we really get to know each other warts and all. It isn’t always easy. The good things in life aren’t easy. If you only stay for the easy part you miss the best parts, the parts that came after the challenges. The exhilaration one gets from having faced the worst and come through to the other side. You see it on the faces of people who have come through hurricanes and tornadoes.
If we don’t stand and face whatever it is we have to stand and face. We will never get to feel good about having faced it and moving on to a new phase. I’m not sure it matters what this challenge is. It matters that we accept the challenge before us and go forward.
I heard Dr. Phil one day saying he could predict the likelihood of a successful marriage by looking to see if the husband put the toilet seat down. It seems like a small thing. I’m beginning to think small things may add up to bigger things than big things do. The big thing is there, they are harder to ignore. The little things can be and often are ignored. They grow, they morph, and they take on a life of their own.
I’ve always heard, take care of the little things and the big things take care of themselves. I believe it. A lot of us don’t manage things because we don’t think things are big enough to manage. We’ll manage things when they get bigger. When we have more money we’ll learn to manage it. There is only now, and what we do is what we feel is important. Are there things we need to manage better? Is it our time, relationships, money, goals, or creativity? Whatever it is we need to manage better it needs to start now, tomorrow never comes. How full are our love tanks, are some full to overflowing while others are empty?
It’s the little details that are vital. The little things cause the big things to happen. John Wooden.
Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.
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How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Personal Success Paperback – Apr 5 2000
by John Gray (Author) 3.6 out of 5 stars 37 ratings