I’m sorry

….but I don’t think I’ll be blogging anymore.

I know this effects like, two people, but I still figured I should say something instead of just disappearing off the face of the earth.

The reasons for this are twofold:

1. I don’t think it’s been good for my marriage. I need to focus on it and be there all the time, and that post I wrote “Get out of my head”? It made me realize that these feelings started when I started blogging. I’m not sure why writing a few posts on the internet made me so discombobulated, but it did. I’ve felt better during these last few weeks when I haven’t been writing. Instead, I’m going to put the energy and thoughts about this blog into my husband.

2. H and I were talking one night and we started discussing blogs. He was very disapproving about the whole idea, even when the blog is about shidduchim, not marriage (I didn’t tell him I have one, of course). He made a good point and it made me think. He said that in the area of marriage, especially, tznius is so important. Your marriage, and what goes on in it, is so private, and it should only be between you and your spouse. And while I argued the point at the time, I’ve thought about it a lot in the last few weeks. And I think he’s right. Not that I’ve ever said anything too revealing. But I’m starting to agree with him, and I also know he’ll be really upset if he ever found out about this. It would be a betrayal of his trust. And I can’t do that to him.

It’s been fun. Don’t worry, I’ll still be commenting on all of your blogs! But the jig’s up for me. Thank you all for reading!

Let me out!

Sometimes I feel like I get lost in my own head.

I never did anything like this before. I wasn’t one for over analyzing. But lately it seems like I can’t seem to do anything without overthinking it.

I can’t seem to talk to my husband without creating stories in my head, Naomi Reagan style, as I speak, like “She spoke to her loving husband while in her heart she felt suffocated by the restrictions her unchosen lifestyle had created,” which is not how I feel at all and it’s driving me insane. It’s like I feel like I have to create drama sometimes for no reason. It doesn’t make me happy. It upsets me actually. But I can’t seem to stop it.

In retrospect it’s kind of funny, but it isn’t really. At all. My head feels like it’s going to explode all the time.

Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? This has been going on for a little bit of time now. I can’t seem to stop it. I’m drawing myself into my own head against my wishes and I can’t escape, I have to over think everything. It’s so frustrating! H said he knows what I’m talking about and I just have to relax, but it’s not helping, because the more I think about it the more frustrated I get and the harder it is to relax.

Otherwise every thing’s good. Too good, perhaps? Do I not trust in my own goodness so much that I have to subconsciously ruin it for myself? Maybe I should dust off my copy of “Men are from Mars.” I remember something about this, vaguely – how when you are in a relationship, all comfortable and happy, old wounds you’ve been suppressing come to the surface in this warm, loving enviorment, because you feel like you can deal with it now. Maybe that’s what happening to me? All this psych stuff confuses me. I’ll have to take a look and update y’all.

Anyway, someone let me know if I’m crazy.

Marriage Modesty

I’m doing a report on tznius and modesty in the modern world (due tomorrow, yeah right it’s going to be finished on time) and while I was researching it, I got to thinking. All that blather our teachers spew at us in high school and seminary about “attractive but not attracting” and “tznius is for yourself, not for men” really begins to make a lot more sense once you’re married.

Not to say if didn’t make sense while I was single. I was never an Orthoslut (as H so nicely puts those chicks who ju-u-u-st get by with tugging and pulling on skirts and waistbands), even when many of my friends were – though it’s more a high school phase. But your heart is really fighting with your mind here. As much as I wanted to look nice and tznius and as religious as I felt I should be, I also wanted to look good. Alright, I’ll admit it. I wanted to look hot. And any girl who says she doesn’t like appreciative glances from guys is totally lying.

But I fought the urge and I think I passed for the slightly yeshivish-open minded-not BY girl that I am. And I got married and a whole new world of modesty is now open to me.

It’s harder for me to get dressed in the morning. The motivation to look good for shidduchim, or impress other girls, or look pretty, just isn’t present in the same way. Of course I want to look pretty for H, and I do. But he’s also seen me at my worst and at my best, it’s harder to put in the effort when I know that he’s seen me without makeup, anyway. I don’t need to look nice every second “just in case”. I don’t care as much about other girls opinions because they are no longer potential shadchans.

And then I started thinkin’. Would I have just thrown on a sweatshirt every day when I was single if not for the ever-present fear of meeting someone important? Would I not have put so much effort into my makeup without guys to impress? And I’ve come to the conclusion – yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

And that disturbs me a little bit. Do I put so little value in my appearance that I only do it to impress others? On the other hand, the desire to dress to impress is much less, which makes it much easier for me to be tznius.

So which is better, a total lack of caring or a hard mitzva made easier? I’m not sure. I do try to look nice most of the time, I’m exaggerating a little bit that I totally don’t care. I do. Sometimes I get in these fits of ugliness and run to put on makeup and nice clothes. Most of the time I look pretty decent. But I don’t worry as much. I dress to please me more and others less. And I think that’s a pretty good thing, all in all.

Then again, I hear that some wives like to dress even more untznuis, so there husband isn’t shamed that he has an unattractive wife, or so he won’t look at all the other sluttily dressed wives. And that makes me very very sad.