Please and Thank You

Dear Sister, I'm a little new to learning about the Saints, so I'm hoping you can direct me here...is there a patron saint for unappreciated homemakers? (I thought that sounded better than "Who should I pray to when I want to throttle my husband?") I'm trying SO hard to be a loving, gentle, *sigh* obedient wife and mother, but it sure isn't easy when I feel taken for granted all the time. Thanks for any guidance you can give me.

You don't need a patron saint. You need a cast iron skillet. Hide behind the door and clong him with it.

I'm joking.  Although everyone should have a cast iron skillet. It's great for both cooking and attractive biceps.

I have two recommendations. The first is St. Zita, who is the patron saint of homemakers. Little Zita was a maid (so right there, you should feel a kinship).  She was actually greatly appreciated as such, but her boss didn't care for her giving out bread to beggars at the back door and running off to Mass everyday. At one point he told her she couldn't go to Mass until her work was done. She went anyhow, with the bread unbaked and the kitchen uncleaned. When she returned everything was done.

The angels did it. Kind of like the shoemaker and the elves.  Wouldn't that be the best thing in the world? To come back expecting your messy house and all that work to do to clean and tidy up and make dinner and find it all sparkling and clean and dinner in the oven?

Perhaps you should just pick up a copy of The Shoemaker and the Elves and sit around in front of your husband and cry every time you reach the end and all the shoes are made. Eventually he'll want to know why you're crying and you can explain.

There's a word for this type of behavior: passive aggressive.

You have three choices. You can continue as you are, suffering in silence.
You can continue as you are but suffer cheerfully, offering up your suffering to the Poor Souls in Purgatory. (And for that, you'll want to turn to St. Therese the Little Flower who spent her brief life doing exactly that.)

Or you can man up, as they say, and sit that fellow down and have a frank talk with him.

I believe when people do this they tend to approach it the wrong way. They approach these things in an accusatory fashion, "You make me feel terrible and unappreciated all the time."  Have you ever noticed that when you accuse someone of something, even if they are actually 100% guilty, their first response is, "No...that's not what happened", or something to that effect? When people are accused they go on the defensive, even if a couple of moments later they realize you are correct.

Human nature. Flawed.

I propose that you take a tip from people who handle interventions. They actually don't talk about the other person, exactly. It's the first step in understanding that you are not responsible for their actions or reactions.  What they do is talk about how much they love the person, how valuable the person is to them in their lives. Then they talk about how the person's behavior--the behavior--is impacting them. There is a clear distinction between the behavior and the person. Jesus understood this very, very well.

That's my suggestion to you. Tell your husband how much you love and appreciate him. But explain to him that you aren't feeling that from him and it's making you feel bad and it's making your work as a homemaker into difficult drudgery.  Tell him you're willing to tell him thank you a lot more often. Ask him if he'll do the same for you.

The angels won't do it for you. But they will be there to help.