Taking the Pulse

Every so often, my husband and I try to take a moment to assess how things are going as a married couple. We figure out what is working, and what we need to work harder at our marriage, because unlike the fairytales, marriage takes time, effort, energy, commitment, and *gasp* work in order to not just survive, but to thrive!

A couple weeks ago, we had one of our in-depth conversations, stemming from my having found a 5 Love Languages answer sheet from a marriage retreat we attended a few years back. If you haven’t heard of the 5 Love Languages, please check out the link – consider taking the assessment and following up on recommendations to have your love language met, and to meet the love languages of your spouse, parents, and/or children!

Coming off E not sleeping while she was sick, I was becoming overwhelmed with the amount of housework and child rearing, and lack of personal time. I told my husband in order for me to feel appreciated as a wife and mother, it would be nice for someone else to occasionally do the dishes, even though my love language is not Acts of Service. He expressed one small way he could feel more appreciated is something very simple – he likes the bed being made.

I tried, and failed, to suppress a giggle at the request of making the bed. I’ve never understood the concept of making the bed. I make it, only for the covers to become untucked again that night.

The more I thought about our late-night discussion that night, the more I started to come back to a topic I blogged about over at The Koala Mom a couple weeks back. In Showing Love & Respect in Marriage, I challenged myself to think of ways in which I show my husband I love and respect him – not as the ‘head of my household’ per se, but as the man I chose to marry and partner with throughout my adult life.

As I contemplated the simple request of making the bed, I also thought about my fallacy of it being a self-defeating battle. By my logic, I also shouldn’t be doing cooking, dishes, or laundry. Every time we cook, we eat the food, only to have to cook again; every time I do dishes, I dirty dishes, only to cook again. And, every time we wear something, we get it dirty, only to have to clean them in the laundry again. Yet, I still do all of those daily actions – albeit, grudgingly at times.

Taking the pulse on a marriage is extremely important – it lets both partners know where the other one stands, and lets both partners know what is important to the other partner at the time.

I find showing appreciation to my husband for his contribution to my marriage to be important – it forces me to take a moment to pause and recognize the man I married, as a partner and as a father. That is very important to me.

And so, I will make the bed – only to see it unmake itself again overnight.

**Thank you to Google and Aliexpress.com for a beautiful picture of a master bedroom set!**