THE AWKWARD MOM

because uncomfortable conversations are the ones worth having

Tag: relationship (page 1 of 2)

GIVEAWAY: How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk

Reading Time: 4 minutes

how to listen so your kids will talk

This week, I’m working through the final interior design and whatnot on my own parenting book (due out this October: Permanent Markers: Spiritual Life Skills to Write on Your Kids’ Hearts. #shamelessplug). And there are moments in real-life parenting when I’m whispering to myself, “Maybe we should retitle this thing I’ve Got Nothin’.

But those moments give me all the more reason to get excited about other parenting books genuinely trying to step in with practical ideas to help us connect and shape and love well. So I’m tickled pink to be offering two copies of Becky Harling’s How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk (Bethany, 2021). read more

Questions for a Closer Marriage (FREE PRINTABLE)

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Before my husband’s last (pre-COVID) international trip, I realized one of the things I miss most about him.

As he was packing–so methodical, everything in precisely-sized containers, shirts carefully folded over a packing template–I told him quietly, “See, you humanize me.”  read more

32 Ideas to Help You Honor Your Husband

Reading Time: 2 minutes

honor your husband

So speaking of awkward conversations: Asking for ideas to honor your husband might float over some girlfriends like a lead balloon.

Given male-female relations in the headlines, looking to honor your husband might arch some eyebrows. It’s far more acceptable for men to be pro-women—or women to be pro-women!—than sticking in his corner.

Won’t that promote toxic masculinity or something? Shouldn’t we be knocking men down a peg?

But honor is a marital jetpack for both spouses.

Serving Each Other: Not a New Thing

In Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Want Made Women Miserable, columnist and political analyst Andrea Tantaros argues,

There is a common thread between the genders: it’s kindness, respect, and mutual admiration.

.…Women are implicitly being told not to be kind, thoughtful, and nice to the men they love because doing so is supposedly just one step away from being barefoot and pregnant and watching Leave It to Beaver.

.…Acts of service has been a love language—a way to express affection—since time immemorial.

….If everybody is self-involved in their own happiness, then everyone is going to be unhappy because no one is going to be doing nice things for anyone.

In my own marriage, honor creates a biosphere where mutual care and consideration thrive. My husband just walked downstairs and thanked me for making the bed this morning; often he does it, or we do it together.

But before the verse commanding us to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10), there’s a short, killer phrase: “Let love be genuine” (verse 9).

So honor isn’t a way to manipulate him. Or pacify him. Or subtly slot myself above him in spiritual superiority.

It’s a way to put the Gospel on repeat between us: that Jesus honored us to the point of washing his Bride’s feet and giving his life for her when she didn’t deserve it.

(I’m not advocating the kind of blind submission that leads to an abusive relationship. Wondering if that’s you? See Are You In an Abusive Relationship?)

Hop over to FamilyLife.com to check out In His Corner: 32 Ways to Honor Your Husband where I’m offering some practical, doable, suggestions. (You might also want to check out this podcast episode, What if My Husband Doesn’t Deserve Respect?)

 

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The Stressed Version of Your Marriage

Enneagram Compatibility: What if We Don’t Have It?

Rachel Hollis’ Divorce: How Should We Respond?

Enneagram Compatibility: What if We Don’t Have It?

Reading Time: 5 minutes

enneagram compatibility

Y’know that feeling when you’re in one of the stressed, worst versions of yourself? That was me a weekend ago.

I had a million reasons. But as the sun sank on Sunday, it was obvious I was falling into classic unhealthy patterns of my personality type.

I’m a prototypical enneagram 2 (with a big, flapping 3-wing and a 1-wing not far behind).*

As in, look in the dictionary, and you might find my picture. As in, friends are like, “When I read the description of a 2, I was like, ‘This is you!'”

Enneagram Compatibility: From a Couple that Doesn’t Technically Have It

But my husband vacillates between a 5-wing-4 or a 4-wing-5.

And unless we work intentionally, when one of us leans toward a lack of health? Old, well-worn cycles suck us in like an overactive Kirby.

It used to look something like

  • wife is over-sensitive; husband is raw, even critical, and wants space
  • wife would like demands affirmation/appreciation; husband resists emotional demands and manipulation
  • wife is exhausted and resentful (known as “tired-mad” in our house);  wife feels like people don’t see her apart from what she does for them (sniff)
  • husband is caving and becomes engulfed in his inner world. Wife is like, This is like wearing camouflage. He doesn’t even know I’m here. Wife helps and helps to make things easier (and let’s be honest, to be seen), to the point of overfunctioning and exhaustion.  Husband responds by caving more.

