Help With Your Mother's Rule

Help With Your Mother's Rule is a forum for women who want trouble-shooting help with their Mother's Rules or about any aspect of the 5 Ps of the married vocation.

Ask Holly: This blog is composed of your questions. Contact me at the address listed on Holly's Helpers page and I will respond. Please share your unique ideas as well. The more ideas and experience we share, the more successful every mother will be in designing her own unique Mother's Rule.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Worn Out & Discouraged

Dear Holly
I have an inablity to create a working rule (or any kind of peace and order) for myself and our family. We have five kids, from infant to teens. My husband and I both work full-time ~ this is a necessity where we live because we just couldn't get our bills paid. We're up to our necks in debt.

We've been on the brink of divorce several times and I can't recall a time when the atmosphere at our home has been calm and peaceful except when the oldest two kids were small. Since then there's always been some strain. There's no problems of violence or substance abuse or anything like that, 'just' selfishness on both sides, mutual disrespect. When I started working, all of a sudden my husband expected me to pay all the bills and use the money he earned only for his own needs. Another area where I have been building up resentment is contraception. I've had difficulty learning NFP and my husband has counseled me to have abortions, and has seemed glad when I've had my many miscarriages. About parenting, we've never had any kind of discussion with my husband about principles, I feel so alone there too. All we are capable to do is blame each other when something goes wrong.

I was given a free upbringing myself and somehow I just subconciously feel I'm restraining the children or something when I try to get them to do their chores or just to obey. I guess I just don't know better, even though I've read tons of books on parenting. I'm happy that the kids have turned out pretty good despite, just lazy, but no major problems. But I feel I'm running out of time with the older kids, they'll be soon leaving home and what kind of education have I given them.

Around six years ago, I had a conversion to Christianity - there I just didn't have anyone else to turn to anymore than Jesus, whom I had never seriously prayed to before, and He helped, gave me some peace. Then Pope John Paul II passed away and I began reading his teachings on morality and found they were just wonderful, continued praying, and mustered up the courage to go to a Catholic Church. I couldn't understand much of the Mass, and even less of the Adoration that followed, but on the spot I knew that this was the Church I wanted to be part of. No any kind of dramatic conversion experience, but it just felt the right thing to do. I was received to the Church a few year's back. I haven't been depressed since.

My husband was baptised Catholic, but I had never seen him go to a Catholic church since I'd met him until I dragged him there. The standard answer is "I can pray at home". In any case he has some reverence for the priests,proved by the way he listens to any kind of advice he gets from them. I know I should just try to be more kind and loving, let the love of God speak for itself and not even try to preach. But I'm such a beginner myself that it's very difficult. And at least to the children I've understood that it is my duty to 'preach', to teach them our faith. Except that to this one of my teens always replies something like 'it's not my faith, I hate it, it was much better when we never went to church, I will leave the Church the minute I turn 18' and so on. I really don't know what to say to all that.

Do you have any thoughts about where I ought to begin?
Posted by at 4:44 AM
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6 comments:

  1. I will have to answer this in a couple of posts:

    I have read through your letter, and I can see how you would be discouraged and at a loss as to how to begin to bring order to your life and home. However, all is not lost. There is great hope. It is a matter of focusing on what can be begun immediately and taking it step by step.

    The very first thing I have to say is, you cannot start by changing your husband , so for the time being, you must work on yourself, not him, and begin to live your own personal responsibilities. And if at this time, it means you work without him in what should be shared responsibilities, then that is a challenge you are called to take up right away, even if he won't help. You are married to this man for a reason. You are the mother of these children for a reason. The Lord needs YOU and your life is not interchangeable with someone else.

    As a result, you are called to aim at becoming the best YOU you can become. That may not start with your housework. I think it starts with the universal vocation all of us have - your first and second Ps - your relationship with God and your relationship with yourself. We all share this vocation, married or not. This is where to start.

