First Born and Last Born

I wrote this last week and then a few days later, was pointed in the direction of Brene Brown's talk on vulnerability. Good stuff!

As a last born child, I believe it was 100% correct for me to marry a first born. I didn't say all last borns should marry first borns. I just said for ME, it was entirely good. I need his first born-ness so much! We're both introverts and have many similarities. But there are just a lot of little ways I see us differing in our approaches to day to day life and often times I think, "This is stemming from your first-born-ness and from my last-born-ness!"

Here's an example:
Now I know some ladies like a man they can nag to death until he caves. I mean they might not say it out loud, but they have all the tactics honed and their guy knows if he pushes back, he's going to live to regret it. But I married a guy who I'm pretty sure considers nagging like the cardinal sin. I think I saw the hairs on the back of his neck stand all the way up one time. So I learned early in the marriage (really in the dating phase, I think) that nagging was not going to work. Crying doesn't work well either. And so I really didn't know what kind of wife I was going to be if I couldn't pout loud and long enough for some real results! So it was on to plan B. And with the help of wise counsel and some trial and error, our Plan B turned out to be honest conversation and honest interaction. We are still learning it and tweaking it, but now we know better how to recognize when things get "dishonest" and when one of us starts to break the "rules of engagement," so to speak.

Because you know what I also have learned? I have learned his vulnerabilities and he has learned mine. And you know what the scariest thing you can do to a person, especially to a spouse? The scariest (most evil maybe?) thing is to learn someone's vulnerabilities and USE them to get your way or to get yourself more points. Marriage is about learning those vulnerabilities and cultivating them and ministering to them. We want to draw out each other's strengths and help each other relate honestly to the other. This happens when both people are willing to be vulnerable, of course.

Anyway.

If I had married a push over, I would not have been pushed to grow so much. People used to tell me (and sometimes they still do tell me this) that I was "too sensitive" and "too breakable" and needed thicker skin. And that's still true some days although I've come a long way. But what God knew I needed was a husband who was in the business of wooing me and bending over backwards to contribute to my happiness BUT who also loves objectivity and is not afraid to push back. He's not afraid to ruffle my feathers! Sometimes I jokingly call him pathologically objective. And he'll jokingly say, "You hurt my feeling!" (see there: not "feelings" but "feeling." If you don't get why that's funny, never mind). Anyway, he invests regularly in my "love bank" so when he does push back, it's easier to swallow. Sure, we still have our spirited conversations sometimes and there's still plenty of fleshly nature to tend to. I don't mean to say no one ever gets hurt or has a reason to seek forgiveness. I have just seen God using some of our innate differences for the other's good.

I wish I had a tidier way to sum up this blog post, but really it was just musing out loud.
In other news, we started school this week. I was dreading it, but now that it's here and going swimmingly, I'm pretty pumped. Last year I spent the first semester of homeschooling in a state of morning sickness. Things can only get better, right?

The end.