Recently I read with curiosity lately the enneagram compatibility of twos and fives. Apparently, it’s not a very common match.

My mom pointed out once, “You know, you and [your husband] are more different from any of your sisters and their husbands.”

(This is like saying, “Steve Jobs was good at computers.”)

How our incompatibility made us a great couple

But here’s the thing. Subtracting those differences would completely flatten all the parts I love about our relationship. Our meandering, adventurous path together. My own character.

I shudder to think of the insecure, clutching ways in which I sought to “help” people. The thoughtless ways I steamrolled others. The timid lack of creativity characterized my work and my life…and each of these that would have stayed that way without the bold, colorful, refining strokes that God has painted in my life through this man.

The work of enduring love toward him changes me, too.

Working to love someone well whose personality poses such a striking contrast widens my perspective, my capability to love, my graciousness and understanding.

Loving people unlike ourselves–when we can patiently wait for the dissonance like a junior-high band to pass–produces the swelling, overwhelming harmonies of a full orchestra.

It’s another step to remind me that my relationships aren’t subjects in my kingdom. Relationships are opportunities to serve and change. My conflicts are often assignments  from him.

And when we conflict, it’s really the desires within the two of us that are waging war (see James 4:1). We’re fighting for what’s precious to us…and has often become too precious, our core loves disordered.

The funny thing? I find I’m now drawn to others like my husband. I love that so many 5’s tell the truth, to the point of being unflinching; it’s like they can’t not be themselves. It makes them trustworthy. I love their 360-degree approach to thoughtful, contemplative wisdom.

The 4 part of him helps us dream creatively, finding the perfect gray for the walls, or deciding on an out-of-the-box solution to a problem. And his authentic touch with emotion is invaluable to us. To me.

Enneagram compatibility, learned

The enneagram extends us a tool not to pigeon-hole each other, but to kickstart understanding–and ask the right questions. 

At the point a personality test or label becomes a way to get someone pegged (“he’s a man. Men don’t…” “She’s an extrovert. I doubt she even noticed that”), it moves out of “help me know you” to “Understanding or asking is unnecessary. I already know.” This is also known as assumicide.

Both of us had to laugh months ago while riding in the car. We were feeling secure in our relationship (which thankfully, is the norm).  I asked him, “What quality in another person would be tempting because I don’t have it?”

Him: “Being understated.” This was the hilarious part. I really am anything but that, people. I am exuberant and full-throttle and what you would either call sparkling or annoying, depending on your enneagram number.

Me: “Affirmation.”

I told him that sometimes, my occasionally-critical husband needs to just slather on the affirmation. Like pumping lotion from a bottle.

So we now have a mimed symbol, when he is being his uber-direct, enneagram-5 self. With an overeager smile, I pump an imaginary bottle of affirmation-lotion into my hands, and smear it over my shoulders.

Though in some ways we represent different extremes, each of us critically needs the other.

“Aha” moments–about the ones we love

Knowing our tendencies via personality profiles like the enneagram helps us toward some of those “aha” moments of understanding our spouse not as foreigner, but as one flesh (Genesis 2:25). It helps us ask good questions of each other, and better comprehend each other’s unique pain and deeply-felt needs.

(As a two, it’s flayed open some of my less-than-pure motivations, and patterns that sabotage my marriage.)

Less-than-ideal enneagram compatibility has shown us we may need to work harder than some couples at seeing eye-to-eye. And honestly? Sometimes we don’t.

But that’s also what makes us a powerful team.

Enneagram compatibility can’t be a deal-maker or deal-breaker for me. Because God has a long, illustrious history of pairing people together in marriage or on a team who are straight-up different, for God’s honor and a more holistic representation of who he is (think Paul and Silas, Ruth and Naomi, Mary and Martha).

Even for people outside my marriage with whom I normally clash, I can’t biblically say, “I don’t need you” (1 Corinthians 12:23). They’re a chance not for me to say, “Sorry, we’re just not compatible!”–but instead, “You make me more holy. Let’s talk.”

(But maybe bring your bottle of affirmation-lotion. Just sayin’.)

 

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What to Do About the Person You Thought You’d Marry

Guest post: Did you marry the wrong person?

