Feeling the weight of the world

[JShewell]

Lately it feels like I've been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was a stay at home mom for 11 years and had to go back to work outside of my home full time about a year and a half ago. While I love helping provide for my family I hate how I feel. I feel like I am such a horrible mother. I have no patience anymore. I'm tired all the time. (I have 4 kids and 3 of them participate in different activities everyday of the week. Not to mention I get up at 5:00 to go to the gym.) I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. Then on top of all that, I have a spouse that has decided to leave the church. Am I alone?

[Aish HaTorah]

1 hour ago, JShewell said:

Lately it feels like I've been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was a stay at home mom for 11 years and had to go back to work outside of my home full time about a year and a half ago. While I love helping provide for my family I hate how I feel. I feel like I am such a horrible mother. I have no patience anymore. I'm tired all the time. (I have 4 kids and 3 of them participate in different activities everyday of the week. Not to mention I get up at 5:00 to go to the gym.) I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. Then on top of all that, I have a spouse that has decided to leave the church. Am I alone?

I do not know you, but your story touched me.  It is so easy to feel (unwanted, not good enough, like a failure, guilty, etc., etc.) when things are not going the way that we feel they should.  We beat ourselves up.  We dust off the box of shoulda coulda wouldas and cradle them almost lovingly.  All that I can say, for whatever it is worth, is that you simply cannot do this to yourself.  You cannot fix yourself, nor is it your job to.  Nor can you fix others.  That is G-d's job, and His alone.

We have to become slaves not to sin, but to G-d's will for us.  He orders our lives just as He orders the universe.  He is Adonai HaShalom, the L-rd of Peace, and He will embrace you with the love that only the Creator can.  And please, please do not "hate" how you feel.  You feel, because you are feeling.  There is nothing wrong with feeling, and I despise when people tell me that I shouldn't feel (happy, sad, mad, etc.).  Why?  We are created in G-d's image, and as such we have the feelings that He gave to us when He spoke us into existence.

Remember, G-d only works with broken people.  That is all he has with which to work.  We are all broken.  He loves us anyway.

Let go; let G-d.  He won't let you down.

Edited April 15, 2016 by Aish HaTorah

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

I'm so sorry. I was a stay-at-homemom for 13 years, and then I had to return to work. I've been working for about 9 yrs now...dang I'm feeling old. 

It is hard to be a mom and work full-time. Mom's are hard on themselves as it is, and adding work really stretches us to capacity.  I still have to remind myself that no one expects me to be June Cleaver. 

I really love what @Aish HaTorah said. I second it. God loves you and he understands your situation and your heart. He can strengthen you. Hang in there, lean on Him.

[Guest MormonGator]

13 minutes ago, LiterateParakeet said:

 

I really love what @Aish HaTorah said. I second it. .

Co-signed. 

[tesuji]

2 hours ago, JShewell said:

Lately it feels like I've been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was a stay at home mom for 11 years and had to go back to work outside of my home full time about a year and a half ago. While I love helping provide for my family I hate how I feel. I feel like I am such a horrible mother. I have no patience anymore. I'm tired all the time. (I have 4 kids and 3 of them participate in different activities everyday of the week. Not to mention I get up at 5:00 to go to the gym.) I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. Then on top of all that, I have a spouse that has decided to leave the church. Am I alone?

I have felt like this. I am sorry that you are going through this. 

If you haven't heard it, Elder Holland's latest talk was greatly encouraging in this regard.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/04/tomorrow-the-lord-will-do-wonders-among-you?lang=eng

Also, Elder Uchtdorf has given a talk or two about this, about how things will get better.

I commend you for sacrificing and working for your family. You don't sound like a bad mother too me, but rather an awesome mother.

[added] Sorry, I missed the last part about your husband. That must be an especially hard thing.

Edited April 15, 2016 by tesuji

[David13]

I have had difficulty in life in enjoying the many blessings I have been given.

As a result, I had to learn how to appreciate all I have.  To look toward it all with appreciation.

I found about the self fulfilling prophecy.

If I state that I will feel good the next day the night before, I usually feel good the next day.

