communication

Be The One

Last week in church, we finished our final section of our study called “For The One.” This is a rebranding for our church, as before our slogan was “For the Basin” referencing the Permian Basin, for those readers that aren’t familiar with west Texas. This study had five areas we want to exemplify as Christians:

  • Follow the One
  • Reach the One
  • Serve the One
  • Gather as One
  • Be the One

Each week we studied one of these areas and learned the importance of each of these areas and how they are fundamental to not only the church, but to our individual walks with God. Sundays final lesson, “Be the One” focused on spiritual maturity and how we obtain spiritual maturity. Our pastor, Jeremiah, spoke about what spiritual maturity is and what it is not. It’s not really like Jeremiah to call anyone out, but he was a bit more fiery than usual.

He told us spiritual maturity isn’t about how long you’ve been a Christian, how much Bible knowledge you have, how elevated your morality is, or how deeply spiritual you are. This touched on so many issues we have in the church today. Things that deter new Christians from finding their sense of belonging within the church. Statements like “well I’ve been here for X amount of years so I know what’s best” or “I go to church so I’m clearly a better person than they are.” “I raise my hands and worship more openly so I clearly have a better connection with God” or “WELL ACTUALLY the Bible says blah blah blah.” I’m sure all of us at some point have heard something along these lines. We’ve all heard something that has made us feel inferior in our faith walk.

I think in today’s society we’ve become stuck in what’s called the bystander effect. This term was coined when a Kitty Genovese was being attacked and sexually assaulted outside her apartment complex. After her murder, police found that 38 people witnessed the violent attack, yet no one called the police or even went to help her. Majority of people said “I thought someone else would call/help her.” The attacker was detoured twice by lights coming on in the building but ultimately returned to Kitty for a third time to stab her to death. This is why during emergency situations, with any sort of training (CPR, EMT, etc) you are trained to point to one person and instruct them to call the police because in theory, most people will assume someone else will do it. If you elect one single person to call it eliminates varying stories about the events as well as the inaction of every person present.

How many times in our lives do we refuse to help someone we see suffering or struggling in life because we assume that someone else is going to do it? We’ve become a world of “not my problem.” I can tell you I’ve lost people in my life because all of us thought “not my problem, someone else will help them.” Even outside the realm of religion and spirituality, being “The One” for someone could save them. Being that one person who takes the time to show love and compassion to someone who is stuck or hurt could result in a single defining moment that changes everything for them. We need to ask ourselves every time we hesitate “If not me, then who?” Most of the time, there is not another “who.”

Our life is made up of small moments. Singular interactions where we only have minutes to change the path someone is going down. So step out of your comfort zone and reach out to someone the next time you feel that inkling that they’re needing someone to be their one.

40 Days in the Wilderness

First and foremost, I’d like to apologize to my inattentiveness to this blog as well as to my dedicated readers. The last few months have been hectic emotionally and physically. In late May/early June, I found myself pregnant for the third time. Unfortunately around the 6 week mark, my numbers were still not going up like they should and my doctor suspected an ectopic pregnancy. For those that do not know what that means, it is when the fertilized egg gets stuck in the fallopian tube and continues to grow slowly. This can be extremely dangerous if not caught early because the egg growth can cause the tube to rupture, which can result in tube and ovary loss as well as death due to internal bleeding. After I had a ultrasound, it was confirmed that it was indeed ectopic and I was put on medical restriction to reduce the risk of rupture. To treat an ectopic pregnancy they give you three shots in your hip of methotrexate, which is a chemo medication. It essentially attacks growing cells within the body and dissolves the tissue. Upon taking this medication I had to sign paperwork saying I wouldnt try to get pregnant for three months, I wouldn’t exercise until I’m released from restriction, and that I wouldnt smoke or consume alcohol for the next two weeks because until I had a negative pregnancy test, I was still at risk of rupture and another pregnancy could result in tubule rupture. It would be easy to say that this was devastating, but my real heartbreak would come two weeks later when my OB informed me she didn’t think I would have a chance of successful pregnancy because of this ectopic pregnancy and that the procedure to check my tubes was about $1500 out of pocket. She recommended IVF to avoid another ectopic pregnancy and nothing else.

