Have we, as mothers, lost the art of humility?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I’ll be honest with you, it’s coming up because I noticed a reaction my husband made to a comment of mine.

I realized that something I had been saying a lot, was affecting him and I had no idea. And now, weeks later, he was over it and starting to show it. I kind of felt, and still feel, like a jerk for not noticing that this was something that bothered him and that even before I said it, I didn’t think it might be something he would be hurt by.

As I have been ruminating on this, I have realized that the root of the things I say to my husband are from a place of feeling “right”. I find myself in this place so very often and almost internally having a competition about it.

If he is stressed about work, I feel the urge to say, “I’m stressed at home, too!”

If he is tired, I want to raise my hand and say, “Me, too!”

And not in the good way of I am right there with you and I love you. I want you to know you’re not alone. Instead it’s in the way of dude don’t complain to me, look how much I do. I win at being tired and being stressed.

The disgusting thing is that sometimes I knew I was doing this, and I still pushed forward in what I was going to say. Because, I didn’t care. Which is truly something in itself.

Now as I am sitting here thinking on this day after day, I realize the pile of self-righteousness I have made. Instead of making a marriage where I say, “Come to me and tell me your burdens because I want to listen,” I made a home of, “Don’t talk to me about it because I don’t have time for you.”

I found myself in a pit of shame with my actions, came before God asking for forgiveness for the wrongs I have made in my marriage. Then I humbly came before my husband, telling him what I found I was doing wrong and how I will try to do better.

I don’t think I am alone in this. In fact, I know I’m not because I fear it’s the community among moms we have created. We talk to each other about our stress, our lack of alone time, our lack of life outside the home, the lack of rest we are getting, and we totally give each other anthems of support.

Words like, “You deserve a break.” “You work so hard.” “Girl, take some time for you.” “I know, I feel your pain, I am there, too.”

These are great anthems and honestly keep me going when times are tough, but are we ever talking about our husbands in ways other than having them step in to lend a hand?

We talk about how grand the things we do are and how sacrificial our love is for our families, that I found myself living this way, preaching affirmations of “I, I, I.”

While those affirmations may be true, they are missing the other half of my family, what about him? Instead of saying, “I deserve this,” how do we change and say, “I support you,” in the way of our husbands?

How do we find a space to say, “This place in our lives is what we make of it, and I want us both to feel supported.”

At the end of the day, isn’t that the truth? We all deserve balance. We all deserve to be heard. We all deserve time to ourselves. We all deserve time to be adults without the weight of the world on our shoulders.

I think we start with humbling ourselves and setting the intention of supporting our husbands who may equally need love and support as much as we do.