So I have to make a conscious effort to appreciate it all.  And when I do, I feel rather good.  Even tho' I know I have a lot less than a whole lot of other people.

But still I think about those less fortunate than me. 

The husband leaving the church?  That is difficult, as you really have no control over that.  I don't have a wife but if I had one, I would definitely want her to stay in the church. 

dc

[letmeoff]

On 15/04/2016 at 5:53 AM, JShewell said:

Lately it feels like I've been carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I was a stay at home mom for 11 years and had to go back to work outside of my home full time about a year and a half ago. While I love helping provide for my family I hate how I feel. I feel like I am such a horrible mother. I have no patience anymore. I'm tired all the time. (I have 4 kids and 3 of them participate in different activities everyday of the week. Not to mention I get up at 5:00 to go to the gym.) I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough. Then on top of all that, I have a spouse that has decided to leave the church. Am I alone?

You're never alone when the life of God lives inside you. Why do you try so hard to be good, it's like trying to remain positive 24/7 it can't be done. See the more positive thoughts you try to think the more negative thoughts you have to fight, in the end you get tried and stressed out mentality.

[LeSellers]

On 4/15/2016 at 1:53 PM, JShewell said:

I have 4 kids and 3 of them participate in different activities everyday of the week. Not to mention I get up at 5:00 to go to the gym.

It's up to you, of course, but one wonders "Why?"

Their activities serve one purpose above all the others: to keep them from making the links with their family. Those links take time and shared activities, not different ones, activities that the whole family, not one or two, participate in.

Soccer, gymnastics (I've seen families go completely inactive because a daughter needed them to attend her meets), baseball, karate, and on and on, do not usually build family connections.

If you're too busy, and that seems to be the issue, stop doing things that aren't moving you towards your goals (which I feel reasonably safe in assuming include family unity and strength).

My  mother died while I was on my mission. When I came home 18 months later, I listened to her funeral on a tape deck (sorta like a DVD player, only different). One story our bishop recounted was when he went to visit her one afternoon and found her "just enjoying [my little sister]". Rrrr is my sixth sibling. I understood exactly what he meant because my mother enjoyed all seven of us, each in a different way. I think it was because she spent so much time with us. We didn't have a million things to do: we worked together, we played together, we read, studied, and fooled around together. My father sent me a letter the week after Mom died. In it he told me how he'd taken each of my brothers and sisters in to see Mom, but she didn't seem to recognize one of them, so he took him back in. She smiled (about all she could do by then), and died within a few minutes. Her last words, spoken two or three days before, we "Don't let him [me] come home." She had her priorities in order.

I look around and see hundreds of mothers who express the same things you have said here. And, to a woman, they all have too much to do, and a lot of that includes things that are not important in the eternal scheme. I'm not sure they're important in a temporal scheme, either.

So, my free advice (and worth everything it costs you) is to "just enjoy your little ones — they won't be little for long. And then they'll marry and be gone."

Lehi

Edited April 22, 2016 by LeSellers

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, LeSellers said:

It's up to you, of course, but one wonders "Why?"

Their activities serve one purpose above all the others: to keep them from making the links with their family. Those links take time and shared activities, not different ones, activities that the whole family, not one or two, participate in.

Soccer, gymnastics (I've seen families go completely inactive because a daughter needed them to attend her meets), baseball, karate, and on and on, do not usually build family connections.

If you're too busy, and that seems to be the issue, stop doing things that aren't moving you towards your goals (which I feel reasonably safe in assuming include family unity and strength).

My  mother died while I was on my mission. When I came home 18 months later, I listened to her funeral on a tape deck (sorta like a DVD player, only different). One story our bishop recounted was when he went to visit her one afternoon and found her "just enjoying [my little sister]". Rrrr is my sixth sibling. I understood exactly what he meant because my mother enjoyed all seven of us, each in a different way. I think it was because she spent so much time with us. We didn't have a million things to do: we worked together, we played together, we read, studied, and fooled around together. My father sent me a letter the week after Mom died. In it he told me how he'd taken each of my brothers and sisters in to see Mom, but she didn't seem to recognize one of them, so he took him back in. She smiled (about all she could do by then), and died within a few minutes. Her last words, spoken two or three days before, we "Don't let him [me] come home." She had her priorities in order.