I spent the rest of my vacation to Montana crying and being upset about this news. I couldn’t even really enjoy having AJ for the first week because all I could think about was how expensive IVF is and even if we looked at adoption, that was expensive too. Hopeless is the best word I could use to describe myself at this moment. Especially looking at my beautiful step son. How was is possible that at 27, in semi decent health, I was unable to have my own baby, but I had to share a child I loved with a woman who really didnt love him as a mother should? Following up with an infertility specialist would be a current dead end as well. The minimum cost for exploratory surgery was $2700 and that was just to determine if there was an issue. That does not go to the actual cost of IVF. The doctors appointment alone was $200 upfront no insurance option available.

As we started our summer my mother surprised me with a book, as she is custom to doing. “The 40-Day Social Media Fast.” It was a 40 day devotional study that took you completely off social media for 40 days in order to grow your relationship with God. No facebook, twitter, instagram, tik tok, etc., etc. Normally I would’ve rolled my eyes at it, but my husband made a comment he didn’t think I could do it, so of course I had to rise to the occasion. As I started this journey, I found myself detoxing hard. I was grabbing my phone just to fidget. I would even scroll through my photos just to be on my phone. I wasn’t so concerned with the world, but I didn’t have anything to keep my attention. I found myself reaching for my phone at the slightest inconvenience or down moment I had. As I got further and further into this fast, I realized how truly dependent I was on my phone for everything and how much I was missing by looking down constantly. Time with God, with my husband, with my child, and with myself were lacking largely. I found myself having time to sit and play with AJ. I had time to read a book. I had time to pray and send quality time with God. The weeks went by I became more convicted about other distractions I had on my phone. Online games was one of my biggest convictions. Anytime I had more than a couple minutes I was opening a game on my phone. Even if I was laying in bed with my husband after a long day, I was opening my phone instead of spending time with him. Instead of playing with my child, I was playing on my phone.

I made a decision that I was done being chained to this small box and giving it my attention when my attention was due in other places. I wanted to focus on making memories and enjoying my life in concordance with God and my duties as a wife and step mom. I was tried of zoning out and filling my mind with stuff that wasn’t going to matter in the long run. It didnt matter how many likes I got on a picture or how many people thought I was funny. I wanted to stop my need for validation from everyone else and concern myself with the only validation I need; God’s validation.

After 40 days, I made the conscious decision to keep all social media platforms off my phone. Apart from Facebook Messenger and Pinterest, you wont find any “social media” apps on my phone. I went back and forth on deleting entirely, but the devotionals in my book made a point to talk about how social media isn’t bad when used in the right way or in moderation. Facebook has given my a platform to share my story of grace as well as keep in touch with people I would have no way of knowing about outside of that. However, I wanted to remove myself from the gossip and drama and envy that accompanies such platforms. I’ve allotted myself to checking a maximum of once a day from a computer and just to check notifications and any posts on our prayer support group. No scrolling or snooping. The people I want in my life have my number and I’m invested in the things that matter most.

Life is too short and too precious to remain glued to your phone every waking minute of every day. Look up and connect with those around you and enjoy the moments that are passing you by.

More Unsolicited Relationship Advice

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time, well both of us really, reading and researching couples building and strengthening our relationship as much as possible. Sometimes I think it’s overkill because it seems like we’re both always seeking out tools and books and studies to help us understand each other. It started with Love and Respect and has now grown to things like The 5 Love Languages, Praying for Him/Her, and several Bible studies about growing your relationship/marriage in the way God intended it. If you meet me and Anthony, we seem like a pretty happy couple, which we are, but we’ve both been in relationships where it was pretty happy on the outside but really unhappy on the inside. We want to make sure our inside is more genuinely happy than the outside because at the end of the day, it is only you and your spouse and the outside world doesn’t matter. If the outside world does matter, then you need to reevaluate your relationship. That’s not to say that outside forces don’t influence your relationship because they do. In-laws, friends, jobs, money, kids, etc., all can influence your relationship, but when you go to bed at night, those things are there (except maybe the kids).

