Hormonal Quicksand

Help me!  Please, help! I’m being sucked into the muck and mire of hormonal quicksand!

It comes out of nowhere. I’ll be going through my day and phlumpppplplplpl. I’m stuck.  Just like that.  What was a beautiful sunshiney day has become a, life and death battle, to keep my head above the earth. The hormonal quicksand threatening to devour me whole!

You married men, and fathers of daughters, know whereof I speak.

In fact, any man who ever had a glint of interest in his eye, for the wonder of creation that is woman, knows whereof I speak!

So if you have any strategy that can help me, to avoid the traps that litter our pathways in life, please help me!  Save me, for I am farsighted and can’t see the traps directly in front of me.

By now I should be much better at this. It’s not like I haven’t been married and living with these two for over a decade, but I’m a man, for crying out loud!  Thick is as thick does!

My brain doesn’t work their way.  My mouth doesn’t know when to hold itself, and my proclivity to want to fix the situation and be practical can’t be tamed.

I fly directly through the Jersey Barriers my wife and daughter claim they have set up, to steer me clear of these pits I keep finding myself in.  I’m blind to the nuance of women!

So any help out there, would be appreciated!

That’s exactly how I feel sometimes(often).  I love my girls with everything I have, but I sure don’t get it right, showing them, near enough.  Especially the way they need!

I’m a bull in a China shop, breaking the precious China as I amble through, undeterred by the beauty that can be damaged around me.

So truly, what can be done!  Does a bull walk more carefully through the shop because he busted China before?  Is he doomed, a hopeless creature, stupidly continuing to trample the precious inventory and destroying it?

The answer.  Well being a testosterone headed man and I have read and re-read this specific verse in just about every Bible translation (even Bulgarian) out there.   I’ve decided to go with this version, one that I can understand   from The International Children’s Bible:

^“7 In the same way, you husbands should live with your wives in an understanding way. You should show respect to them. They are weaker than you. But God gives them the same blessing that he gives you—the grace that gives true life. Do this so that nothing will stop your prayers.” ~1 Peter 3:7, International Children’s Bible (ICB

My bullish behavior is anything but understanding, respectful or graceful. When I act like that, I do not help my wife experience the true life God desires her to have.  I actually counteract that in her life, and force the death of my sin on her.

Each time I’m bullish, I kill a little bit of the joy, her life in Christ has been filled with.  I know I’ve killed a bit of my wife’s joy in our marriage.  Because the man I’ve been, at times, has disappointed her.  That shames me as a man.   She is mine to care for, and I have left my job undone all too often.

My reaction to my daughter isn’t much better.  I wish I could say otherwise, but it isn’t.

I’m abrupt, and condescending and sarcastic.   I expect immediate response (my wife says it’s the cop in me).  I don’t listen.  I’m impatient.   Yet, this is my sweet little girl that I supposedly love?  So where is it?  Where is the love in all that bullish behavior?

I’m sure she doesn’t see love when I’m like that.   I’m killing my own example for her, the Godly one that I want her to learn from.  The example of what a husband should be to her.   The safe haven she can trust, and run to in times of trouble!  I take that away from her when I’m thrashing about in the quicksand of dealing with my lovely ladies!

SO what am I, what are you to do, if you find yourself in the same quicksand as I.

Interestingly enough, when I began writing this, I found this How to Article on Quicksand.   After reading the techniques for escaping real quicksand I found that real and hormonal quicksand  can be escaped in the same ways.

(http://www.wikihow.com/Get-out-of-Quicksand)

So Husbands, Dads, Here goes:

How To Escape Hormonal Quicksand!

1.

Drop everything. Our bodies are less dense than quicksand and our minds are less dense than hormonal quicksand so drop everything.

Let’s face it guys thinking of more than one thing at a time,  NOT GOOD!

If you step into hormonal quicksand and you’re dealing or carrying something else,   you need to set it aside so that you can focus on the quicksand at hand. Do it immediately, don’t struggle to free yourself from it and don’t panic, the quicksand can’t suck you down if you relax and focus on it.

2.