 

*The enneagram is all the rage lately, drawing both legitimate Christian praise as well as concern.  I’ve written about how I personally have employed it as a faith tool to expose some of my core motivations and, well, sins.

Is Your Friend Considering Divorce? Ways to Help

Reading Time: 2 minutes

divorce

Heartrending news landed in the New York Post this week: Divorce rates spiked 34% between March and June this year.

According to the article, 31% admitted quarantine caused “irreparable damage” to their relationships.

Chances are decent you know a friend whose marriage is straining right now: Their reality is one of slammed doors. Words they never thought they’d say. Tears dripping in the dark.

They’re also grappling with bewilderment, shame, searing hurt.

FamilyLife, my largest client, asked me to compile some ideas so you could help a friend–and even some hope for the friend themselves.

This week I want to pass on to you When Your Friend’s Marriage Shows Signs of Divorce: 7 Non-Pushy Ways to Help.

And if it helps, here’s two more for your friend who’s turning over the idea of divorce in their head:

For what it’s worth, if you’re this kind of friend, with the long phone calls, the prayers, the embraces where your shoulder gets wet? I’m imagining your the Jesus-in-Levis your friend desparately needs right now. I love, love that you’re going the distance for your friend, doing the hard work no one else might be able to do right now.

Please. Keep pressing on.

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Looking for more help for someone thinking about divorce? Try

 

Rachel Hollis’ Divorce: How Should We Respond?

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Rachel Hollis carries that mysterious polarizing power. People tend to either love her or…not love her. 

Let’s pretend you don’t know who she is, m’kay? Hollis’ resume boasts what most of ours never will. She’s a #1 New York Times Bestselling author whose nonfiction (Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing) has sold over 3 million copies. Once crowned among Inc. magazine’s “Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30,” she owns The Hollis Group, which encourages people toward “positive and lasting change.” 

More relevantly (as of late), Rachel Hollis and husband Dave hosted their own Rise Together marriage podcast, frequently administered marriage advice via YouTube and social media, and held a marriage weekend for couples in their hometown of Austin in 2018 for a top-shelf price tag. 

Last week in separate Instagram posts, the couple announced the end of their 16-year marriage (creating enough of a ripple to be covered by NBC).  

Read: We’re taking in the marital demise of one of the most globally influential self-help couples. 

And this is why I bring this to the table, and stewed over to even write on this. Personally, I prefer to avoid even supermarket tabloid headlines (why hello, invasive gossip that’s none of my beeswax).

Because if you’re reading this, perhaps Rachel Hollis has affected you.

If Rachel Hollis couldn’t do it, can I do it?

“Yes, I do feel duped–in that if I have had all this transparency, how come along the way you haven’t said, ‘This has been really hard’?” asks a commentator in The Growth Marriage YouTube channel. Their episode explains followers are asking, in essence, 

Well, if [the Hollises] couldn’t do it, can I do it? 

If these amazing people…who are successful and have the money, and they have access to…the best therapists and the best coaches…and they can’t make it, what is the likelihood I can make it?

Tens of thousands of social media reactions to Rachel Hollis’ divorce range from the broken, to the enraged, to the curious, to the downright hopeless.

Wherever you fall in that spectrum–how do we respond?

1. Thou shalt not be a hater when someone is down, Rachel Hollis included.

Rachel Hollis may carry that persona of that girl or celebrity people love to watch fall–perhaps in light of her sheer, enviable (or questionable) confidence. 

The fragility of ego in all of us, tended to like a newly-hatched chick, knows too well a sense of worth grounded in something other than what God says we are. Than what Christ has done for us. It’s that same impulse that births lovely statements like “told you so” or “knew it all along.” The hater within rises for the sake of ego-inflation. 

Alternatively, maybe you’re feeling sold a bill of goods, footing the bill for someone’s ambition or personal empire. 

“If it were me”

This remains a time to hold fiercely to that gilded principle of loving one’s neighbor. It’s loving the person in proximity, even through the click of a mouse–the way you’d want to be loved. 

How you’d want your kids to be loved if your divorce and personal failure were splashed to two million.

Or you’d hope someone would tweet if they knew your heart was flattened.

How you’d want people to respond to your mistakes, flea-sized or more like the pachyderm in the room. 

First Peter 3:9 speaks of returning a blessing for an insult–a reiteration of the life of Jesus. Maybe you feel like this is a special case, considering the lofty, self-made position from which Rachel Hollis broadcast marriage advice.

