I Am Not Your Mother
Mary sat on the bed trying to calm the strong emotions that were at work in her. She and Joe had just had a big fight, because she had messed up again. She felt so condemned and useless. It seemed like she would never get things right in the house.
Joe had come from a home where his mother was a total perfectionist. Her house was always perfect and tidy. Nothing was ever out of place and Joe was used to living in a home where everything was spotless.
When they were first married, Mary gladly worked hard at keeping the place tidy to make him happy. It did not come naturally to her, because she had grown up in a home where the children were allowed to live normal lives. Mess was inevitable, and although the place was kept tidy, this was not the most important thing in the home.
Their marriage seemed to be happy and everything went well until Mary fell pregnant with Jimmy. The weariness of her pregnancy made it difficult for her to keep up with all the housework, and she found it difficult to keep things neat and tidy the way Joe liked it all the time.
Joe tried to understand that Mary was not able to keep up with all the housework, but he would often make little remarks that really hurt. He would say something like, “Oh how I long for a home that was like the one I grew up in. But I understand you cannot keep the place neat because you are weary with the pregnancy.”
Those remarks were like a slap in the face for Mary. He was saying in effect that she was too useless to keep the home neat. He was not going to fight about it, but he was telling Mary that she was not good enough. She was not as good has his mother.
Mary would just sit and suffer in silence, but she always felt a failure when Joe was home. She felt like she had to always try to measure up to the high standard that his mother had set. Sometimes she would end the day in total despair, simply because she had been too weary to get all the housework done.
Then came Jimmy’s birth, and things went from bad to worse. Now she not only could not cope with the normal housework, but she also had a child to take care of. And as Jimmy grew up and began to move around the house a new chaos was added to their lives.
It was not enough to just tidy up the place now. It became a life-consuming task. This was something that she had to do all day and every day. It was a joy when Jimmy finally fell asleep and was no longer demanding her attention. But that did not mean she could rest. She had to use this time to tidy up the mess that Jimmy had created, make sure that the house was in order, that the washing was done, and that Joe had clean socks and underwear. Then she had to get supper ready too.
Failure in any of these areas would cause a bad atmosphere in the home when Joe got home from work. He would not always say he was not happy. But it showed in his attitude. He was uncomfortable and abrupt when things were not the way he wanted them.
Mary remembered one occasion where she had spent some time tidying up the living room, and had also vacuumed the carpet. It had taken her a lot of effort to do this. But later that evening, as she was sitting in the bedroom, she heard the sound of the vacuum and went to see what was happening.
Sure enough, Joe was busy vacuuming the living room carpet. He was aggressively attacking the carpet as though it was really dirty. Mary stood watching him for a minute without saying anything. Then, when he saw her and stopped for a moment, she asked him:
“What are you doing?”
“I’m cleaning this carpet,” he said. “It has not been vacuumed in ages and I cannot stand the mess!
“I did it this morning,” Mary said.
Joe stopped for a moment dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. Then he excused his behavior by saying, “Well you obviously did not do it properly, because it is still a mess.” He continued to vacuum to prove his point.
Mary walked out of the room shaking her head. This husband of hers was impossible. It seemed that she just could not do anything that would make him happy. She really began to despair and life for her was not a happy experience any more. It seemed that each day was just a push to survive. She tried to do her best, and Joe continued to show his disapproval of her efforts.
Then tonight things had come to a head. She had not had a good day, and her nerves were on edge when Joe walked in with his usual attitude. She was like a stick of dynamite just waiting to be ignited, and Joe lit her fuse.
For a long time she had felt insecure and useless. She had always felt that she was a second rate wife. She had always tried to apologize for her failures. But tonight she had reached breaking point. The many years of hurt and anger that she had held inside her came shooting out in one big explosion.
She told Joe that she was sick of trying to compete with his mother. She told him that she was his wife and not his mother. She told him that she had had enough of trying to be something that she was not. She was sick and tired of his insults and sarcastic comments about the state of the house. She was sick of being married to him, and she really felt like taking Jimmy, packing her bags and moving out.
The look of shock on Joe’s face was a picture moment. He had never seen her like this before. And although he had been angry and attacking her in the usual way, he was suddenly silent. He stood there dumbfounded as she stomped out of the room to go and cry in the bedroom.
He had never ever considered what life would be like without Mary. He had always taken her for granted, and expected her to be there to take care of his needs. He figured that was what a woman was there for.
This is the image that his mother had firmly planted into him. She had always been there for him as he grew up. She always took care of his needs and created a nice neat home that he could enjoy. Whenever he had a need, his mother was there to meet it for him. She was also the best cook in the world. For a long time he could not see himself living without mother nearby.
Then he had made the mistake that many men make when they are married. He had thought that his wife was there to replace his mother. He expected her to take care of him in the same way that his mother had done.
For the first time now, he realized that he had made a big mistake. As he thought about it, some words that he had heard long ago began to rise up inside of him. He realized that it was a passage of Scripture that he had heard many times. It said:
“Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two together will become as one person. So then they are no longer two but one.”
Therefore a man shall leave his mother…. The words began to burn inside of him as he thought about them. What an idiot he had been. Ever since he had married Mary he had tried to make her into an image that was like his mother. He had never accepted her for what she was. He had not seen all her good qualities.
All he had seen in her were the things that were not like the image he had of a perfect woman. And now he saw where that image had come from. He had seen his mother as the perfect image and tried to change Mary. But Mary was not meant to replace his mother. She was to be his lover and helper. She was to be his right hand.
Walking into the bedroom where Mary lay weeping on the bed, Joe fell to his knees next to her. He had always been able to control his feelings, but now the tears were beginning to flow as he realized the pain he had caused this wonderful woman whom the Lord had given him.
“Mary, I have been a fool. I have not appreciated all the good things the Lord has given me in you. I have tried to change you into what I thought you should be, instead of just loving you the way you are. Please will you forgive me.”
Mary opened her eyes to see a sight she had never seen before in the years of their marriage. She saw a husband who truly loved her and appreciated her. She saw a man who had been caught in something that he did not understand.
As she saw him kneeling there with the tears streaming down his face, she felt a love welling up inside of her that she had not experienced since she first fell in love with this man who had walked into her life.
Putting her arms around him, she hugged him and said,
“Of course I forgive you. I understand what you have been going through. And I really want to be the best wife ever for you. I want you to be happy and enjoy being home with me. And I really do want to keep the house nice for you. Please forgive me for being bitter against you when you asked me to do this for you. I got angry and sometimes I just left the place in the mess on purpose, just because I was angry at you.”
With that Joe and Mary both broke down and wept in each others arms. It was a kind of cleansing experience that broke down all the barriers that had been between them for so long. It released a deep feeling of love that led very quickly to passion and desire to express to each other the love that they was burning inside of both of them.
Joe felt like he wanted to make love to Mary all night just to show her how much he really loved her. And Mary felt like she wanted to just return his love and lie in his arms all night in case this was all just a dream, and she would wake up to find it was not real.
That night both Joe and Mary came to a decision in their heart. It was something like this:
“I will love and appreciate my spouse because of who they are, not because of what they do.”
“I will never try to make my spouse into an image that I want, but allow them to be who they are.”
Joe was thinking: “I will always love Mary, even if the house is a mess and she does not get it all done right.”
Mary was thinking: “I want to really try and keep the place neat as a surprise to Joe to show him how much I love him.”
They were both thinking,
“Wow if the sex is always this good after a fight, maybe we should fight more often.”
