There’s nothing sexier than a man helping out in the kitchen. Ever heard that before? I have but at the time I didn’t understand the full meaning of the quote. Prior to marriage during our engagement season, Ray and I would ask many people how to be successful in marriage. To our surprise, many said don’t get married. There were some who gave more applicable advice because at this point we were getting married despite the naysayers. We observed the patterns of behavior of various couples from newlyweds to seasoned veterans. We monitored their communication, interaction, and behavior. We took it all in and came back together to discuss what we saw from our individual perspectives.

We both noticed too many older couples who didn’t speak to each other with loving-kindness. I realized the women worked outside of the home and came home to a ton of additional responsibility. Ray detected the men were dissatisfied with the quantity of sexual interaction between the spouses. At this discovery, our conversation came to a halt. Ray was unhappy with his discovery. He wanted to further dialogue about this with the hope that our relationship would not land on the planet of NoSex. Have you heard of NoSex? Me either. I obviously just made that up. LOL. However, his concern was legitimate. “What do I have to do so we don’t stop having sex?”, he seriously and worriedly asked. I chuckled on the inside but externally recognized the importance of his question. Little did he know, this conversation was important to me as well but for a different reason. My reply was simple. “Help out with the home responsibilities.”

Interest in sexual intimacy decreases for women when they are exhausted. It diminishes by leaps and bounds when she is exhausted servicing you in other ways (i.e. picking up after you, doing your laundry, cleaning the home, preparing meals, etc…). Enter children and attention to your needs has been moved further to the end of her ‘to-do list’. So, if you are unhappy with the quantity of affection you are receiving I guarantee it isn’t personal. Your wife is just butt tired and has no energy left for pleasure, not even her own. If you are interested in changing that dynamic grab some rubber gloves, take out dinner or a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and help her out. In due time, I promise you will become the reference in the saying, “There’s nothing sexier than a man helping out in the kitchen!”

We all have had a time or two where we have said the wrong thing to our spouse. Maybe it was due to a spontaneous conversation we weren’t prepared to discuss or a touchy topic that caused our blood pressure to rise and we blurted out the first thing that came to mind. No matter the situation or reasoning behind those unkind words, they still hurt. In fact, they may still hurt after days, months, or years have gone by. The sting of the offense may be lingering in your spouses thoughts. Due to the stench, it may have caused your spouse to build a wall in an area of their life that you may not enter. Whether you said something about their weight, appearance, way of doing things, or thought process it doesn’t matter. What matters most is the aftermath. How did you recover from that situation? Have you recovered? Have you tried to recover?

Recovery is important. If you’re an athlete who tore your ACL, recovery would be needed for it to heal properly. If you’re an investor and you lost your client a lot of money, a process of recovery would be put in place to not only retain the customer but also to maintain the relationship. If your pipes burst due to the frigid conditions in Chicago this winter, the plumber assesses the situation and develops a repair and recovery plan. Are you following me? In all areas of life we are capable of making mistakes that require repairing and recovery. Our marriages are no different and quite frankly more important. Jobs come and go, things breakdown, and our bodies fail us at times but our marriages are meant to last until we die. I think that commitment deserves the energy, effort, and attention necessary to produce the longevity we said we wanted prior to saying ‘I do”.

I’m not writing this to beat anyone up. Well maybe just a little. However, I am attempting to encourage you to consider what you have done to cause your spouse to revoke you access to their heart. Develop a plan that leads to recovery. Be kind. Be loving. Most importantly, be PATIENT. Your spouse could have been internalizing an insecurity that you didn’t know about. They could have told you about their pain and you used it as a weapon and now trust is broken. The topic or situation is not as important as regaining trust, tearing down that wall, and raising a new fortress with the both of you on the inside. What a covenant!

Today is the day! The dreaded day we commit my father in law to his resting place. This is a hard day. This day is the culmination of mixed emotions over the past few months. The snowball of Dad just being sick quickly turned into the avalanche also known as cancer. It wiped me out!

I have experienced loss before. My grandmother, our family giant passed away a few years ago after living with dementia for 10 years. It was heartbreaking but expected for many years. With Dad, as I affectionately call him, it was different. It was six months from him not feeling well to not recovering to diagnosis to departure. Devastation. I cried because life will never be the same. I cried because of the piercing wail of his wife of 49 years as they took his body away. I cried because my husband no longer has his hero with him. I cried because I love him so and will miss him dearly. I’m crying still as I write this blog. He was a great man. He stood 6’2” tall. He was the McElroy family giant. He was our patriarch. He was a real man. He was Dad.

As I struggle with this reality I turn to scripture for comfort. “How did Jesus handle grief?”, I asked myself. The Lord led me to Mark 3:1-6 where His enemies were criticizing Him for healing on the Sabbath. “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath,…” Jesus asked his enemies. He also took me to John 2:13-20 where Jesus forcefully clears the merchants and dealers who were defiling the temple. I meditated on these scriptures. Read them then read them again. I read before and after to make sure my understanding of the context was clear. I searched for applicable meaning and then it hit me.

Grief like anger is challenging. It’s a difficult emotion to control which is why we think of it so negatively. However, grief is good. It’s not only good because it is a healthy release of emotion, a natural way to express your love for someone, or it’s what everyone does. Grief is good because of what we do afterwards. Grief is good by what follows it. If Jesus would have stopped healing due to criticism from the Pharisees and if Jesus would have given up on us because of the poor behavior of the merchants and dealers we would never have seen the good deeds, good actions, and good results of his anger. As a result of this passage, today I choose to continue the legacy of ‘Dad’. Today I choose to focus on the gift of Dad. He blessed us with so many joyful memories, words of wisdom and examples of leadership. He equipped us to carry on the baton of life with integrity, strength, and most importantly faith in God almighty. For these and many other reasons, I will trust in the Lord with all my might. I will press toward the mark of the High Calling. I will cherish Dad forever and fight to carry on the McElroy legacy that he began. Good grief!