But let’s let the one of us without weakness, sin, or nary a dysfunctional relationship or false statement lob the first stone.

In the Instagram post announcing the end of her marriage, Hollis requests a reprieve from the “open book” of her social media life. She writes, “We hope that you can allow us a human moment.” 

She is saving her strength, boldness, and optimism, she explains, for their four children. (Let’s hurt for them together, shall we?)

2. Thou shalt recall the difference between thine own Insta feed and real life.

Much of reader backlash is that realization of false sense of vulnerability–a “curated imperfection”, one blogger called it long before this moment. 

In Dave Hollis’ recently published book, Get Out of Your Own Way: A Skeptic’s Guide to Growth and Fulfillment, he observes about those who’ve advised his marriage in the past,

If those voices come from people who are killing it in their own relationship, their thoughts are welcome….If the feedback you’re getting is coming from someone who can’t keep a steady relationship, you best filter out their feedback as it does not come from a credible source.

Hmm.

Yes, many followers feel the gravity of that sense of defrauding, even betrayal. 

It’s a cautionary tale to any of us vaulting forward on advice like the Hollises’, constructing a personal platform nail by nail–whether cinching that next promotion, as a mom-blogger, or looking toward church leadership. 

Fake it till you make it?

Paul defines his ministry this way: “We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one” (2 Corinthians 7:2).

And David says of God, “you delight in truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6). This is a decidedly different model than “fake it till you make it.” 

Further, God sets the bar high in our work for others: “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). Paul elaborates in Philippians, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (2:3-4). 

No, we might not be portrayed as marriage gurus. But which of us can say we’re 100% who we purport to be? That, like God, there is total unity, no divided desires or interest, throughout us? 

In truth, the line between truth and falsehood falls like a ribbon down the middle of each human heart. May this tragedy shove each of us closer to an authenticity denuded of social-media sparkle and personal ambition. May we ask instead, “What does it look like to love and serve those in front of me? What am I taking from them for my own gain?”

3. Thou shalt remember the fissures caused by personal ambition in any relationship.

Based on the Hollises’ own messages, self-reliance, ambition, and wealth stand as key values for both of them. It stands to reason this might also articulate their marriage partnership and culture. 

“You are the hero of your own story….You should be the very first of your priorities,” reads the first chapter of Girl, Wash Your Face.

To put it baldly, these run contrary to a marriage defined by the culture of the Kingdom of God. 

Do they sprout in every marriage to some extent? Ain’t no doubt.

Now, there is One who knows the story behind the Hollis calamity. Hint: It’s none of us. 

But wherever we find these values in our relationships, they run contrary to marriage’s structure as per its Designer. And to the extent they exist in your marriage, their force corrupts.

This is what love is

Diametrically opposed is the biblical definition: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives” (1 John 3:16). 

It’s the kind of love manifested by the kind of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6). 

By no means does this mean a marriage unfueled by desire, by a passion to create change and achieve. Rather, God washes our ambition for purposes and Kingdom ever-larger than Self. It’s a culture of each for the other, and Christ as hero.

Made for more

A Christian man once rather boldly commented to me that Rachel Hollis exists because godly Christian husbands who advocate for their wives don’t. 

Like a beast with four stomachs, I’ve chewed on this. I’ve written about the allure of Rachel Hollis, the God-hewn need in Christian women for more purpose than can be found in a crockpot and a Swiffer under each arm, or even in our kids.

So many women long to hear someone say, Crush it. Kill your lies and get out there. 

And yes. Yes. God made you for more: As a person. As a team. 

And to be clear, contrary to the Instagram announcement of Dave Hollis, it’s not a setup where marriage “run[s] its course”. Because love doesn’t really do that, with a few key exceptions (check out Mark 10:7-9, and maybe this one about when the Bible allows for divorce).

Self will assassinate your relationship, whether anyone recognizes your name or not. 

The kind of life and marriage worth living, the kind of purpose worth real sacrifice, are so much more vast than a Louis Vuitton bag and a posse of people who think you’re all that and a bag of Doritos. 

Respond to Rachel Hollis’ divorce with compassion, increased personal authenticity, and ruthlessness not in your careerism, but in extracting the selfish ambition from your relationship, for a Kingdom greater than your own. That’s a hope-filled relationship.

God made you, and your marriage, for more.

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Girl, You’re Strong: The Allure of Rachel Hollis

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What’s God Think of Strong Women?