I’ll be honest, in my first marriage, my in-laws influenced my relationship a lot. I never really felt accepted into their family except by a couple of my sister in-laws and even that took a lot of time and effort. I would literally have terrible anxiety about going to visit them because I felt like they didn’t like me and they blamed me for us moving to Texas. I think this really affected my ex husband a lot because everyone wants their family to like the person they’re with. I don’t know for sure, but I feel like my divorce probably was almost good news to them. Because my parents really reached out and wanted to know how they could help and if they could offer support that would help my ex husband and I work through our issues, but nothing like that came from the other side, at least not to me. However that is just my opinion. I could be off base. It does happen. This has also moved into my new relationship. I’ve always worried about what my future in-laws think about me and if they genuinely like me because I know I can come off as distant or stand offish but that’s just me as a person. Especially since they really loved the previous ex girlfriend and I am 100% not like her. I think Anthony has the same issue with my family because really loved my ex husband and they aren’t similar either.

I think for Anthony and I, we both knew we were coming into this relationship with some baggage and we wanted to combat that as much as possible. Not pretend that it wasn’t there, but be able to handle it and heal in a healthy way. Believe me, the honeymoon bubble is fun, but eventually you have to come back to the real world where people do have kids and there are bills to pay and exes to deal with. I also think with both of us getting back into our faith and Anthony going to seminary school, we wanted to be equipped to handle the speed bumps in a way where we honored God and our relationship. We’ve both tried to do things our way and every other way, but even in the short time it’s taken us to work through Love and Respect our relationship has become so much more laid back. We still have our tiffs, most of which I’m gonna blame on Anthony (just kidding), but we’re not having blow up fights like we used to. We save those for every few months and even those last less than a day. In reality, the time we do have disputes is when one of us says something and the other person takes it the wrong way or misinterprets what was said. It goes both ways because men and women definitely don’t hear and see things the same. When I ask Anthony his opinion on something and he says “I don’t care, whatever you want” (everyone women’s favorite phrase) I tend to take that as hurtful because I wouldn’t ask him if I didnt value his opinion. In reality, he just wants me to pick whatever I want because it’ll make me happy and most of the time he really doesn’t have an opinion so he doesnt want to pick or say the wrong thing. I’ve come to the very real understanding that men just don’t care about the same things women care about and that’s legit, okay. He’s learned I’m not gonna get excited about tools and I’ve learned he’s not going to get excited about the make up I buy.

Much like if you have a relationship with God, you can’t have doors in your relationship that are “off limits.” You have to be able to talk about things. Things in the past, present, and future. I know that’s hard for a lot of people, and it took me and Anthony some work to get to that place with each other. Anthony is a very self sufficient person and by that I mean, he’s really just taken care of his own problems his whole life. He’s very resilient and has never really relied on anyone for help because when he has, they’ve let him down. So you can imagine, for someone like me who wants to help and nurture and fix things, meeting someone who doesnt open up, has been the test of a lifetime. Patience has been the name of the game. However, the time I put in to earn his trust was worth every second. I’ve very privileged that he does open up to me about things, and much like the “I don’t care” from him, he’s had to learn that when he opens up to me, I give him advice on how to fix and it’s not meant in a way to belittle the issues he’s having.

I’m not an expert on relationships, not even close. I’m not saying you need to have God in your life to have a good relationship, because some people are happy and together for years without God. That’s just what has impacted my relationship in a really amazing way. If you can be aware of yourself and your short comings and how to fix them for the betterment of your relationship, you’re already half way to the smoothish sailing. I will preach that till the day I die. You cannot be with another person if you think you’re perfect or if think you can make someone else accept your baggage without any question and then the piles of luggage can just hangout in your living room for the rest of the relationship. You have to unpack it with your spouse and let them see the real you, scars and all.

