no, IM more stressed.

When my stress level rises my coping mechanisms come out and my defense shields go up. I think that’s true of most of us. But a funny thing happens when I am coping, defending, surviving – it becomes all about me.My burden. My worries. My what-ifs.These stressors, though, (the house project of the decade, money, a baby whose due date approacheth, time, decisions to be made, change. Lots and lots of change) are not solely mine. They are also DanO’s, and in a very real way, they are his more than mine. So I’m over here all woe is me, I have so much to deal with (which isn’t untrue!) and he’s over there dealing with the same things as me (perhaps minus the 36.5wk pregnant thing) plus the burden of a stressed wife.Ah, my selfishness.I’m stressed and thinking about myself. He’s stressed and worrying about me along with his stress. Stress, worry, defenses, fear, unknown…::kaboom::Hello, last night at 11:00. I should have seen you coming.We got right down to it, DanO and I. There was so much we both needed to say, and we said it, mostly in the right tone of voice (ok after the initial verbal scuffle). UGH. Hard stuff.Don’t you hate that? When you want to just buckle down under your defense shields and then you realize that those very shields are hurting someone you love? As in, if I’m constantly talking about how hard my life is, the protector and provider of this family is going to feel a constant blow. Coming to that realization last night felt like a band-aid being hastily ripped off of my selfishness. It hurt.The time when we need to be most gentle with our spouses is the time when we would naturally be the most prickly.Our pastor who married us (4 years ago next month!) said something during our wedding ceremony that has stuck with me (and hit me over the head several times):Marriage is the only crucible hot enough to bring out all of your impurities.Just like with metal, the more intense things get, the more pressure we’re under, the more stress and heat that is applied to us, the more our impurities – our selfish tendencies, our pride, our insecurity – will rise to the surface. It can get ugly up in here.But it’s good. It’s ultimately good to lay my head down on my pillow at midnight and know that we just called some of those impurities by name, DanO and I. We acknowledged them and while we didn’t wake up this morning perfect people, we woke up more aware of how to love the other.We woke up with a plan of attack instead of defense shields. And maybe just a little bit less stressed.