Step Nineteen: Politeness Isn't Just for Strangers

I know that I can often fall into a rut: my day is long and busy and there's only so many decisions I can make at work before I'm tapped out. When I get home, it's all I can do to fall into the couch and eat a spoonful of peanut butter. At this point I may not be in the best of moods.

It's here that I need to be most careful! My husband is, in a lot of ways, like a coworker- he deserves my respect and attention despite the fact that some days he may drive me batty. It's important to our relationship that I don't take advantage of the fact that he's stuck with me until the end of our days and then some. Just like I may have to put on a polite face for people in the office, I sometimes have to pull it out for my hubs.

Mr. E and I are pretty comfortable around each other, but that doesn't give us any leeway to stop treating each other like civil human beings. I think it's important to keep politeness- not to be confused with a polite distance- in the marriage. One of the reasons we adopted our Ripley was because we would come home and flop on the couch- no rhyme or reason to our nights or weekends and we weren't particularly motivated to do anything. Getting a dog changed that for the better- all of a sudden there's someone else whose needs need to be seen to: she has to go out, she has to be fed, she has to be exercised. Thank goodness we pushed ourselves out of comfortable stability (and a permanent seat-print on the cushion)- we're now better motivated to get things done than we were before.

The same idea applies to treating your spouse politely- despite how long you've known each other, despite the inside jokes and behind-closed-doors shenanigans, you still have to deal with each other every single day. Try to keep those "please"s and "thank you"s around.