The (un)submissive move

I’ve talked before about being a submissive wife, my desire to understand that concept and implement it into my life.

As luck would have it, our move gave me the prime opportunity to put to practice all that I have learned. And to be completely honest, I would give myself a failing grade.

The move kind of started out as my project. Since Josh was tackling finals and his bar applications, most of the moving prep fell on me. Which I love. Packing, organizing, and purging are some of my favorite things. I love order and seeing progress.

However, when he finished his semester and was home with me, he began to dive into the process too. And our personalities really started to rub the wrong way 2 days before the move. We decided that we wanted to put everything that was packed in our room and that we would live in the family room. That way we could get a visual as to what needed to be done and could still somewhat function. Part of that plan was to not block furniture because we needed them to be in the back of the truck.

Well, my husband is a do-er and rather than plan it out and make room for the stuff we were going to bring into the bedroom, he just started doing. Which of course led to a very quick lack of space and need to re-organize. And because I was getting nervous about the move, my attitude quickly shifted from pleasant to annoyed. All I could think about was how annoying he had made the process and what I would have done better. (Not what you want in a submissive wife).

This kind of thinking (and even commenting) carried on for the 2 days prior to the move and on moving day itself. You see I color coded each box so that it could be unloaded into the room it belonged in, but instead every box was put in the center of the living room. Which completely defeats the purpose of the color coding.

By the time we got to our new home and were half-way unloaded, I was tired and getting cranky and the comments of how “I would have” done things were coming more and more frequently, and with way more attitude.

When the unloading of the truck was done, Josh and I drove to return the U-Haul, and I had the epiphany that I was failing at being submissive to the plan my husband had for our move. He had his own way of thinking about the move that was completely different from mine, not worse or better, just different. And instead of being a pain I should have just opened my mind to doing it his way instead of getting annoyed.

Talk about a bummer realization. The one trait I have been working on and I completely blew an opportunity to put it to practice. So I humbled myself, and apologized. I told Josh that I was sorry for being difficult rather than hearing him out and following his lead.

Despite my failure to be submissive to my husband’s plan for our move, I certainly learned. I know that I am a work in progress and that with continued practice, I will be the kind of wife God has called me to be.