Many years ago, when the kids were in grade school and I
worked full-time, I complained bitterly that my husband was not helping enough
around the house. I would hint and ask,
ask and hint. Nothing. He wasn’t just naturally going to help
out. I didn’t think I should have to
ask. Couldn’t he see that things needed
to be picked up? Couldn’t he see the
dust on every surface?
The fact that he was working 12-hour rotating shifts, his
usual excuse, was to me pretty lame. I
was working full-time, too, you know.
At that time, I worked for our local mental health center as
a secretary. I was complaining to a
co-worker, a counselor, that David was not helping out. And when he finally did, he didn’t do it
right.
Take the dishwasher, for example. He loaded it all wrong. He put the plastic stuff on the bottom where
it would most certainly warp, he threw the silverware in its basket all mixed
up and partially upside down, and he did not rinse things off before he loaded
them into the dishwasher.
My co-worker/counselor listened to all this very seriously
and then said, “If you don’t let him do it his way, you’ll be doing it for the
rest of your life.”
Whoa! I had an immediate attitude adjustment. I had a vision of me forever loading the
dishwasher, one hand rubbing my aching back.
Suddenly it didn’t matter how it was done. Suddenly I realized that this was a matter of
control, not dishwasher-loading style.
I practically ran in the door that afternoon and
breathlessly told David that he could load the dishwasher any old way he wanted
to.
He gave me that look that says, “What are you talking about?”
So I went on and told him that his style was fine, do it any way you
want to, blah, blah, blah. I was
overcompensating just a little, I suppose, but I wanted to be sure he
understood that I was allowing him to share the joy of dealing with dirty
dishes.
He finally, out of self-defense, said, “Okay.”
And thus it has been evermore…
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| By the way, today (June 12) is our 43rd anniversary... |
