Family Life
Maintaining A Household
The days of being a slob are over. You’re no longer a bachelor, you’re married. Well, unless your wife is a slob, too, I guess.
I’m a very clean person. Well, I’m clean in that I like things put away. How they’re put away is mostly irrelevant.
One of the more interesting challenges that I faced when I first married Alison was that I wasn’t in control of the mess anymore. As much as I wanted to clean every inch of the apartment, I wasn’t able to. Well, I tried. But then she couldn’t find anything. After a while, I realized that we needed a joint plan for keeping the apartment clean. That worked until just about the time that Benedict showed up.
With both of you working, how do you get the household chores done without ruining your weekend?
• Divide the list. You both have things you like to clean and you both have things you don’t like to clean. So take a few things off of each list and get to work!
• Do a little bit each day. The laundry might take a whole day, so a Tuesday might not work. But try taking 15 or 20 minutes on Tuesday evening to clean the bathrooms can work.
• Don’t let it get out of control. There’s nothing more demoralizing than a huge mess. By making sure that no area of your home gets overly messy, it will make it easier to knock out the cleaning.
My main goal for the first part of this year is just keeping the kitchen clean on a daily basis. I put my dishes away as soon as I’m done with them and my goal is to not go to bed with a dirty kitchen.
Acts of Thankless Service
As humans, we long to be recognized for our accomplishments. From a very young age, we seek praise for doing good things. Yet, in the married life, sometimes the joy is in not being singled out for a particular good deed.
I love to surprise Alison! Whether it’s jumping out and scaring her or giving her an unexpected gift, there’s nothing better than the look of sheer terror or complete surprise on her face. One of my favorite surprises is cleaning while she’s at work or having a relaxing evening set up for her. Even more fun are doing the smaller acts of service that she might not even notice, but that improve her life. I call those acts of thankless service.
Spending your life chasing the recognition of others is a waste. Not only will you never be happy, your motives then become impure. You do something not because it’s good, but because of what it gets you.
Acts of thankless service really aren’t thankless. You get the satisfaction of a job well done and of doing something that improves someone else’s life. You have the fulfillment that we seek, knowing that you brought value to another’s life.
You need to be performing acts like these for your wife on a weekly, if not a daily basis.
Thankless jobs could be peeling potatoes or doing the dishes. They could also be something that you don’t really enjoy. For example, Alison loves having her back rubbed. It’s uncomfortable for me to do them and I don’t like it that much, but I do enjoy helping her to relax. She does thank me or express how much better she feels, but it’s the act of me putting her first that is the real reward.
Marriage is all-in. I’ve said before that if you both give 50-50, you’ll fail. The best way to go all in is to continually work for her benefit, lightening her load.
Managing Family Time
We are living in a new era of working families. With many families having both parents working, it’s becoming harder to have time together.
I work full time and Alison is wrapping up Medical School. While my job is flexible in the time that I work, I have a lot of mandatory evening meetings. Alison is almost 9-5. I arrive home around 9 and then its almost time for bed. The problem we face is that we have to intentionally work to find time to spend together.
Too many marriages are portrayed as a utilitarian business contract. He changes the oil, she does the laundry. He mows the lawn, she cleans the kitchen. The drudgery of domestic life is out there, there’s little doubt. However, that doesn’t mean its time to surrender! Along with the normal are chances for the extraordinary.
Even the smallest changes in your routine can make your marriage spark! Taking over one of her chores or taking her out on a date can be unbelievably refreshing! That won’t happen, however, if you don’t manage your calendars.
I have two pieces of advice for you to help manage your time with your family.
First, have a shared calendar that everyone has access to. Anytime an event is happening that applies to everyone, put it on there. You then have a centralized location for your events.
Second, have “sacred time.” Pick a time once a week where you and your wife won’t schedule anything. That is your time to be together to do whatever. It may be a meal, a movie, or just being in the same room.
If you don’t control your schedule, it will control you. Don’t let it.
Men of Sacrifice
Growing up, my Dad always gave up the best portion to us.
I could never figure out why he didn’t take the largest piece of cake, or why he’d let us have the last cookie.
I was a child, so I thought as a child does. I was looking out for me. He was also looking out for me.
What we don’t realize as kids is that our parents are people, too. We have our own dreams and desires, but we can’t imagine, or even think to imagine, that our parents do too.
We want to go to Disney World, while our parents dream of climbing the Great Wall of China. We want to have dinner at a friend’s house while our parents dream of the family eating together.
This was really a great model for me.
Now, as a father, I see how that sacrifice is not just a sign of love, it is love. It imputes love to me, even if I’m not able to understand or even perceive it in the moment.
We sacrifice, but that doesn’t mean that we lose out. No, our giving up allows us to love our families more deeply, and that is a greater gain than the last cookie.
Transitioning from Single Life to Married Life
It’s not hard to make the argument that the transition from the single life to the married life is pretty extreme. You go from a position of looking out for your interests to taking on the responsibility to maintain a household. Whoa.
I did not anticipate how big of a mental shift getting married would involve. It wasn’t until after the normal set back in that I realized how much the culture’s attitudes affected me. Consumerism extended into my relationships with people. I quickly realized that I needed to be proactive in countering this tendency if I was going to have a successful marriage.
