What My Husband Did That Completely Surprised Me

Today I just want to tell a story. Maybe you’ll get something out of it… and I hope you will!

The other day I was in a grumpy mood. It’s really grey and dreary here – I’m on the west coast of Canada – and it’s really affecting my mood (does that happen to you, or is it just me?), and my husband was an hour and a half late, so… you married ladies, you know what that’s like when you’re trying to get dinner done and the kids and blah, and your husband is late and hasn’t called you.

I was grumpy, you guys. I mean, I was angry loading the dishwasher. You probably know what that is too – angry cleaning. Anyway. Then he came home, and he’s usually very joyful and cheerful when he gets home. So I was all like, “Stop being so joyful. You’ve made me miserable.” And I was obviously giving him the cold shoulder, I mean, I probably said something like, “Hi, honey, how’s it going?” But I just wasn’t super loving. I was trying to rise up… let me just say that. I really was trying to do what I talked about a few posts ago. What can I learn from this? How can I grow? How can I be more mature? And sometimes you just… you just can’t. You just can’t rally.

So he comes into the kitchen and looks at me, and he says, “I just like you.”

Huh?

I’m like… the most miserable, annoying person, grumpy, everything, and he said, “I just like you.”?!

Suddenly the whole mood changed. I was like, “Really? Do you really like me? Are you sure?” And I started to see things from his perspective. And I went in for a hug because he became a really safe place to be when I was feeling really miserable. I asked for some reassurance about him being late, and he shared with me that his phone had died, and he’s got some work stuff going on, and I was able to be compassionate with him, and we had a really lovely kiss and snuggle, and I stopped angrily loading the dishwasher. 😉

So I tell you this story because of many things. One is just to illustrate what can happen in your marriage when you show up. I was the spark of change in my marriage, and my husband has not always been like this. For so many years, me being grumpy would have triggered him not feeling important, which would have made him make snide remarks, which would have triggered me, and well… you know the cycle, right?

But I became the spark of change (which I really think women are), and I just tried to work on myself. And he came along on the journey, and he’s done his own work. And now we catch each other. Sometimes I’m the one who can rise up to the challenge, and sometimes he can do it. But we’re just there, we’re working as a team, and… when your marriage is going well, everything goes well. So it’s absolutely worth the effort.

So, just putting it out there, I don’t want to make this like a sales pitch or anything, but if you are in a position where you want this in your marriage and your spouse is willing to come along for the journey with you, then I will be launching my signature program, “Marriage Mastery”, in a couple of months. And I don’t have any fancy sales page or anything like that, but if you’re interested, send me an email (janna@jannadentonhowes.com), because this is exactly how my marriage changed. Everything that I teach in “Marriage Mastery” is exactly how my marriage has become this safe, comfortable, happy, joyful, and realistic (last night wasn’t so peachy. There was some tension there, but this morning we resolved it nicely)…

So this story isn’t about being perfect. This isn’t about only showing the good stuff. This isn’t about being unrealistic. And this is definitely not about, “it just depends on who you marry. Because if you marry the right one, then you’re going to have a good marriage. If you don’t marry the right one, then you’re not going to have a good marriage”, NO. You co-create this. This is what transformation is about. It’s not just whether you have the right match or not. All couples are incompatible. We’re human beings. We’re incompatible with everybody, that’s how we grow.

So I hope you enjoyed that little story about my marriage. It’s exciting to see how far we’ve changed. We’re 18 years married now, and it’s just nice to pause and reflect sometimes.

I hope you guys are having a great day. I’ll talk to you later!