    There are many good signs of God's presence in your life, guiding and directing you. It is this relationship with Him that you need to foster first. You mention that you have a priest who has counseled you. I suggest you book an appointment with him, even print of a copy of this letter if you want, and go to him, asking him to show you how you can begin to foster a deeper intimacy with God. Then, you would begin to practice that. This is first.

    In your prayer life, you can take to prayer all the things that are on your mind. Perhaps you could purchase a nice attractive journal and begin to record your desires, aspirations, problems and difficulties and begin to ask the Lord to assist you in working these things out. "How could a Father give his child a stone if he asks for bread?" God is with you.
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  2. Secondly, you need to look at your 2nd P and make sure that you are getting what you need, both spiritually and physically. Physcially, you need to ensure you are getting the proper nutrition - at least two balanced meals a day, and a vitamin supplement. Then, at least 8 hours sleep. A daily 30 minute exercise, even if it is just speed-cleaning your home!!! Anything to work up a sweat. Or a fresh air walk, with or without the family. These physical practices will go a long way to clear your head, level your mind and help with clarity, in addition to your prayer relationship with God which will begin to give you spiritual sustenance.

    Then the remainder of the 2nd P person is your serious intention to start practicing virtue. Virtue is a means to the peace you seek and the very first thing I suggest, and it relates to your husband, is to practice two things:
    1) speaking kindly and respectfully to him at all times,
    2) having a "how can I help you" attitude toward him, no matter how hard it seems initially.

    It's not supposed to be about what YOU 'get' out of marriage, but about what you 'give'. THIS self-control will go a long way to not only establishing virtue but will go very very far in beginning to establish peace with your husband.

    You see, it doesn't matter if the log in his eye is 100 feet long. YOU remain called to be faithful to YOUR vows. YOU must do what YOU are called to do, even if he doesn't do what He is called to do. Because often, the faithfulness of the wife is a conversion factor for the husband. Look up the story of Elizabeth LeSeur and buy her diary to read for spiritual reading.
    http://fiatvoluntastua.blogspot.com/2005/06/story-of-elizabeth-leseur.html

    If you begin with these 2 Ps - your spiritual life, your physical health and your conscious work on virtue, specifically aimed at the 3rd P Partner - your husband - you will begin to see real fruit in your life.

    You cannot tackle all at once, but like the little tortoise in the tale of the race with the hare, a little plodding actions make a difference and can win the race. Start with your first 2 Ps.

    Most importantly, remember, seek the counsel of a priest near you who can do an ongoing counsel bi-weekly over the next couple of months, and please feel free to keep in touch with me. The Lord wants to bring you peace - both to you personally, to your marriage, your family, and to your home life. "Jesus, I trust in you... lead me to your will for my family life."
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  3. I will pray for you. It sounds like a difficult situation in many ways and I pray the Lord continues to strengthen you and bless all of your efforts to follow him. I truly admire your heart in continuing to persevere in your marriage and your efforts to show God's love to your teens and younger children. Don't give up!! God is with you!!
    "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17
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  4. Thank You for your courage to write this question. Know you are not alone. Thank You to Holly for the Holy Spirit guiding you to give us difficult but necessary wisdom to help us in this most difficult journey. I ask for prayers from this woman and Holly, as it has been most difficult the past 3 years finding out some ugly truths about my husband. Only by God's grace and mercy and love for me have I had the strength to carry on. Sometimes I just want to run! Anyway, God Bless and Thank You.
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  5. To the last anonymous...
    What always strikes me is how our stories tend to resonate with others. It is so good to feel uplifted by knowing we are not alone.

    I am going to pray for you too, and please feel free to write to me to chat if you need an ear or some 'objective' input...
    Blessings
    Holly
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  6. This post really helped me as I don't face the SAME situation...but very similar! Holly's answer is just what I have been praying to find! I am very new to the mother's rule...just trying to get it together!
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