... that stuff about putting your spouse first - Issue #5

The not-so-silent musings of Christian Conservative Straight CIS White Male Author CM Powers - A Kingdom-minded keyboard warrior.

My wife comes first, but I didn't always feel that way.

First, let me tell you about this prank Jules and Lil’ Bit ( what we call our daughter) played on me last night. I was in the bedroom and went out to join my wife on the living room couch. She was on her phone when she said, “I wonder if Lil’ Bit cleaned her room. I've been on her all day about cleaning that room.”

I said, “Yeah, you need to. I've told her several times and she still hasn't cleaned it.”

So Jules yelled her name and she came out of her room and into the living room.

“Did you clean your room?” Jules asked.

Lil’ Bit stormed off down the hallway to her room calling out, “Shut up, Mom. I said I'll clean it when I get to it.”

I looked at Jules who was staring back at me. I was shocked. I looked toward the hall and said, “You better run.”

Lil’ Bit reappeared and started laughing.

I said, “I don't know what you're laughing about. There's nothing funny about it. You don't disrespect your mother like that.”

I was mad. Lil’ Bit was still laughing.

This child must be out of her mind.

Then I heard my wife laughing behind me. They were both cracking up. Jules was crying with laughter.

Finally, Jules said, “It's a joke.”

“What do you mean it's a joke?”

“I'm so proud of you. You didn't let me down.”

Turns out, they'd been planning this for about a month. Later, she showed me TikTok videos of moms and their kids playing this prank on dads just to see their reactions.

Apparently, when they were planning it, Lil’ Bit told Jules she didn't think it would work. She said, “I don't think he'll say anything because he's my stepdad.”

Jules said, “It's not about you. It's about me. He won't let anyone disrespect me.”

I guess I did well and didn't let her down.

Like I said in the beginning, my wife comes first. But that wasn't always the case.

In my previous marriage, my ex-wife and I were basically just two people who'd stayed together for the kids. We were able to coexist and get a long well enough to not be super destructive to the lives of everyone around us. Our kids definitely came first.

In fact, toward the end of that marriage, I hung out in my kids’ room with them all the time. I worked in there, writing books on my laptop while catching episodes of Supernatural, The Flash, and Arrow.

I'd take my kids to the movies, to the mall, out for ice cream, or to the gym all by myself. My kids came first. They were so important to me that I remained in a pretty miserable state just to keep them feeling safe and content. I've talked about my depression before, and I'll definitely talk more about it later, but I was pretty down at the time.

Let's flash forward to my second marriage, my current and last marriage, to Jules. I'll never forget when she told me way back at the beginning of our relationship, “We have to do things differently.”

See, she’d had a pretty similar experience to mine with her first marriage. The kids always came first. She and her ex had nothing to talk about if it didn't revolve around the children.

It was a pastor who told her she had it all wrong. He told her you have to put your spouse first. Your spouse is your teammate. Someday, your kids will be grown, they'll move out, they'll get married, and they'll have families of their own.

Your spouse and you, however, will still be together. So, what do you do when all of your married life was spent putting the kids first? If EVERYTHING was about the children, what now?!

That's a scary thought and one I hadn't actually put thought into in my first marriage. Now, as I think about it, it's terrifying. If I'd remained with my ex, with the way we were both living our lives, we would have been miserable when it came time to be empty nesters. Jules and her ex would have been in the same situation.

So, as Jules said at the beginning of our relationship, we're doing things differently. I do my best to never let her go to a single medical appointment alone. Why? Because she did that for years. She'd drive 3 hours away to get her Botox migraine shots all by herself. Then drive home.

That's my best friend! I don't want her doing that alone.

When my boss asked me to travel for a work convention, I told him I really don't want to do it because I've spent enough of my life without my wife, and I don't want to spend any other time without her. He agreed to pay for her to fly to Orlando with me (I happen to have a really cool boss).

Jules means the world to me, and when we become empty nesters, we'll be just fine because we're making sure we put our relationship first.

If you're not already doing that, you should immediately sit down with your spouse and discuss this. Start planning date nights, buy one of those couples card games that help you get to know each other again, or do whatever you can think of to help you reconnect. TikTok has a lot of cool date night ideas. Because guess what? Like it or not, that's who you're going to face day in and day out when the kids fly the coop.

Remember, when God created Eve, it says in Genesis 1:18: And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

A helper comparable to him. Jules is definitely my helper, and I hope she feels that I'm hers.

In public, I will always defend her, even if I don't 100% agree with her stance or argument. Later, in the privacy of our home, I may talk to her about it and let her know my thoughts or concerns, but nobody else would know it. She'd do the exact same with me. We're unflinchingly a team.

We put the LORD first, and our relationship second. Having a godly spouse helps so much.

So, make sure you're building a foundation for your relationship that will stand strong even when it's only the two of you because, like it or not, that's what happens at some point. Don't wait until the house is quiet and the two of you are alone to start stoking that fire. If you do, you might end up in the cold.

Ephesians 5:33 says: let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Keep that in mind, put God and prayer into your relationship, and it'll all work out.

On the writing front

Scatter the Dark, my first faith-based supernatural thriller is coming along great. I have three chapters to go before the first draft is complete.

When it's done, I'll need to go through it, add a lot of stuff, and clean it up. I use Vellum for formatting, so I should be good there, but I still need to figure out who I want to use for a cover artist.

The guy who did my Kin of the Fallen book when I was writing horror is awesome, but his illustrations come out a little comic book-like. That wouldn't work for this book. At least I don't think it would.

I've also unpublished my Edge of Reflection series because I'd like to rewrite it and possibly serialize it with more of a faith-based focus. It was already leaning that way, but I do need to clean up the language and some of the other graphic content.

You should have seen me the other night. Jules was next to me on the bed working on a chunky knit blanket while I had a binder, dividers, loose leaf notebook paper … yeah, I went old school with it. Each divider will mark the season, and I can physically move notes around. Sometimes, for planning, I need to hold the brainstorming sheets in my hand. A computer doesn't always cut it.

Now that Amazon announced that Kindle Vella will end soon, Substack may be my only option for serializing the story.

I've got so many books on the horizon, and I feel great about glorifying God in my writing. I spent so many years not feeling proud about my books. Now, I can set up a booth at local festivals and fairs without feeling ashamed of what a teenager or a fellow Christian might buy.

I'll have a book out to y’all soon.

Today's song

For this newsletter issue, I want to recommend a song for your playlist that is by a band that is often labeled as a Christian band because they have a lot of Christian songs. This one is more of a romantic song for couples.

So, it's not really a Christian song, but it's a clean love song.

Here's ‘Let’s Stay Home Tonight’ by NEEDTOBREATHE on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/1kiylxwnw8R8rJoCDtubWM?si=FeQhc6beTNad-MQc66GN0w

And on YouTube:

Thank you so much for reading this issue of … that stuff. I'll see you in the next issue.