Thank you all for your kind comments on my last post. Not to worry, I've already hired a mother/daughter team who come and scour our house every other week. They've come twice now and have done way more than I expected. I'd asked them to just vacuum, mop and clean the bathrooms. The rest seemed to be stuff we could handle. Instead when they come, they dust blinds, clean ceiling fans, wipe baseboards, clean the stove top, and more. It's already provided a much more restful environment.
Last night after dinner (Jrex made a fantastic veggie stir fry while I put the baby to bed), we were chatting a bit more about my blog post. He mentioned an article from the NY Times (will link if he sends it to me) about making marriage work. A group did surveys of long-term couples to find out what the common threads were; they found three key elements.
1. A great sex life
2. Good communication
3. Generosity
As Jrex put it, he's never liked that 'give 100 percent' quote. He doesn't think it's a useful or realistic metaphor, but the idea of generosity made a lot of sense to him. Doing the unexpected kindness, giving a surprising complement, creating moments of joy for each other. It resonated for both of us.
So at the end of the night, when he looked exhausted (he's been sick for over a week), I said, "Why don't you go to bed?"
"I will, I just have to put the food away."
With a grin, I said, "I'll do it for you. Look, I'm being Generous!" He laughed, "Oh, is that how we're going to play this?"
"Absolutely! 'Watch how generously I'm taking out the trash'."
With laughter. That's how we roll (eventually).
5 comments:
When I'm being generous I sometimes say, "Look at me being a good wifey." It makes us laugh, which helps a lot. It also allows me to highlight when I'm being helpful (which he doesn't always see).
A sense of humor always helps. It sounds like you guys are working it all out. Glad to hear you have help.
im glad this works for the two of you and that you have got some help working and being a mom and wife are really hard!
I have to come back here and tell you that the whole 100% versus simple generosity idea totally helped me the other night when I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water before heading to bed and found a disaster of dirty dishes and a few ingredients from dinner left out. We had made a deal that I'd give our bambino a bath and get him ready for bed if the hubby cleaned up. He was so exhausted from working and having a long commute that day that he just put a few things away and figured he would do it in the morning.
I came in and was so upset and started thinking all sorts of negative thoughts. But then, thanks to having just read your post, I shut those thoughts up and started telling myself that it was better to just practice a bit of generosity. And hour later (at 1:30 in the morning), the kitchen was clean and I wasn't thinking horrid thoughts about the love of my life.
So thank you for that! I think I'll be keeping that idea in mind and try to develop it into a habit. Something tells me it will alleviate more than a few arguments.
Love. <3
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