Monday, July 12, 2010

Husbands Managing Our Priorities

Today's Completing Him Challenge at Women Living Well could very well be controversial! Just so you're warned...

After you've read what Courtney has to say at the above links, come back here and I'll give my additional thoughts.

O.K. you're back! Here we go:

So, how do you feel? Mad that someone would suggest that your husband have any control over your to do list? Are you laughing with disbelief that your husband would even care?

Now that we have the therapy session out of the way... :-)

Let me just say this. When I ask my husband a question like the one Courtney suggests, he just rolls his eyes. He fully expects me to manage my own schedule (more about this in a future post). He hates to rate things. (Like the time I tried some new meals and asked him to rate them from 1 to 5, 5 being very good and 1 being "don't try this again". He wasn't impressed with my attempt to please him.)

Another time, I was so proud of myself for keeping laundry caught up and all of my cleaning, meals, dishes, etc. for ONE. WHOLE. WEEK! I asked him if he was happy that I had done better that week. He just looked at me, confused, and asked, "Better at what?" When I explained my phenomenal feat, he just shrugged. Turns out the behind laundry and piles of dishes had totally escaped his radar. I'll try to remember that next time I stress about such things.

That being said, there are a few things that I've found by trial and error (without the rated survey) that my husband makes a priority:

1. Always make sure there is clean underwear in his drawer. This can be accomplished either by doing regular laundry loads of underwear or by buying new underwear each week. If your husband has this priority, you might want to see how much of a priority sticking to a budget is for him before you make a choice.

2. Always say what you mean instead of hinting or walking around with a martyr look on your face until he guesses what is wrong. Note from me: Men are very intelligent, but they are absolutely clueless on this female game. You will lose. Every. Time.

3. Always change the dirty diapers. My man is not afraid to get dirty, cleans up blood very well in an emergency and makes many sacrifices for us, but slaying dragons is definitely a preference above wiping dirty bottoms.

4. Most of the time have a meal prepared. The reason this is not an always is that we do go out from time to time, he does cook breakfast on Saturday mornings and he has been known to pack his own lunch when morning sickness hits me hard and I can't stand the smell of onions. Or lunch meat. Or lunch bags. You get the point. The main idea is he wants to be able to eat. Can you blame him? On a side note, I also do all the shopping. This is to avoid living off of Pringles, Honey Buns and Twizzlers indefinitely. He also routinely forgets the spinach. He just doesn't see it as important some how.


5. Be home with him most of the time. Before you get all mad again, take a deep breath, and let me explain. Both my husband and I love each other. We enjoy being together. We love our kids, and enjoy being with them. Therefore, for me to run around with "the girls" every other night, really goes against our family values. Not that I never go out with friends. He just likes me with him. What is there to complain about here?

Wow! I really didn't think I could come up with five since my husband is pretty easy to please. Unless you are a rank feminist, you probably can see that I have it very easy with my husband's expectations. Which is a very good thing. Cooking simple meals, changing dirty diapers, making sure there is at least 1 pair of underwear in my husband's drawer, saying exactly what I think, spending time with my husband--I think I can handle that!

5 comments:

  1. I'm amazed at how similar your post is to mine this week! We've been married 25 years, and my husband has never had a list of priorities for me, but I have learned what he likes and try to do those things. And one of them is clean underwear in the drawer! LOL

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  2. How funny! I'll have to stop by and read yours.

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  3. New here...but realizing that my husband, unspoken as it is, seems to think the same above list is good to fallow. *smile* We have also been married 11 years. I saw that you had in a past entry. *smile* I pray you are enjoying this "challange" as I am and that your beloved and you have enjoyed a few more chats in rescent days. I actually secluded mine out in the back yard staring up at God's amazing star show one night. Nothing fancy just looking at the stars while we visited about out thoughts and enjoyed eachother. *smile* Been a while since we did that. *smile/sigh* Looking forward to getting into the hang of spending more time together when we are together. *smile* Have a great day knowing God is love. Sincerely, Mommy of two little blessings & so much more!

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  4. I L O V E this!!! I am going to use it as a basis for a SS lesson for our ladies SS class. Great stuff!

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  5. I figured I would see how he would rate the list because what I realized what I might feel as important to get done he may not even care about and if what he sees as important is at the bottom of my list then he will think I am not getting things done. Did that make sense. I actually left the list up on the computer and had him rate it in his order and things were definitely different. Now I can focus on what is important to him.

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