Changing it up

Confession: I stopped doing things that left me feeling like a martyr and nothing fell apart.

Things actually got better for me. 

Sundays are usually the most logistically challenging and routine interfering out of all of the days of the week. It shifts nap time for Eden, meal times for the family, and how everyone gets ready at the beginning and end of the day. 

I’ll describe the day from my perspective: A normal Sunday looks like Bryan getting up between 4:30-5am to read his bible, have coffee, and work out. Then around 8am he makes himself oatmeal and gets ready for church and expects everyone else will be ready to go by 9am. He takes care of the things he needs to do for himself.

The morning are different for me. I usually get up around 7am with Eden clinging to me and asking to watch tv. I tell her “no tv” while I make myself some coffee and take note of the two dogs who are still in their crate. If the older kids aren’t awake yet I wake them up and ask them to take the dogs outside. I’ll sit to drink my tea or coffee and about one minute into that, all of the kids are sitting on the couch with me along with the two dogs. When I have finished drinking my coffee, I’ll head to the kitchen to make breakfast for the kids and ask them to walk the dogs outside and get the dogs breakfast. I deal with the complaints of the kids being too tired to do these tasks.

By 8:30 I hear Bryan in the shower and I’m helping Eden get dressed and styling hair for all 3 kids. Once the kids have eaten and brushed their teeth and are ready for church, I have about 12 minutes max to get myself ready. I always feel rushed and resentful that Bryan enjoys 4.5 hours to himself each Sunday morning while I get 12 minutes to brush my teeth, choose an outfit, and style my hair. (For anyone who tries to offer the helpful advice that I should just wake up up earlier, here’s why that won’t work: in the middle of the night Eden crawls into my bed. Does she wake during my alarms? Never. Does she wake when Bryan gets out of bed? Nope. But if I sneak out of bed at 5:30am and place my hand on the door handle, she bolts awake. She can hear that non existent sound. So I don’t get out of bed earlier than 6:30 or 7 since she’ll be a train wreck if she wakes earlier than that).

The evening routine gets tricky because we leave the house at 4:40pm to attend our small group fellowship. It ends at 6:30 which means we wrap it up around 6:45 and then end up talking until around 7pm or later. This puts us home around 7:15-7:30. I have two choices for dinner: 1. Have it prepped before we leave at 4:40pm so it is ready to eat when we get home or 2. Make it after we get home. Both options involve a lot of work because Bryan doesn’t make the dinner—I do. Since he likes to be in bed at 8:30pm, dinnertime is especially stressful for me on Sundays because everything feels rushed to get dinner made, eaten, cleaned up, kids ready for bed, etc. all in one hour. I say 1 hour because I don’t have Bryan’s help after 8:30 if he has put himself to bed. If me and the kids are still awake after 8:30 then I’m doing the work solo. So I try to squish it all into that hour so I have a partner. 

You can see why Sundays have not been my favorite day. I found myself bitter toward Bryan on Sundays because from where I was standing, he really only took on responsibility for himself and no one else. It didn’t really matter if it was true or not, I just knew I didn’t want to play the martyr anymore. I didn’t want to be bitter and view Bryan as selfish. So I made a decision last week. On Sunday, I’d finish my coffee then focus on getting myself ready for church before I offered assistance to anyone else. If Bryan could do it, so could I. Bryan could do what he wanted but I was leaving at 9am to go to church with whoever else was ready. They could figure it out. I also decided there was a 3rd option for dinner—going to Whole Foods after small group and each of us choosing our own dinner from the hot bar and salad bar. No mess in my kitchen, no complaints about the food on the plates, and we’d all come home with dinner no longer being an item on the agenda. We could just move on to showers and bed time routines. 

The results really surprised me.

Yesterday morning I got myself ready for church but not as I normally do. I didn’t rush myself. I took a shower. I just focused on taking care of myself and did not allow any guilt to enter my mind as I thought more carefully about a comfortable outfit and took time to style my hair in a way I was happy with. I took longer than 12 minutes. I felt good about myself and headed downstairs. I don’t know what time it was but I knew I was ready for church. Guess what? No one else was. Not a single person. So I made breakfast for myself which I ended up giving to my son since no one had made him breakfast. Then I made another breakfast which I gave to my oldest daughter because no one had made her breakfast. Then I made myself an English muffin which I ate after getting my youngest dressed and styled her hair. It annoyed me that I was doing all of these tasks because these are all things I would do while Bryan spent time getting himself ready (translated: what the heck was he doing with/for the kids/family while I was getting myself ready?). (Ok, fine. He fed Eden some oatmeal and left the bowl of mush on the table). (Thank you, Bryan). I got in the car just before 9am and waited for the others. We made it to church on time. The biggest change was simply that I had given myself permission to have the time that I needed to get myself presentable and feeling good about myself. I gave myself more than 12 minutes. I gave myself time before everyone else. I wasn’t last. I wasn’t a martyr. I still did all the same things but in a different order. 

Fast forward to small group. We finish and head over to Whole Foods. The cost for the hot bar and salad bar for my family of 5 was $45. Exactly what I expected and rather reasonable compared to a traditional dining out experience for a group our size. The price didn’t bother me at all. I knew I’d go home to a clean kitchen and I wouldn’t have to start working the minute I took my shoes off at the door. I was enjoying the taste of my food and not stressed about anything food related. But guess who was stressed? Bryan. He did not like paying that $45. He really didn’t like it. In fact it bothered him so much that he said he’d come up with a plan for how he was going to make dinner for the family the following Sunday. He said he’d pitch a plan to me Saturday to make sure I was ok with whatever his plan was. Maybe it’ll be grilled cheese. Maybe cereal. Maybe the dreaded meatball subs. Who knows. Not me. And that’s ok because I’m not going to have to think about it or stress about it or plan for any of it or prep it or make it or clean it up. He’s going to. 

Here’s what’s fascinating: If I had complained to Bryan that he isn’t helping enough in the mornings and told him he was being selfish with his time or that he never helps with dinner and needed to start pitching in, he would have gotten defensive and our marriage would have suffered. We would both see the other person as the enemy. I would be trying to change him. But I can’t change him. I can’t change anyone. I can only make changes for myself. So that is what I did. I chose to get myself ready first. I chose to give myself a third option for dinner if dinner responsibilities were being delegated to me. The only things I changed were my own actions. I didn’t try to change anyone else at all. I wasn’t being selfish with my changes either. I simply asked myself what I would need to not get stressed out since I believed that me showing up with peace toward my family (instead of animosity) was a decision made out of love and kindness. 

It’s ok to change things up. In fact, if you’re drowning in decision fatigue or under the weight of tasks that others are capable of doing, then it’s probably best to set some limits for yourself. If I’m enabling the things that I’m drowning under then maybe I’m the actual problem. We can’t do it all, all of the time. We have to choose. And I choose good choices. I choose choices that keep me regulated and kind toward the people I care about most. 

I choose not to be a martyr.