Love is Kind

Love Dare day 2: Love is Kind.

We always tend to think of love as a feeling. But, I am learning very quickly that love is so much more than a feeling. It is not a noun. It is a verb; an action. Patience is a reaction to a negative situation, and kindness is an action, or the creation of a positive situation. While I do have the feelings of love for my husband, I fall short of the "showing love" department. It is so much easier to pass the things I hate the most off to him, like laundry, cleaning the litter box, dishes...and I very rarely do things to surprise him. Yet, I expect those things from him. Lately, I have found myself missing the days when we were dating. I found some old emails from one another, and our feelings were so strong for one another. We said all the right things, and did all kinds of random things for one another. But, after 3 years together, we have gotten comfortable, and those things have kind of dissipated.

So, for today's dare, I'm going to do the one thing I hate most: laundry. From start to finish. All by myself. When I do laundry, we usually end up dressing out of the basket or dryer all week. So, I'm gonna work on that.

The point of loving someone actively is not for a pat on the back, or something in return, but to love them with no expectations in return. That is the hardest part. I find myself telling Brandon, "I cooked, so you clean up," or things like that. I tend to think that because I did one thing, I should expect him to do another. While I do believe household jobs should be shared (and Brandon is good about that), I need to learn to take the initiative and do it regardless. Because I love him :-)

"Love is Patient"

I started "The Love Dare" today. I know, I'm behind.

Day 1 is all about patience. How ironic, huh? The thing that probably 99% of us struggle with the most is the very first thing addressed. I know that this is definitely an area that I need to work on. I was a very patient person all my life....until I got married. Funny how things change after you get married. The things I am most impatient about are:

-I HATE waiting for people. I know when I need to get up, and what time I need to leave, and it angers me to no end when Brandon is running late, or if he stops getting ready to play a game or watch tv, resulting in us leaving late...and me waiting on him. To me, it is very simple. Get up. Get ready. Leave. And I have very little patience for that. I need to realize that Brandon is not as "punctual" as I am (I tend to be super early to everything), and that it's ok! There's no need to me to get in a bad mood over that. I will work on that.

-I get impatient about Brandon leaving trash all over the house. I come home to chip bags, coke cans, and food wrappers on the coffee table and counters, and it drives me NUTS. And, he almost never puts his cheese wrapper in the trash! He is not a dirty person by any means...it just takes him a while to clean his messes up.

-I get aggravated because Brandon seems to never want to do anything fun. He led a very boring childhood, and his idea of fun is playing the Xbox...all day every day. I hate it.

So, I know three things right off the top of my head that I need to watch out for. I am sure after I harp at him every ten minutes about leaving on time it makes him feel like a child. And I am sure when I sit there and beg him to stop playing his games, it doesn't exactly make him want to go do what I want to do.

Isn't it funny how, even as adults, when we don't get what we want, we throw a fit???

"Patience helps you give your spouse permission to be human. It understands that everyone fails. When a mistake is made, it chooses to give them more time than they deserve to correct it."