Follow Up: Sexual Intimacy

This week, as I’ve been pondering over my previous post about sexual intimacy in relationships, I released a very important point that I failed to mention. While sexual release is very important health wise for men, this does not mean the woman has to just lay there and let him do his thing. I was thinking about it in my head and was like “Katie you sound like the women shouldnt get anything out of the actual act of sex” and believe me that is not my view at all. My main point was that sex is very different for men and women and they get different things out of it. Believe me, I know that sex is a process for women. Unfortunately, God did not create us with 0 to 60 in 5 seconds arousal like men. For those of you who don’t know, women need more than a few strokes to get them to the peak of climax. It’s a journey and I know sometimes men don’t really want to take the time for that. However, men (and women) and I would highly advise you to have a realistic talk to your partner about what works for them and what certainly does not. Sex should be enjoyable for both participants. I’ve found a lot of the time, old habits die hard and a lot of men 1. dont realize not all women/vaginas are the same, and 2. they were never really properly taught because no one ever took the time.

Now I’m not saying every man is incompetent in the realm of women’s sexual pleasure, but the ones I’ve met that are have taken the time to ask their partners what they want and actually listen. I would not presume to write exactly what to do that would make your woman happy because again, every women is different and enjoys different things. Sex is important for both parties and both people should enjoy it. I’ve been in relationships where I dreaded having sex because it was all about what made my partner feel good and never really about what made me feel good. I had a boyfriend that was really good at foreplay but when we got to actual intercourse it was 2 minutes of “jackhammering” me while he poured sweat like he had just run a marathon and then it ended with him giving up and not being able to ejaculate. Now is that entirely his fault? Yes and no, but as a grown man he would ask me “did you cum?” and to this day, I wonder if he just thought that’s what it was supposed to take? Maybe he had a girlfriend that enjoyed that, I dont know, but not once did he ask me if I liked it. I’m sorry if you’re a man reading this and starting to question if you’re good in bed, because that is definitely not my end game with this post.

My end game is to open the line of communication between partners. Because in your life, fulfillment comes when you and your partner are on the same page. When you feel safe and comfortable enough to come to your partner and say “hey that doesnt feel good for me” or “hey can we try this.” Disclaimer: you don’t have to try everything your partner suggests because I know there are instances where some partners take advantage of their partners openness, but if you partner gives suggestions on how to pleasure them better, men and women, hear them out. Do it with a loving tone and not a “your an incompetent moron” tone. And from the other side, do not take it personal. You cannot ask for open communication and then be hurt when they are open about it. That’s for everything, not just sex. If you want open communication and want your partner to be able to come to you with anything, you need to practice being receptive to what they’re communicating.

One example Love and Respect gives is husbands struggling with pornography. Wives want their husbands to have eyes only for them, but pornography is a real problem in a lot of relationships and, in my opinion, a lot of men don’t come forward and ask for help because they are 1. ashamed, and 2. afraid of how their wives are going to react. So instead of asking for help and support they hide their addiction until it ruins their marriage. As a woman, I understand how harsh we can be as a sex. It’s the same reason your husband usually doesnt ask for help with things because we tend to have a “I told you so” or “I’m always right” mentality. Keep that in mind when your husband comes to you to talk or asks you for something because if you are harsh or scold him like a child, he’ll shut down and then you wont get anything out of him. That’s my soap box for the night. Communication and openness.

