I have had a tough week -followed by something special.

 We went away camping this weekend and although everyone else was tucked away asleep, my youngest little daughter was not – she was wide awake.  I decided to take her out of the tent and sat  down by the remains of our open campfire.  I added another log and sat with her snuggled in my lap .  It didn’t take long before I felt her body relax and her breathing deepen as she fell asleep.  I sat there with her  in my arms as I watched the flames and enjoyed the sounds of the fire,  backdropped by the silence of the surrounding bush.

In this moment I found an amazing sense of peace that I haven’t felt for a long time.  My stresses and troubles just seemed to melt away into the fire and I felt so calm and blessed.  What a beautiful experience.

If only I could  have an  open fire in my backyard every night.

I have been trying to improve my relationship with my husband by doing what sounds to be some easy tasks each week, these include – cooking one of his favorite meals each week, greeting him with enthusiasm when he gets home from work and organising some time together doing an activity together  – if possible without the children!

I felt good about my efforts last week, but this week – not so great! My planned favourite meal for him was downgraded to a lesser and easier to cook meal. Although the meal I did cook was nice and he enjoyed it, it  wasn’t “his favourite”.  I just couldn’t be bothered with all the preparation after a tiring and somewhat “emotionally down day”.

I have been making more of an effort to drop what I am doing , and greeting him as he arrives home.  I am investing more time into having a chat etc – rather than just saying hi and going back to what I was doing.  I have found that this seemingly little gesture really does help although he has looked at me a few times strangely as if to say    ” What are you up to??”  He is not used to me being so attentive. It does set a much happier, relaxed tone for the rest of the evening and we seem to talk more!

I was looking forward all this week to playing a game of tennis with him . I had booked the court, the children would go to creche and we were to have an hour of “us “time.  Tennis day rolled on and I woke up with a migraine type headache and some serious sinus so we had to cancel our game and I spent most of the day in bed. I was really dissappointed but look forward to doing it again next week.  It was this day in bed sick that highlighted something to me because I was annoyed that he didn’t really look after me very well – and I know that he was annoyed because he was tired after a long week of work and now had to look after the children by himself!!

In a marriage/relationship they say it truly only works really well when each person puts the other one first! I think hubby and I have lost our way there! I thought that I was fairly caring in our relationship however I am beginning to see that  as different situations arise I get resentful that he is not helping me or spending time with me etc etc and I start hearing that little voice saying “what about me, when do i get to do something, this is hard for me, he doesn’t care……..finally it dawned on me – if I am feeling like that – then so is he…I hate to think that he has a similar little voice saying “she doesn’t care about me, she isn’t helping etc etc’.  I want him to feel loved and cared for. His mother passed away just over a year ago and one of the things he said to me in a heated discussion not too long after her death was ” there is no one to care about me now  – so I have to  look after myself – no one else is going to”.  I can remember being a bit hurt because I thought I was here for him – but if I am honest -maybe I havent’ really been. I have been caught up in my own agenda.  That is what I want to change and why I am going to stick to this.

The last couple of days have been hard.  I have been teary. “It’s just too hard!! Poor old me”  Why do I have to do all the hard work? Why can’t my husband just magically change too.  Why can’t my little girls just do as I say and go along with my plans??

If it wasn’t for my little coaching sessions with Heidi – I would have given up by now and just stopped trying to make changes. I am going to stick to this, but it is not easy.