IT'S ALL A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE . . .

I had kind of an interesting experience this weekend . . . but before I share it, I need to give some background first . . .

When my husband and I married, we both came from really close knit families . . . and that fact (even though that is a really GOOD thing) caused a great deal of friction between us over the years . We lived in the same city as both our families for the first few years (actually we lived just a few blocks away for most of that time) and we loved the ease with which we could visit and spend time with our families.

However, I also remember feeling a little claustrophobic at times (as awful as that sounds), because my husband's parents had poor health AND were kind of lonely and they wanted us to spend a great deal of time with them. In fact, I soon began to dread early Saturday morning phone calls. When the phone rang at that time, it was inevitably my mother-in-law, calling to ask my husband to come over and help with some project or chore, (because his dad shouldn't be doing it and would probably drop dead in the middle if he insisted on doing it anyways -- which he ALWAYS did). She would always add, 'and bring Sue (and the babies, when they came along) and we will have a pool party and bbq afterwards'. It wasn't that I didn't LIKE spending time with them . . . I did. They were fun, interesting people, and they tried to include me. I just hated spending all day EVERY Saturday with them . . .

My husband worked full time, went to school full time and Sundays were busy with church . . . I was (I can admit NOW) very resentful that they expected us to spend every Saturday (the ONLY day that was OURS from start to finish) with them. I HATED that . . . And (if I am going to be honest) when I was over there, they often had conversations for HOURS about places I had never lived (or been to) and people I had never met (nor ever WOULD) . . . I felt left out and kind of bored . . .

To be fair, my husband often complained that when I went to my folks' home that HE became invisible . . . I got so busy visiting with my sisters and parents -- laughing and talking -- that he needed a crowbar to get me to leave . . .

Come to think of it, that just may have been our biggest 'issue' the first few years we were married . . .

Then after the birth of our second son, we moved a hundred miles away. That geographical move was difficult because we WERE both very close to our families, but it was also VERY good for us . . . for BOTH of us . . .

The move meant that we were no longer two minutes away . . . It is a much bigger deal to drive two hours to visit than to drive (or walk) a few blocks, and with my husband's busy schedule, our visits became less frequent. We still tried to get down every month or two . . . but that depended on the mechanical reliability of our cars, the health of the kids, my husband's work and school projects and our ability to afford the gas . . .

That distance was good for us . . . Good for us as a couple AND as a family . . . It MADE us depend on one another, and learn to better communicate and compromise in our relationship . . . because there simply was nobody else to turn to, for most things. Oh, we eventually made friends and developed a support network locally . . . but the move away from family broke up some patterns that were getting established in our life that were causing some major resentment and other issues.

When we did make it down for a visit, I still got tired of chasing the kids in a house FULL of antiques that couldn't be touched or around a backyard with a deep canyon and an unfenced swimming pool . . . I loved my inlaws, but I could NEVER relax over there when I had kids with me, and when we walked through the front door, it felt like my husband turned into someone I didn't recognize and became more THEIR son than MY husband or the father of OUR children . . .

My husband also kept complaining about me forgetting all about HIM when we went to my family's home . . . My family WELCOMED him . . . but he, too, felt like the odd man out there . . .





This weekend, I had the opportunity to remember all that quite vividly . . . especially all that resentment I had towards his parents those early years.

It was kind of eye opening . . .

ESPECIALLY to see it from THIS perspective, now that I am no longer the young wife, but have somehow inexplicably morphed into the 'mother-in-law' . . .



When adult children go home for a visit, maybe especially if they are (and were) close to siblings and parents, they DO sort of slip back into that old, comfortable pattern of family dynamics . . . It certainly isn't that they do not LOVE their own families, or that they forget them . . . It is just sort of a brief foray into nostalgia . . . And it is absolutely precious . . .


I REALLY wish I had understood that sooner . . .



I wish I had been mature enough to accept that my husband cherished his family and his loving them didn't really take anything away from me . . .

I wish that I had been willing to just TALK to him about my feelings of feeling overlooked and left out, so that we could have come to some kind of a workable compromise, instead of just letting hurt and resentful feelings fester and grow . . . Why on earth did I think that he should just KNOW how I felt and fix it without my being willing to sit down and DISCUSS the matter?!? And WHY was I SO sure that it was HIM that needed to do all the changing to make it work more comfortably for me?!?

I wish SO much I could have -- even for a few moments -- had the vision of THIS perspective . . . of being the PARENT of an adult, dearly loved child who is home briefly for a visit . . .



Oh MAN . . . ALL those YEARS . . . ALL that ENERGY that I wasted being seethingly resentful of something that I should have been cherishing and celebrating . . .

No, it wasn't particularly fun being the bump-on-a-log witness to conversation after conversation about people I didn't know or care about and places I had never been . . . but I should have been asking questions . . . and listening avidly to soak up the history of my husband's family, his roots . . . I should have been more grateful that he came from a healthy, nurturing family dynamic where the members DID love and enjoy one another, instead of begrudging the time he spent (and wanted to spend) with them . . .




SIGH . . . Like with most things in life, it is all a matter of perspective . . .



I wish SO much that I had made the effort to learn how to be better at stepping outside my own personal perspective to see things from different angles . . . I know better now how fleeting those precious times are . . . We will not be around forever . . .



When I look back, I cannot help but think what an absolute waste of my time and energy . . .


I wish SO much that I could go back and savor those years . . . EVEN if it took us some time to find and work out compromises that satisfied both of us . . .




If I had only known THEN what I know NOW . . .




SIGH . . .