Anyone Seen Any Personal Responsibility Lately? Cause I Can't Find Any...

"Marriage sucks!" "That girl/guy really didn't get me." "Our sex life was really unsatisfying, so I was practically pushed into that other girl/guy's arms..""God doesn't care and isn't real anyway."
WhatEVER.

The last few days, I've been bombarded by a few things and hence this blog. One, I realize that age knows no bounds regarding childlike behaviour, and sometimes this really gets under my skin a bit. Also, the sheer number of married men who think nothing of trying to start a "friendship" with a single woman online. And then, I read a lot of different blogs. After a while, themes become evident. This speaks to some of those things.

First of all, I'm not angry or bitter, and I haven't just recently been jilted. I may sound all of the above, but I'm really not. What I AM, however, is confused. I just don't get it. Life really isn't rocket science. It's just not. There are good times, bad times, mistakes we make and many many chances to try again to get it right. There are words like loyalty and humility and there is concern for someone other than yourself. These sometimes seem lacking. I'm NOT saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying that I've never not returned a few emails in a timely fashion, called right back each and every time or instantly responded to a text. I've no beef with "man" or "the man" or even any other woman.

I do try to not sweat the small stuff. Not even saying I always succeed, but I try. I don't wig out if someone doesn't get right back with me, if they're a little late or whatever. It's called GRACE. It's yours from me, until you've proven you don't deserve it. It's called LIFE; and you know, sometimes it happens.

HERE are the things I don't get. Why does marriage get reduced to "a piece of paper" you don't really need, because YOU had a bad one? Why is it that marriage as an "institution" is bad overall, because you come from a broken home or because yours was so awful it left a bad taste in your mouth? I'm divorced. It was ugly. Dating again or the thought of it, made me nauseous at first. Marriage again, is something that right now isn't something I'm gunning for, but I'm not opposed to it again sometime in the future. I understand that it has painful memories attached to it. I understand it might have been full or horrors beyond even what I will have ever experienced. But why can't that be about what happened to the two of YOU? Why is marriage itself at fault? Why can't it be about your own personal inability to overcome whatever it was. Can you not accept blame at all? Can you not understand that as humans, we are flawed. Mistakes happen. I may have chosen the coconut macadamia nut cookie..and it might not have been all it was cracked up to be...but does that make all cookies horrible and I never want another one again?? Please don't send me mail on how marriage is not at all like a cookie. Good grief. Not good at great analogies here, but you GET the point. It AIN'T about the cookie. If you cannot see your own fault in the failure of your marriage, you will not learn and you will take what was wrong with the first one INTO the second one..or at the very least into the next relationship you have. See and learn. Don't blame the institution.

Then, there is the "that guy/girl just didnt' get me". Oh goodness. Try talking. Try being honest to a fault. Not mean. Not brutal per se, but be yourself. Not the self you show in the beginning..the chameleon that reads people quickly so that you can be whatever they want you to be in the beginning...to get to date two, three etc. Be YOURSELF from day one. You might discover earlier whether the two of you are a good match or not. And if you're not, that's NOT failure. If they didn't like you "that way" it doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with you. It just means, it wasnt' the right one. That's okay. BELIEVE me, it's easier to find that out in the first two weeks to two months of a relationship, than to discover it after you've been dating a year or two, or god forbid, got married and had a couple of kids together. When you're open about who you are, and even if something doesn't work out, it is known as successful dating. It ofen leads to successful marriage..

Now, as a side note, if you see a pattern in WHY you're not connecting with people over and over again...okay, THEN you need to look a little deeper and maybe work a bit on yourself. But either way. Learn from it. It's okay. Learn.

"Our sex life was SO unsatisfying I was practically pushed into that other person's arms". Good grief. Again, did you TALK? Did you experiment? Were you open about your needs and open about trying to meet theirs? Do you EVEN KNOW what their's were? Did you try counseling? Were you OPEN in counseling. Honest. You've gotta be, or they can't help you. Have a bad experience with a counselor? Try another one. Sometimes it takes looking at more than one to find a good fit. Counselors, that is. Did you do everything you could to work on the two of you...relationship wise? Or did you just give up and say "I don't want this anymore" or "This other person understands me so much better"...Lying to yourself. Lazy. You weren't pushed into anything. You went. You chose.

Coming again from one who knows, affairs are never the right choice or the best choice. "But my affair made my marriage better". Yeah, that's what I want in my husband. Go get intimate with some other woman, and then come back to me..bring all the people that she's slept with, with her...and let them all just come and join the party in our marital bed. I'm Better now. How does lying, distrust, selfishness, conceit (it is conceit when you think that you know better) and a total disregard for marital vows make something BETTER? I don't get it. Affairs are selfish vacations. They are not real life. You think your life with your lover is going to be so much better, wait till you try it..try real life together. Yeah. All that passion will take you through the first few months maybe. Maybe even a year or two. But they've already proven they don't have staying power. Yeah. But I'm sure with YOU it'll be different. Yeah. Go look up insanity. You've just lived the definition. I don't get it.

Then, there are all these God haters. All these folks who hate God because of bad things that have either happened to them, in the world, or to someone they know. Well, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your beliefs. I am not necessarily talking about that here. I am talking about the "logic" that because bad things happen, that equals NO God. Or Angry Mean, Doesn't Care About Us, God.

I understant dissillusionment. I've been there. I AM there some days. I went through a horrible time with a church and group of people I loved and trusted with all my heart. It fell apart. People turned on each other. Friends ceased being friends and enemies weren't that easy to spot anymore because they used to look like friends. It's not a new or unique story. "That's why I don't believe in organized religion". Yeah. That's just your excuse not to join. Not to have to change or to have convictions. That's because you want to do what you want to do without accountability. I get that. I've been THERE too. Churches aren't bad just because it doesn't line up with where you want to be in life or how you want to live.

Churches are made of people. The church IS the people. There WILL be sin. There WILL be mistakes. It doesn' mean that GOD is any less because of our own humanity; our own mistakes. God didn't make that person beat you, abuse you, or massacer all those people in Africa, Germany...wherever. They were bad people. They exist because we have free will. It was their CHOICE to be that way. It doesn't make God any less because they existed.

We need churches..groups of people, like minded. If we understand and see the research on weight loss for instance, we see that people do better if they are part of a group vs going it alone. Hmmm. So, why isn't that true in our walk with God? In our faith walk? You are far more likely to be successful if you have a support group/structure, than if you don't. Look at something as simple as AA. So "I just practice it my own way, or do my own thing"...won't really work. Even research shows that aside from any biblical teaching. That's just science. How many times has your "resolution" to change or be a better person, make better choices, not come about? Try letting others in there to help you, and you'll prob be able to MAKE those changes.

So there you have it. My latest "I don't get it" rant. Life doesn't have to be filled with drama or even hard. Tough things happen and that means that there is a lot of work to be done. But what will your attitude be? Life isn't easy, but our choices that we make along the way can be a lot easier if you just think a little, look at yourself with greater clarity, and consider others before yourself. That's all I'm saying. Take some personal responsibility. Please.