I look around and see hundreds of mothers who express the same things you have said here. And, to a woman, they all have too much to do, and a lot of that includes things that are not important in the eternal scheme. I'm not sure they're important in a temporal scheme, either.

So, my free advice (and worth everything it costs you) is to "just enjoy your little ones — they won't be little for long. And then they'll marry and be gone."

Lehi

Lehi knows we disagree with the karate (or in my case, jiujitsu)... that my husband and kids are in.

But... I actually agree with him on this one.  Sometimes, we feel we have to put kids in certain activities for their well-being when it is costing parents their well-being.  So, if this is the case with your family, then it's okay to see if you can accomplish the same things at home.  Because, unless your kid is highly skilled that he can be slated for the MLS, a game of soccer in your backyard can be sufficient to meet your kids' physical activity needs.

My advice is - simplify, simplify, simplify... and focus on the positive things you are providing for your family and don't read Parenting magazines.

I have a friend who has fibromyalgia and she refused medication because she is breast feeding.  I suggested to her that there's nothing wrong with transitioning the baby to formula if that's what she needed to be able to take the meds that will relieve her of the pain.  She said that would be selfish.  It is, of course, a learning process for moms... we all eventually realize that the kids will be much better off if mom's well-being is made as important as the kids'.

[anatess2]

1 hour ago, LeSellers said:

It's up to you, of course, but one wonders "Why?"

Their activities serve one purpose above all the others: to keep them from making the links with their family. Those links take time and shared activities, not different ones, activities that the whole family, not one or two, participate in.

Soccer, gymnastics (I've seen families go completely inactive because a daughter needed them to attend her meets), baseball, karate, and on and on, do not usually build family connections.

If you're too busy, and that seems to be the issue, stop doing things that aren't moving you towards your goals (which I feel reasonably safe in assuming include family unity and strength).

My  mother died while I was on my mission. When I came home 18 months later, I listened to her funeral on a tape deck (sorta like a DVD player, only different). One story our bishop recounted was when he went to visit her one afternoon and found her "just enjoying [my little sister]". Rrrr is my sixth sibling. I understood exactly what he meant because my mother enjoyed all seven of us, each in a different way. I think it was because she spent so much time with us. We didn't have a million things to do: we worked together, we played together, we read, studied, and fooled around together. My father sent me a letter the week after Mom died. In it he told me how he'd taken each of my brothers and sisters in to see Mom, but she didn't seem to recognize one of them, so he took him back in. She smiled (about all she could do by then), and died within a few minutes. Her last words, spoken two or three days before, we "Don't let him [me] come home." She had her priorities in order.

I look around and see hundreds of mothers who express the same things you have said here. And, to a woman, they all have too much to do, and a lot of that includes things that are not important in the eternal scheme. I'm not sure they're important in a temporal scheme, either.

So, my free advice (and worth everything it costs you) is to "just enjoy your little ones — they won't be little for long. And then they'll marry and be gone."

Lehi

Lehi knows we disagree with the karate (or in my case, jiujitsu)... that my husband and kids are in.

But... I actually agree with him on this one.  Sometimes, we feel we have to put kids in certain activities for their well-being when it is costing parents their well-being.  So, if this is the case with your family, then it's okay to see if you can accomplish the same things at home.  Because, unless your kid is highly skilled that he can be slated for the MLS, a game of soccer in your backyard can be sufficient to meet your kids' physical activity needs.

My advice is - In addition to Aish's excellent thoughts on embracing God... Simplify, simplify, simplify... and focus on the positive things you are providing for your family.  Also, don't read Parenting magazines or mommy forums... they just make us feel unnecessarily guilty.

I have a friend who has fibromyalgia and she refused medication because she is breast feeding.  I suggested to her that there's nothing wrong with transitioning the baby to formula if that's what she needed to be able to take the meds that will relieve her of the pain.  She said that would be selfish.  It is, of course, a learning process for moms... we all eventually realize that the kids will be much better off if mom's well-being is made as important as the kids'.

Edited April 22, 2016 by anatess2