Modern Day Leah

My sister let me borrow an interesting book entitled Flawed Families of the Bible, and although I haven’t really gotten into it yet, I’m intrigued by some of the chapter titles. For instance, Chapter Two is entitled “Leah’s Story: When Your Spouse Loves Another and You Feel Unloved and Left Out.” Most people, at least the ones reading this blog, are probably familiar with the story. Jacob marries Leah first, and although she bears him six sons and at least one daughter, apparently Jacob always loves Rachel more. The jealousies and rivalries are something I’ll tackle another day.

It must have been a bummer for Leah to try so hard to impress Jacob. Baby after baby she bore, and yet Rachel who remained childless for years continued to be # 1 in Jacob’s heart. I’ve been married twice, and although we had/have issues, none of them had to do with another woman being first in my husbands’ lives. At least I don’t think so. Why would any woman settle for the second spot? I know there are many answers to that question, but again, today is not the day to pursue that enigma.

What hit me this morning as I skimmed the chapter titles is that although I’m not second in my husband’s affections concerning another woman, I often feel in the second position in many other areas. Case in point. We’ve been invited to a wedding this weekend that it’s important for me to attend, and we’ve known about it for weeks. Something has come up, however, that precludes DH from attending with me. His mother is having a reunion with her sisters and brother at her house, and she’s asked him to fry the fish for the event. He has two other brothers, but no one has apparently thought of that. Or then again, maybe they have. To “cut him some slack,” although we’ve known about the wedding for quite some time, we were both a little sketchy on the exact date and time.

Maybe I’m doing a little therapeutic bingeing, and I might regret it in a few hours, but it occurs to me that most of the time I’m behind Mother, Daddy, brothers, sister, children, grandchildren, sports, hunting, and television. Speaking of the latter, if American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Survivor, The Biggest Loser, or any golf match in the world is on, I can hang it up…so to speak. I know the preceding list should have more punctuation, but gee whiz, there are so many of them that it looked funny when I started inserting the apostrophes.

I’m not whining, just sharing a revelation. Truthfully, I’m a person who craves a certain amount of solitude to read, write, and ponder stuff. He might even feel neglected while I’m on the computer taking care of my online classes, blogging, or writing the next great American novel. We’re actually pretty well suited to each other because we understand the importance of space.

So what am I saying? Two things. People need to make the relationship with their spouses top priority. That’s what lasts (we hope), not “American Idol.” The other thing is that this works both ways. Here I am comparing myself to Leah who was never tops with Jacob, the older sister who always paled in comparison to Rachel. HOWEVER, this works both ways in that there are thousands of men out there who feel second on the totem pole. Their partners put them behind children, careers, houses, and so forth.

Anyway, my big revelation for this morning is that there are many ways to identify with Leah besides being second to another woman. I can’t wait to read the chapter in my sister's book and see what insights lie in store.