Sexual Intimacy is a Win-Win

Earlier this week, Anthony and I were discussing a blog post he wanted to create about porn addiction. I made a comment about he should include a women’s view, which would be from me. He said it wasn’t really that type of post. It was more of a “man up and stop watching porn” type post. So I said maybe I’d right a counter part to his post. If you haven’t checked out his blog, please do. Biblethumpingjesusfreak.com

I was contemplating how to approach this because porn and sex are very very VERY different for women than for men. Then, as I’m reading my Love and Respect book (highly recommended) I come to a chapter about sexual intimacy in marriage. I call that coincidence a God Wink. The second half of this book is split into a wife section and husband section and they discuss values your partner has and how to best support those values. For things men value they use the acronym C.H.A.I.R.S.

  • Conquest
  • Hierarchy
  • Authority
  • Insight
  • Relationship
  • Sexuality

Now I will be candid and say that sexuality is not an area Anthony and I typically struggle in and I think it’s because I had a pretty good understanding of the male value of sex prior to us being together. However, in my encounters with married men in the past, I can say this seems to be an area a lot women struggle in and, for lack of a better term, weaponize against their husbands. I would never dismiss someones actions of cheating on their spouse, but when men cheat, it’s because they are not having their needs met at home. Sometimes the wife is doing it consciously and sometimes it’s unconsciously. Not just the physical sexual needs, but the emotional need they receive from sex. As women, we don’t feel the anatomical need for sex as men do. Granted, it’s fun for us too, but men biologically need sex.

Truly, ask your man how they feel when they don’t have sex or even masturbate for a week, a month, etc. I bet he will tell you, it physically hurts him and messes with his emotional stability. That is exactly what this chapter talks about. Depriving your husband of sex because you’re unhappy with him and feel he doesn’t meet your emotional needs. How it causes him distress and makes him pull away from you as a partner. Think about it. When your man sees you come out of the shower, his brain automatically goes into turned on mode. He can’t help it. He shouldn’t be punished for finding you physically attractive, because in reality that should be what he does. In all the places he could seek sexual stimulation (porn, other women, masturbation), why would you want to punish him for seeking it with you?

Ladies we’ve all done it. “If he thinks he’s gonna get some after how he treated me, he’s dead wrong.” I will fully admit that I’ve rolled over to my side of the bed to pout and then be angry when he has the audacity to try and make advances. Believe me, this isn’t him dismissing your feelings or saying sex is more important than meeting your emotional needs. For men, sex is a stress reliever and an emotional release. It makes them feel better so a lot of the time, they think it’ll make you feel better. Sex for them is the equivalent to you wanting to talk about your feelings.

Emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy is a two way street. “But all he wants is sex.” I know it seems like that on the surface, but that is how he gets to the level of emotional intimacy you want to get from him. Now believe me, I would never encourage someone to force themselves to have sex if they really don’t want to, but how many times as women, do we withhold sex to be malicious? When you do that, it’s the same as if you asked him to listen to your problems and he said “I’m not in the mood.” How hurt would you be? Imagine if he did that day after day, week after week, and then complained that all you want to do it talk and you don’t care about his needs.

It’s a bit daunting when the shoe is on the other foot, especially when we live in a society that promotes this idea of women using our sexuality as a weapon. They want us to feel empowered and act as if we are owed respect and love simply because we have something men need. Yet, we feel upset and used if men use emotional manipulation to get sex from us. Neither of these actions is okay. There is a way for both parties to get their needs fulfilled and you have to have both to make things work. Women need to be aware of men’s need to have physical intimacy and men need to be aware of women’s need for emotional intimacy. They go hand and hand and they are both NEEDS. Sometimes the man has to give emotional support first to receive physical support and sometimes the women needs to fulfill the physical need before her emotional need can be filled. There has to be a give and take.

So moving forward, if you feel your relationship is lacking in either of these areas, ask yourself if the other end is being fulfilled. Women, if you feel like he’s distant, ask yourself if you’ve been withholding of his need for physical intimacy. Men, if you feel like she’s being withholding, ask yourself if you’ve taken the time to meet her need for emotional intimacy. I guarantee that if both partners work to fulfill their partners need, the relationship will grow deeper and more intimate for both people involved.