Step Seven: Show Him Some Love

Much in the same way that I need to foster a positive environment in order to encourage my husband to do things with me, part of that environment is giving Mr. E tangible reminders. Not only is this a sweet gesture, but it lets Mr. E know that he's important to me, that he's remembered throughout my day and that he's still (always) my main man.

I know that when this is done for me it certainly boosts my ego and encourages me a little further to help out in the things he needs.

There's a lot of exepctation in our society that wives are needy and husbands need to step up their game to assauge their wives, but I think this is sort of unfair. Mr. E needs to be shown on a regular basis that I'm thinking of him- partly because that's his personality, but also because hubbies have needs too!

Buy his favorite snack at the store, just 'cuz.
Leave him a love note: on the mirror, on the TV, on the bedside table- or all three!
Give him a hand massage.
Pull out his favorite movie to watch.
Make his favorite meal.

People are more likely to listen and follow what you need when you show them that they're appreciated before you ever have need of them. Mr. E knows that I give him affection more often than just when I need something from him, so he doesn't feel cornered or distrustful when those little gestures occur. Instead we've built a system of encouragement for one another through word and deed that shows that we listen and understand each other. 

Step Six: Choose Your Battles

As you may have read before, I am wholly imperfect, striving for normalcy in a world that fakes and cushions it's way to the top. I get angry easily. I have trouble accepting blame. And still my husband jumps out of bed in the morning to make the bed when I'm gone. Well...maybe he doesn't jump. And maybe it doesn't get made until five minutes before I'm home, but details, people. 

Sometimes getting your husband (or anyone, for that matter) to listen to you can be quite the battle. After all, he's imperfect too! You have to fight to be heard over the din of the first-person-shooter or the conference call or the kids. Sometimes you're fighting exhaustion or a bad day or a financial set back- and then for hubs to be reminded to do something one more time- it can be overwhelming! Just as wives have a lot on their plate (being mothers, daughters, sisters, coworkers, bosses, friends, etc) so do husbands! I know an awful lot of women who belittle what their husbands do as "less" than what they themselves do- something I see as an unfair assumption no matter how the cards stack up.

Choosing which requests or expectations are and aren't met is a critical step in marriage. We all had our starry-eyed expectations of marriage (wait, just me?) but once his and hers towels are on the rack, the movie collection tallied and the honeymoon knick-knacks start gathering dust, reality rears it's ugly head and can easily wreck all of your pretty marital dreams if you're not careful. 

You expected to cook dinner together every night? Now he just got four night shifts and 3 night classes. 

You're so frazzled from the commute to work and back it's all you can do to scarf down a PB and J sandwich. 

You thought weekends would be spent cuddling in each other's arms in newly wedded bliss? Eye appointments, birthday parties, famliy reunions and shopping trips are crammed on top of cleaning the house, trying to make the last show of your sister's play and fighting over what movie to watch.

I like to plan almost everything: happiness is crossing off my to-do list. Mr. E is a little more by the seat of his pants. Between us we get an awful lot done personally and together for the house or our relationship, but I think the majority of that is because I choose my battles carefully. Instead of loading Mr. E up on lists and steps and rules (something I would thrive on), I have to choose the things that are important to me when asking him to do something. 

I would love to come home to dishes done, bed made, laundry put away and all of his freaking shoes in the bedroom for once. On a coffee-induced binge this would be a fulfilling morning. But that's not how Mr. E works and I respect that we have different approaches to things. I know that Mr. E would get nothing done in the face of an overwhelming mound of "to-do's", so instead we communicate our priorities.

Personally, that's having the bed made (I KNOW, Mom!). I don't like sleeping in messy sheets and I love the way it looks when I drag myself through the door and kick off my shoes to find a flat, clean bed just asking to be laid down on. Having a clean counter is an added bonus, but that bed makes it for me. That bed symbolizes Mr. E crossing something off his to-do list. It symbolizes his desire to please, that he wants to make me happy in all the little ways too. It's gone as far as Mr. E realizing that he, too, has always craved a tidy bed before sleeping. 

I think this was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn in interacting with someone else- not everyone operates the same way you do. Because we may have different methods to our madness, it's easy to see something done differently is wrong, but this isn't always the case. Just because Mr. E has papers all over his desk doesn't mean he doesn't know where everything is- we're getting to the same end but with different routes.

