Why haven’t you heard from me in a while? There are a number of reasons I haven’t posted in the last four months.
1) My Words of Affirmation (WoA) wife found out. Actually, I told her. I started this blog because when I realized I needed to speak words of affirmation to my wife, there were no resources for me to access to figure out how to do that. Frankly, I’m not good at it and needed help. I figured as I accumulated resources and experiences, I’d collect them here to help others seeking the same thing. After telling my wife about this journey, it kind of let the wind out of my sails. I guess in some ways it’s embarrassing for me that I suck at this and hang it out there for all to see. I’m still trying (and still need to try harder) to speak my wife’s love language, but posting real-time about my journey lost its luster. I still need this blog to hold me accountable to myself for keeping at it (even when it’s hard) so expect me to get back on that horse soon.
2) The pipeline has been clogged. I have a long queue of writing topics to cover, articles to weigh in on, and books to review with no particular priority or order. It’s honestly a bit overwhelming. It feels like I have writer’s block even though there are so many ideas in my head that have yet to make it to blog posts. Sometimes it’s best to just dig in and start making progress (which is what I intend to do).
3) I found a great new resource I’ve been trying out which involves a 100 day challenge. I’m working on it with hit and miss consistency which doesn’t make for amazing blogging. Expect a full review on it eventually and maybe a Gottman-like day-by-day evaluation but again, with my WoA spouse looking over my shoulder it doesn’t feel quite right that I’m reading directly from a playbook every day.
4) I’m burned out. Honestly, I’ve been at this a year now. I’ve achieved some measure of success toward my goals but launching wordsofaffirmation.info from the free personal blog it once was took a lot of work and I’m burned out. It’s hard enough to speak a language that you are trying to learn on the fly but to then try to bring you all along on the journey has been exhausting. It’s not that I don’t want to bring you along, it’s that I need to do it at a sustainable pace.
5) I’m in a rut. As I mentioned, I’ve had some successes. I feel my marriage is better than it was a year ago when I started this effort but I’m stuck in a rut of doing the same old things.
6) I suffer from resentment. I’m working really hard on speaking my spouse’s love language and feel like I’m not getting anything in return. Yeah, it’s selfish and the wrong way to look at it, and leading to bitterness. I’m working my way through it and when (not if) I get over it I will let you know how. I’m sure you may encounter the same on your journey so I’d like to share what I learn. If you have any tips, let me know.
7) It became too official. A shiny new blog made this feel too formal. I lost my voice. It was informal, mostly for me, and served me (and the few of you) well. When it became a real thing, it made me think every post has to have a certain number of words, a cool image, and some awesome links or it wasn’t good enough. I’ve generally lived by two principles that should help get past this: 1) Take imperfect action, and 2) Done is better than perfect. With your permission, I will begin writing again in as informal or formal a way as it comes out and we can work on that later.
8) Self-doubt. I wasn’t sure I was doing myself any good, my spouse any good, and you any good. I’m not sure anybody is even reading this! I also have an inner voice constantly pointing out that “who are you to write a blog on something you’re admittedly not even good at?”
9) The newness has worn off. Just like the excitement of that Christmas toy you unwrapped that sits on the shelf with all the others, my mind moved on to other, newer, shiny things. When I first saw the new format and got my own legit domain name I was so thrilled. Now, the thrill is gone.
10) I’ve fallen out of love with the idea. I thought there were endless throngs of people out there just like me struggling with this and looking for a resource to help. Maybe there are. Maybe they haven’t found this community. But maybe I just need to do this for me (not for them) anyway. I can’t fall out of love with the idea of speaking my spouse’s love language. That’s not fair. And if this blog keeps me honest with myself, I will push on. If someone else benefits, even better…
It’s a new year and with it comes a new commitment to speak my spouse’s love language of words of affirmation. Even though I have reasons and excuses for why you haven’t heard from me lately, I’m ready to do better. I’ll commit to sharing with you on this journey a post each week so you can follow along and grow our community to help others do the same. Who’s with me?