Don’t Waste That Totally Awkward Conflict

Reading Time: 3 minutes

fight conflict

I kind of hate conflict. With the exception of my anger issues with my kiddos, conflict tends to sideline me in a head-between-my-knees, breathe-into-a-paper-bag kind of way. It’s super-attractive and mature.

Which is why, when it’s over, part of me would opt to skip away with a “tra-la-la” brand of obliviousness. Maybe I would spring to the beach, where I could bury parts of my body in the warm sand. Preferably my head.

A recent conflict weirdness reminded me of the thing about conflict: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?” (James 4:1).

Aha! And not the good kind

See, conflict flays open what pushes and pulls me. Even when the weirdness only whiffed of conflict, and I was running for the hills, arms pinwheeling.

And when I say that, I mean my brain was hopping like fleas to completely the worst possible conclusions about myself, the situation, the other person. 

I needed to rein in my galloping brain. So I did what I do when I am trying to Make Sense of the World: I wrote things.

I pulled my thick red journal from my nightstand, the one that shall be burned in the event of my death. I scrawled categories like Emotions, Truth to Remember, and What do I desire? The latter needed two categories, eloquently labeled Good and Not So Much. (Care to guess which column was longer?)

The After Story

Resolution of the conflict itself was so much smoother and more gracious than the scenario envisioned by the fearful, bear-in-a-trap version of myself.

I may have phoned my husband for one of those “You were right” conversations. He graciously pointed out that if I’m going to be publishing a book, perhaps I may need to develop alternate strategies for encountering potential opposition.

The next day I was ready to shake it off! Shake it off! But the underbelly of who I am had been exposed. It was generally not a pleasant one. Considering the encouraging outcome of the conflict, it was a kind way of God to expose some of my soul-holes.

To be clear: Some idols of mine had been uncovered. They’d swollen beyond proportion, to become too valuable to me. They were no longer desires, but demands. A friend referenced one of Charles Spurgeon’s quotes:

Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction.

So it was back to the red journal. Self-imposed prompts of the day after:

  • What did God reveal to me in this?
  • God, what do you want me to understand? (Check out Psalm 139:23-24.)

It will probably be a working list, because I need to mull over this more: not to dwell on the conflict, but to understand what happened in me, and why.

Conflict: My Handpicked Homework

Richard Foster speaks of meditating not just on God’s Word, but on the “events of our times”.

I see Mary do this, when she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart”. The word translated pondering literally means to throw together/encounter/consider/discuss. I believe the conflict in my life is an assignment from God.

So rather than phoning it in, it makes sense to chew on it; to do the heart-work, so to speak. I had to ask myself: Would I rather put this awkwardness behind me, or let God unpack it for me?

Maybe I’ll always want to skirt conflict like it’s a worldwide pandemic. But slowly, my assignments are changing me.

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Freebie Fridays Infographic: How to Be Your Spouse’s Wingman

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Shame–and Your Marriage: On the Fear that Keeps Us Hiding (and Clawing Your Way Out)

Reading Time: 6 minutes

shame in your marriage The power of shame continues to make my mind fizz. (Yours might, too: This post on shame in parenting has drawn more readers than any other post on this site, bar none.)

But now all those thoughts are bubbling over what shame might look like in a marriage; in our most intimate concentric circle of community. See, I know shame—this idea that I’m not worthy of connecting with someone—immediately leads me to cover up.

Take the typical fight with a spouse. First reaction is not typically, You’re so right. I’m snippy, and I have a profound case of PMS. It’s more along the lines of blame-shifting (Well, if you’d stop overreacting like some kind of hypersensitive Pomeranian). Denying (I didn’t say you were arrogant! I said you were cocky). Hiding (If I don’t say anything, it will look a lot like peace and taking the higher road). read more

Worry: It’s What’s Eating You

Reading Time: 3 minutes

A question. What are you…afraid of?

Fear has this way of flaying us open, I think. Of laying bare what we see as bigger than us.

Worry manifests itself in vastly different ways. Some of us, for example, seek to staunch this bleeding of our hearts with intense control or safety. That is to alternatively say, some of us who struggle most with control actually are waging an inner battle with fear. As counselor and neuropsychologist Ed Welch writes, “One message is obvious: ‘If I imagine the worst, I will be prepared for it.’ Worry is looking for control….Worry has become your talisman to ward off future catastrophe.”

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