Consumerism in our relationships is rampant. It is the mentality that leads people to brag about how many women they’ve bedded. It’s the mentality that leads to 36 hour celebrity marriages. We’ve let consumerism reduce people to commodities. When the human person is a commodity, they are expendable. They are temporary. And we are expected to consume (date) every beautiful woman that passes us by.
To a degree, a tentative mindset is just right while you’re dating. It is extremely unhealthy to begin every first date by planning your life together with this woman. It not only sets you up to be hurt badly, but creates defensive barriers in your psyche that can negatively affect your future relationships.
Dating should be light, playful, and respectful. You should spend that time considering what you value in a person, in the woman you want to build a family and a life with.
The problem is when you get married and keep your dating mentality.
When you get married, you’ve made a commitment. It’s not that anyone forced you to, you made that decision on your own. There are beautiful women who are not your wife, that’s true. But remember, you didn’t just choose your wife because of her looks. If you did, sorry bro, but you’re in for a rough go.
We have to make the transition away from snaring a woman to honoring a woman. We have to turn the corner and realize we’ve made the sale, now it’s up to us to show her she made the right buy.
It won’t happen overnight, but the engagement period should be helpful to you. Recognize that this mentality of consumerism is a key cause of infidelity. It all starts in your mind. So it’s best to put it down ASAP.
Be patient and give yourself some grace. But if your thoughts keep wandering, act decisively to put that evil out of your life. It will be a drag and will ruin the good that God has planned for you and your wife.
Support
We humans yearn to be connected.
We connect in person, on the phone, via text, or on the internet.
We are made to be in community.
The reason we long for community is that we need support. Life is challenging and we can’t do it on our own.
In marriage, you are the first line of support for your spouse. No matter what happens, they can always count on you. And you can count on them.
There are macro and micro ways that this support is demonstrated. You might support your spouse in a career change (macro) or you might clean up the house when they are working an overnight shift (micro).
As we’ve discussed before, we have to continue to die to ourselves in order to truly experience the joy of marriage. The more we lose ourself in love to our spouse, the more deeply and completely we can be in union with them.
Focus on the big things, but don’t forget the little things. Sometimes it’s the little things that make all the difference in the world.
Time is Your Most Precious Commodity
Of all of the resources that you have at your command, time is the most precious.
Time, once spent, can’t be unspent.
Invested wisely, it can pay you dividends in quality of life. Used poorly, and you become filled with regret.
Time does something else amazing. It is able to show you what you truly value.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went for a walk. It was a very long walk (9.4 miles). It took us almost four hours to complete!
As we were walking, I thought of all the other things that I could be doing. Since we started the walk at 1:00pm, the day would be mostly spent by the time we finished. I considered how I would evaluate my day when I slipped into bed.
Then it hit me.
This was an excellent use of my time! Not only were my wife and I working on our overall health, it provided us hours of uninterrupted quality communication. There were no distractions, except for nature. This was quality time.
The best way for you to figure out what you value is to put all of your events on a calendar. Then, after a week, review what you spent your days doing. If you don’t like what you see, change it.
It’s that simple.
Don’t waste your time doing things that don’t matter. Each day is a gift that deserves to be lived to the fullest!
Do You
Do you love your wife?
Do you love your wife more than your favorite hobby?
Do you love your wife more than your worst vice?
Do you love your wife more than your favorite possession?
Do you love your wife more than your job?
Do you love your wife more than your friends?
Do you love your wife more than your children?
Do you love your wife more than your favorite pet?
Do you love your wife more than your favorite food?
Do you love your wife more than your favorite past time?
Do you love your wife more than yourself?
Do you?
Managing Routines
One of the most difficult things that I’ve encountered in the married life is how to balance routines.
I’m talking about the time (usually in the evenings on weeknights) where you both have competing goals.
For example, I have a set number of things that I need to do each evening. I’m very task orientated in that way. I’ll only consider a day a success if I can accomplish those things. Of course, they take time.
My wife is people-oriented. She has some things that she’d like to get done, but if they don’t, it’s not a big deal.
The issue comes in when I am trying to get my things done, and she wants to do something together.
Sure, I should be flexible… but not so flexible that I neglect my goals and then miss the mark.
So I’m going to turn this one over to you.
How should I respond when my wife asks to do something with me in the evening and I know it will derail my routine?
Make Evenings Count
My job frequently results in me working evenings. It isn’t particularly fun, it is just a fact of life. Of course, I make up for my hours by starting work later in the day.
However, during the slow seasons, I’m often home around 5 (I live fairly close to the office). It is then that I have a five hour time block to do whatever I’d like.
So, each evening, I have five hours to decide what I’d like to do. Some of that time will be given to preparing, eating, and cleaning up after dinner. Other parts of that time will be dedicated to getting ready for bed and reading.
But what about the rest?
I used to be of the opinion that there “wasn’t enough time” so I’d just squander it on the internet or watching TV. After a few weeks, I came to recognize it as a relaxing part of my day. It is a necessary wind down period where you can process your day. Watching TV may be satisfying in the moment, but perhaps you want to go do something that will have longer lasting effects. I get up, exercise, go labor in the fields, and then come home to a place of refuge.
I like to spend some of the time with my wife. We both have things that we need to get done in the evening, but there is still some of those minutes that we can spend together.
Basically, I want to spend the time in a way that reflects my values. I want to have quality time with my wife, time for self-improvement, and time for finishing off my to-do list for the day.
It’s an important lesson in not neglecting evening the small periods of time that you have complete control over. Make choices that reflect what you value. Make evenings count.