Author Sherri Mills

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Appreciation Card

Are you having problems in your marriage?

Get a 3 by 5 card and list all of your husbands good qualities. Keep it in a recipe file or anywhere you can easily get at it when he is being a major jerk.

List everything, no matter how trivial.

Is he hard working?
Does he make you laugh?
Does he love your children?
Does he keep himself clean?
Is he always on time?

Put your thinking cap on and come up with everything you remotely like about him.

The card I had written for my husband had 22 specific attributes. Reading them made me realize he was a definite keeper, no matter how enraged I became.

Communicate

If we never communicate with our husbands effectively about the situation of householder overwork, we are sure to repeat it in subsequent marriages.

When we don't know how to fix the problem, it will surely follow us into the next relationship.

Doesn't it make more sense to keep the relationship we have and fix the problem now.

I assure you, it is fixable.

Getting Co-operation on the Domestic Front

So we have a problem because our husbands are not getting involved on the domestic front.

We have already discovered that nagging, sulking, feeling sorry for ourselves, or being angry don't work. Sadly, these actions are also very toxic to our self esteem.

Why don't we try; first to begin to love and appreciate him for all the things he does that we normally take for granted. Things like; always keeping the vehicles running smooth, bringing home the biggest share of the household income, taking care of household malfunctions, taking care of the yard, to name a few.

The next thing we can do is to love ourselves enough to know beyand a doubt that we deserve being a partner instead of a slave.

Perhaps then, we can be rational in our endeavor. We can go ahead with a plan to get co-operation, in a loving but resolute way.

In my research I have discovered that without this loving aproach, the results can only be TEMPORARY.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Thought for the day

Sey Chassler
Parade magazine

Helping is useful, but it is not the same as doing, it leaves the basic responsibility to someone else.

We can choose our destiny

We can spend our time having one person be responsible for everything in the home. The result being; resentment , and so much anger that this person is exhausted and empty of everything else. No time for children, or any kind of personal or sexual relationship with her mate.


OR


Share everything;--------Chores-----Love for each other----Time with the children----and most important of all, time to have a personal and sexual relationship with each other. Free from resentment, anger and hopelessness.

It should be so simple. Let us make it so.

Stamp out marital guess work

When two men become room-mates, they decide going in who will be responsible for what.

When two women become room-mates the same thing happens.

Guess what happens when a husband and wife become room-mates? The home is automatically the wife's responsibility. It continues to be her responsibility as the family grows and the job gets more difficult.

A (good) husband will help, if he doesn't have a golf game planned, a buddy who wants to go fishing, extra work he brought home from the office, or if he is just too tired.

The bottom line is, the wife can't get too tired. She does everything, or feels guilty or inadiquate if it doesn't get done, often causing so much resentment that divorce becomes the answer.

Think before you leap. Decide before you say "I do," who is going to be responsible for what, on an on going basis. Sit down and work it out before the ceramony.

When two people are working, the only way to have a continual loving relationship is to make sure you both have the free time for togetherness.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Saying of the day

A quote by author Sey Chassler

I can't believe that of the only two kinds of human beings put on the planet, only one has been assigned two jobs.

Thought for the day

A mother feels responsible for so much----because the people around her feel responsible for so little.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Mother's Lament

This little limeric is a stark reminder of what mother's of small children go through on a regular basis. The Poem is called A MOTHER'S LAMENT

The perils of being a mother, are equal to not any other.
For granted she's taken, and often mistaken, for a robot. She'll do it, why bother.

I'll give you a vague estimation, of what one day is like at her station.
The deeds of great fame aren't always the same, but she is sure to get all of her ration.

A mom has a time clock she punches. Breakfast dishes done, oops, time for lunches.
From 8 to 12, hey, all her time's slipped awaqy. Now she's got to find out what that crunch is.

That's probably why nothing gets done; her off-springs keep her on the run.
She starts with the dishes, then every child's wishes,
comes out in the voice of just one.

As mom is changing the baby, the other kids their thinking, "maybe,
She'll be busy a while."
To each other they smile.
Then she hears one kid holler, "DON'T SPRAY ME."

It takes her a while to turn loose, the one who's been knick-named caboose.
As she gets on the scene, one is dripping but clean.
And the other one has an excuse.

All mothers know the excuses, it's the same one that every child uses.
He changes the name, but the stories' the same,
And the other kid that he accuses.

After a few more stansas riddled with calamities, the poem continues.

Her duties are started again. With the hope that she gets at least ten
Minutes to get things done,
and there's not even one.
It's lunch time now, ol mother hen.

She hopes as she smiles forcibly, after getting son out of yon tree.
They will eat with no fuss, and a little less muss,
than the normal day turns out to be.

The lunch turns up half on the floor, and they turned up their noses like before.
As usual , she fixed it---and as usual they nixed it,
and then in an hour they want more.

After supper she wails to her spouse, "I'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE.
I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT I'M LOSING MY MIND,
AND YES! THIS IS BLOOD ON MY BLOUSE!"

Then hubby starts pulling his rank, and say's, "Dear, I'll be truly frank.
When the children don't mind,
I"m sure you will find,
That it might be because you're a crank.

Now---as for you losing your mind. That's silly, sit down and unwind.
It's not quite as bad
as it seems, just be glad,
you don't have to put up with my grind.

If you did would you ever get tough.
So you think that you've got it rough,
staying home all day, with the kids. BY THE WAY, COULD YOU PLEASE KEEP THEM OUT OF MY STUFF?

HEY KEEP THAT KID QUIET IN THERE, AND KEEP THIS ONE OUT OF MY HAIR.
THEY NEED A GOOD WHACKEN. YOUR DISCIPLINE IS LACKIN,
I THINK I'LL GO GET ME SOME AIR."

As the door shuts in tired mama's face, she continues to keep up her pace.
Her man's work is through, she still has her's to do,
and still hasn't got to first base.

She's tugged at by one or the other. And it's a drink for the other ones brother.
"Ah"---she sighs with delight,
"It soon will be night."
And so---ends the day of----------A MOTHER.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

He Didn't Sign Up For This

I'm back from vacation.

I saw Steve Harvey on a TV show the other day. He was talking about how couples get along in this terrible econamy.

One couple had to reverse rolls because the husband had lost his job. He was complaining because he felt his manhood was deminished.

She was complaining because, not only was she the bread winner but her husband wouldn't do anything in the house.

Steve Harvey said, "That's because he didn't sign up to get the house done."

Then he said, "He signed up to support his family."

Isn't it funny that we are in such a polerized mind set that we don't know what to do when roles are reversed.

You can't blame the husband. He has just lost his identity. However, what's a wife to do when she has to support the family and then come home and clean the house?

In my book I explain how important it is for husbands to have lifetime responsibilities in a household. Responsibilites that are his very own so he knows precicely what to do. No nagging. No wondering why his wife is angry. No guessing what his wife wants him to help with.

If this husband was in the habit of having at the very least a few lifetime responsibilities the transformation from breadwinner to householder might not have been so tramatic.