And I realized: I've been acting like harmony means accepting things as they are. But real harmony might actually require me to speak up. To say what isn't working. To ask for what I need. Not in an angry way, but clearly.

Because a family built on my silence isn't a family. It's just me performing the role of a wife while everything underneath is resentful and small. 🤝

I think what I want now is different from what I thought I wanted before. I don't want to be the woman who holds everything together through endless patience. I want to be the woman who knows what partnership is supposed to feel like, and who has the courage to ask for it.

My faith teaches me that I matter. That my needs matter. That God wants me whole and alive, not shrunk and quiet. So maybe the work is learning to build harmony *differently*. Not through disappearing, but through being clearly, honestly present. Through expecting the other person to show up too.

Wouldn't that create something real instead of something that just looks good on the surface?