Move horizontally. Continuing forward only gets you further entrenched in the sand.   When you first feel the suction take a few quick steps back, to perhaps avoid getting sucked down in the first place. That way you can process it from the start again, ask your lovely lady to repeat the issue she needs you to focus on from the start.  Whatever you do don’t take big lumbering steps forward, ignoring the problem our marching off to fix it.  It may seem freeing but the other leg will just get sucked deeper and you’re gonna be in a lot more trouble, it’ll be extremely difficult to completely unstick yourself!  The hormonal quicksand doesn’t need fixed, it needs time and attention.

3.

Lay back. Sit down and lean back, relax when you are in the quicksand of her life.  Be present in her need. Listen, allow her to envelope you with her struggles.  This allows her to unload her problems and for you to fully grasp her need.  This takes the pressure you feel regarding her unknown circumstances and feelings off you, by giving you the information she wants you to have.  It allows her to depressurize (basically unsuck), which in turn allows you to free yourself from the suction and actually float to the surface of understanding.

as wikiHow says:

When you feel them(your feet) start to come free, roll to your side away from the quicksand and free of its grip. You’ll get dirty, but it’s the quickest and safest way to free yourself.^[1]

Roll with it.  Often it’s in the listening that the work is done, not in the doing.  Men get sucked under all too often by trying to do instead of just being.  You will feel dirty men, but that is what is required.  Don’t fix, float!

And finally,  Take Your Time.  She needs your time.  Period.  Be slow and thoughtful.

Again as in real quicksand so it is with the hormonal quicksand:

Take your time. If you’re stuck in quicksand, frantic movements will only hurt your cause. Whatever you do, do it slowly. Slow movements will prevent you from agitating the quicksand; vibrations caused by rapid movements can turn otherwise relatively firm ground into more quicksand.

• More importantly, quicksand can react unpredictably to your movements. If you move slowly, you can more easily stop an adverse reaction and, by doing so, avoid getting yourself stuck deeper. You’re going to need to be patient. Depending on how much quicksand is around you, it could take several minutes or even hours to slowly, methodically get yourself out.

I like the statement that if you free yourself from the quicksand you will be on ‘relatively firm ground’.  Don’t forget that.  The firm ground is not a guarantee, like ever!

In case you desire to avoid hormonal quicksand all together.  Which I highly doubt is possible.  wikiHow offered these tips to Avoiding Quicksand.  While avoidance is unlikely, being prepared and knowing what to expect,may make us better at dealing with it when we step in it.  A very uncomfortable feeling indeed!

1. Recognize common quicksand areas. You know your girls, learn to recognize where and when quicksand is likely in their lives, so you can actually be helpful in a graceful way.

2. Look for ripples.  Don’t be taken by surprise.  There are signs to be seen by our lovely hormonal creatures.  Pay attention and address them, so you don’t get stuck in it, be a present and caring proactive support.

3. Test the ground in front of you with your walking stick.  Be prepared, don’t go through life oblivious to the women that you are entrusted with.

There is truly a chasm between ‘man think’ and ‘woman think’.  We all know it.  I now this is a problem we all face and fail, to our detriment, but more importantly to our wonderful women’s detriment.

I certainly never thought I’d learn how to be a better husband and father by learning how to escape quicksand, but there you go!

Men we need to love our wives.  Loving them means understanding them, as Christ understands them.  How many of us can say we actually do?  Yep thought so.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Christ died for the church²⁶ to make it belong to God. Christ used the word to make the church clean by washing it with water. ²⁷ Christ died so that he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty. He died so that the church could be pure and without fault, with no evil or sin or any other wrong thing in it. ²⁸ And husbands should love their wives in the same way. They should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself.  ~Ephesians 5:25-28 International Children’s Bible

Christ died that his church would be pure, with no ‘other wrong thing in it‘, yet we as husbands/fathers often can’t take the time to help our women release the struggles they face.  We, as the men in their lives, will face it regardless, either sinking deeper, or rising above the quicksand in our relationships.   Our marriages, and our wive’s and daughter’s fulfillment, will be all the better, if we choose to rise above the quicksand in our relationships.

Being like Christ to our women means rising above it and helping them to live the true life God intends!

Ponder this as you step onto the first squishiness of quicksand:  Is my response going to free me and my wife from this struggle or will we both go down fighting?