You’re not the Boss of Me! Her Story
It was a dark and stormy night… actually no, it wasn’t - at least not outside! It sure was dark and stormy in my heart and mind though!! But, I’m getting ahead of myself, what we need is context and backstory, so here goes…
Chris had been my dance student, my teaching assistant, dance troupe member, one of my competitive students, and my boyfriend for 10.25 years before we got married. During that time, I had been “The Boss.” I made (almost) all of the decisions relating to our partnership, and all of the decisions relating to my business and career. After thousands of hours of teaching, coaching, choreographing, scheduling, and the rest of what it is to be a one person small business owner, I was used to being in charge, in control, and by whom it was said regularly “The buck stops here!” I had dozens of students, taught 25 - 30 hours of Ballroom dance classes per week, and had successfully transitioned from traveling 1,000 mile per week to teach Ballroom dance, to having opened two successive, and successful Ballroom studios. I was privileged to have had Chris along with me, whilst achieving all of that; however, as my boyfriend and student, he was not truly my partner at that point.
That all changed in the Spring of 2004, we got married, and overnight everything changed! Within one month of getting married, Chris became a full time Ballroom dance teacher too. You could say that he "joined the family business.” He jumped into the deep end, because when he started teaching, a light load for him was 45 hours per week, and average, or “normal,” was 50 hours! At first, probably because he was overwhelmed by being so busy so quickly, our business relationship didn’t change very much. I was still in charge of scheduling, creating the class calendar and newsletter, working on the website, and teaching all of my students. So, for a time, the dynamic, or relational position, of our partnership structure wasn’t all that different from before we were married.
The point in time when it did change was several months after we said "I do." We decided that we wanted to compete together in a professional partnership capacity. That meant that somehow in the busy-ness that was our lives of teaching dance and running our event venue, we had to find time every week, preferably most every day, to practice our dancing - together.
One fateful night, both of us tired, hungry, and wishing we could just go home, we began our dance practice. We were working on a section of choreography that just wasn’t going well. Over and over we tried it, every time having more difficulty, and more frustration with each other, than the last. Finally, after at least the tenth time of Chris telling me that I “HAD to let HIM lead!!!” I’d had enough… I yanked my hand from his, slapped my palms on my thighs, and yelled, “YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!!!” With that, I stomped over to the bench, sat down with my head between my knees, and proceeded to bawl. In a matter of seconds a tidal wave of emotions washed over me: anger, frustration, belligerence, fear, guilt, and doom. Then, God broke through my confusion, doubt, and anger to put on my heart that I needed to take a deep breath and realize a Truth that I’d been missing, or at least not willing to pay attention to. Chris, now as my husband, was in fact “the boss of me.”
It was a crazy few moments. In and instant, God opened my eyes and my heart to the new reality of my life. I now had an equal partner, with whom I had chosen to spend my life. I was no longer a one-woman-show. We were partners, each created with a purpose and God-appointed role in our marriage, and it was time that I embraced that fact, that Truth, and allow God to do the work on my heart that needed to be done.
