It is safe to say that most people will never be able to understand our lifestyle. No matter how many words of explanation we use, it's not possible to comprehend the abnormalities unless you're experiencing them yourself.
Most people's lives have traditional expectations of what happiness and fulfillment should look like. While most likely born from a loving space, they will try to convince you what is normal, safe, practical, best, etc.
But we all know that there is nothing traditional about this lifestyle. So, when we live by the expectations of others, we begin to create a pile of "shoulds" in our lives.
"I should coach my child's soccer team." "I should initiate that project at work." "I should sign us up for that mission trip at church." It could be in areas that you're not even aware of.
I realized that I was even allowing random strangers to pile their "shoulds" on my life. My second Mother's Day as a mother was when this all clicked for me. I was about five months pregnant with my second, and my first wasn't even a year and a half.
My husband had made it to the NCAA tournament in his sport, and the first round was always on Mother's Day weekend. Usually, I'd travel to the game and think nothing of it. But flying pregnant with a one-year-old would have been more than I wanted to handle.
So, I went about my day like it was any other. I went to the grocery store. I might be exaggerating a tiny bit, but everyone I crossed paths with glared at my son and me with the most pity-filled stares. I was used to people staring because of how cute and social my son was, but this was different.
When I got to the checkout line, it dawned on me what these people must be thinking. And I didn't even want to imagine the horrible things they were thinking of my poor husband. The cashier said something along the lines of I hope you are able to enjoy "your" day. The way she said "your" made me cringe, like this was the only day every year mother's actually see appreciation and love from their family.
After that comment, I wanted to stop and share the situation with every person who glanced our way. But there was no way I could convince them that my husband's absence was a good thing and that today was just a day. We have learned to celebrate the occasion, not the specific date.
I can laugh now because I know how ridiculous it is to let complete strangers who know nothing about the situation influence my thoughts and feelings. At the time, my husband and son were showing me so much appreciation that I literally asked for a few hours to myself as my gift.
I was letting people I didn't even know convince me that if they loved me, then they SHOULD celebrate me on that specific day. If strangers had that type of influence over my expectations, I realized that family and friends hold even more power. But no one else is a coaching family.
For years, I let similar silly little shoulds gnaw at me. "He should be here to help me take the kids to church." "This is an important event, so he should be able to take a day off." "Three kids is a lot of work, so he should be able to give me a break every once in a while." They eventually added up to one giant pile that created bitterness and resentment.
While it is almost always coming from a place of love, that doesn't mean other people's opinions belong in your pile. Once you realize and accept this, you don't carry the weight of other people's expectations and beliefs on your shoulders. Your pile gets much smaller and it becomes much easier to live untraditionally happy and fulfilled.