As Close as You Want to Be

"We're just not that close."  or "She's just a hard person to be close to."  Have you ever heard some one use one or both of these phrases?  I've used them myself from time to time and I've found them to be slightly flawed in most cases. 

A lot of times what is true is we're as close as we want to be.  So many times we hold people at arms length and then we accuse them of being hard to get to know or hard to be close to.  I've found myself doing this as well.  I'll hold someone at arms length because I don't know how to be close to them or because they just annoy me.  Not very Christlike behavior is it?   I was pretty ashamed of myself when I took a good look at why I wasn't close to certain people and I've determined within my own heart to do better.  Yes, I am finding out that some people are really hard to be close to and they do really annoy me but it does get easier!

Now take all of the above information and apply it to your marriage.  You live with your husband day in and day out, you are completely aware of all his bad habits and annoying little quirks.  How do you react to the knowledge?  Do you hold him at arms length because he grates on your nerves or do you embrace your differences?  I have the best friend in the world who is also a follower of my blog I'll just call her Crystal. (Sorry Crystal, you know I have no imagination!)  Crystal is not perfect and she does not claim to be.  I know a lot of Crystals faults, but I don't dwell on them.  Crystal and I have never really had a heated argument some small disagreements but have never been angry at each other.  Why? Because we value our friendship! 

So many times marriages come to an end because we cannot just agree to disagree and move on!  Why is this so?  We give our friends chance after chance after chance, but when our husbands do something wrong we hold it over his head to be sure he's really sorry.  So many times we with hold our forgiveness because he doesn't deserve it, because "he hurt me".  So you learned a very important thing about your husband, HE'S HUMAN!  Just like your best friend is human!  Why is it so easy to forgive your best friend and completely forget about it but we feel the need to hold mistakes against our husbands for weeks, months or even years?

Proverbs 31:11 says "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her..."  This is something I have been convicted of so many times!  Can my husband trust me with his heart?  Do I let him know that I accept the fact that he's only human and love him in spite of his faults?  I found that the more I accepted my husband completely, the more he has become the man I have always wanted!   You see, I was only as close to him as I wanted to be!  It took me taking a good hard look at myself to realize that my marriage was what I was allowing it to be.  I wasn't letting myself be close to my husband!  I thought I was justified in my treatment of him because he didn't treat me the way I wanted him to treat me.  Oh how childish I was and oh how much time I wasted! 

Yes, your husband my act like a jerk and he may deserve to be treated the way you treat him, but ask yourself this one question.  "What if Jesus treated me as I deserve to be treated?  What if He held my wrongs against me?"  Asking myself this question has not only changed the way I look at my marriage but also how I look at other important relationships. 

In the book "Love and Respect" they refer to this as getting of the "crazy cycle".  I like it!  If we keep reacting out of hurt and giving our husband what he deserves, we're never going to have a good marriage and you can just forget about having a great one.  Someone has to start forgiving! Mine and Ben's marriage has been so much better since I quit wearing my feelings on my shirt sleeve just waiting for him to hurt them again.  There were so many times he was quite confused as to why I was mad at him!  We women do tend to let the little things hurt our feelings, especially during a certain time of the month!  Yes, we are all guilty of this no need to try and deny! (tongue in cheek)  We are confusing, hormonal creatures to our "waffle heads" as I like to call my hubby sometimes.  I took the reference from "Men Are Like Waffles - Women Are Like Spaghetti" by Bill & Pam Farrel.  I've never read the book but caught their interview on Focus on the Family the other day.  Great stuff!  Yes, our guys could probably do with some lessons in being a little more sensitive, as we could use a few pointers in being a whole lot less sensitive.


My challenge to all of us is this question:  "How close do you want to be to your husband?"  And please, for your marriage's sake, be completely honest with yourself when you answer!