Can't I Ask My Spouse For What I Need?

CAN'T I ASK MY SPOUSE FOR WHAT I NEED?

Yes, I can ask for what I would like to have from him, but he can choose whether to provide it, or whether he will make any attempt to try.  After that, it is entirely up to me what I choose to do with reality as it is.  

If a woman asks her man to stop drinking and he doesn't, she has to decide what she'll do, and she may decide she'd rather be with him drinking than not with him.  But, if she makes that decision, it's not fair to hold back and resent that he won't change or keep pestering him about it.  She made her request, he made his decision, she needs to make hers--is she in or out with the situation as it is right now--holding out for nothing.  

Once she decides to stay in, "in" means acceptance of all of it and choosing love, waiting for nothing—no caviats—otherwise she’s not really in at all in her heart, only in her body.  If there is any hope for him to stop drinking, the irony is it is more likely to happen in an environment where he feels completely loved and valued and sees how important he is to her.  

That kind of love from the wife often has the effect of growing his love too, so he wants to show her more love.  And even if it doesn't, with her effort alone, that love without exceptions is the only way a relationship can truly thrive--to love as God loves us.  

Now the wife can draw the line in the sand and say, “If he becomes violent when drinking, I will need to leave for my safety, but if that line is not crossed I will accept things as they are.  I can decide what my limits are, but if I'm in, I need to be all in, only that gives the relationship the best chance for being fulfilling to us both.”

We often say to ourselves in marriage--"If I'm not there to remind them they have a mote in their eye, what if they think it is okay to have that mote?"  But that's not our job, even and especially with our spouses—they are our companion, not our child.  Our job is simply to extricate our own beams, which too often represent our resistance to unconditional love.  When we remove that beam, we can see clearly to love them fully, mote and all, and then a miracle follows: either we finally see them for all they are aside from just a mote, and we get to love and enjoy the beauty that is that human being, or sometimes we even find that the removal of our own beam was one the thing that stood in the way of them removing their own mote.