My battle shouldn't be getting my husband to do things my way- it's choosing what's really important to me. Do I want the house clean when I come home? Sure, but that's sort of an unattainable goal, even for myself. So I'll settle for a made bed and dinner out to thaw instead of high expectations and then we'll both be pleased with the results.

Step Five: Accept Blame

This goes against every single lesson I learned in childhood. With three siblings it was much easier to play the blame game- so much so that mom always said her fifth child was "Not Me". Avoiding trouble and responsibility was like second nature- if I could get out of it, I would. If I could prove someone else might have done it, I would. But durn if that's not how marriage works.

Owning up is something I would like to go out of my way to avoid. Personally it's deeply shaming that I did something wrong and got caught for it- left the headlights on and killed the car battery? Forgot to hang Mr. E's T-shirts so they wouldn't shrink? Missed a bill deadline? Things like this happen all of the time but they also suck. I take pride in the things I do, be it chores or errands or craft projects, so to mess up or fail at something I'm working on is kind of a blow to my ego. But while my first instinct is to get annoyed and my second is to blame something else, I'm practicing my latent acceptance skills.

Just like any other skill, you have to exercise this one; allowing yourself to be at fault and accepting the responsibilities for it. 

How does this get my husband to do what I want? Because I'm setting the example for him that I expect responsibility and fairness in our relationship. That I don't get a "Get out of Jail free card" just because I was the one who made the mistake. That house rules and agreements are to be abided by equally and fairly. By making myself vulnerable and still accepting my load, I'm creating an environment of shared work and mutual respect.

I'm also refraining from blaming him. Being blamed for something you didn't do is a surefire way to feel like you're thrown against the wall, a tactic that is not only unfair but deeply threatening to someone who is supposed to be your equal. My husband has the right- as I do- to feel accepted and be treated fairly in our home. If I am able to swallow my pride and squash those nasty blaming habits of my childhood, I am better able to encourage and welcome an atmosphere of retreat. Or happiness and rainbows, whichever he prefers.

I think it's important to bow your head and swallow your pride every once in a while. You can't both be right all of the time and marriage is not a power struggle. I don't want to battle my husband to find fault in the Who Didn't Take Out the Trash scenario because my husband deserves a deeper respect than that. After all, that's part of the reason I chose to marry him.

Mr. E on How He Does What He Wants

If there is one thing I have learned about marriage is that it is much easier to be happy if you make your wife happy first. Here’s one way I do it.

Now, when it comes to bread winning, Mrs. E and I have sort of a tag team (but she has a little more endurance than I do so she spends the most time in the ring). That leaves a lot of household work for me to do, and I’m really not very good at that stuff. But when work in the film business is slow, I spend lots of time at home, so I need to pick up the slack.

On a given day, I rarely get all the things done around that house that I should. There are a LOT of dishes in the sink and maybe I don’t get all of them clean… or any of them. The floors are getting dirty, but we aren't having company over until the end of the week, so why clean them now if I’m going to have to do them again in a few days? It can wait, right? And the garage… that’s just too much organizing to do in one day.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting on the couch in my pajamas watching the soaps all day… I don’t wear pajamas and I prefer video games, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t want you to think that I’m lazy and that I don’t get anything done, I just want to let you know that sometimes there are days that you are more productive than others.

This is why I make the bed. Every day. Without fail. This is the constant that I give to my wife. So when she comes home from work and the house is messy, there’s no room to wash her hands in the sink, and the dog hasn’t been on a walk, I still have something up my sleeve. She will come into the bedroom to change and see that her place of relaxation is neat and waiting for her.

I make the bed so that when she ends her day and slips into the tightly made sheets, she will know that her husband thought of her while she was away.

Step Four: Hold Your Horses. And Your Temper. But Not That Knife.

Most husbands people avoid fights. They'll sometimes fight for you but for the most part they don't like to fight with you. 

This has been my hardest lesson in marriage so far because, ladies and gentlemen, I have a short-temper. I get annoyed by the smallest things- people won't get out of the way for me to disembark from the train, sewing teeny tiny even straight lines, even flies that are way too skilled at avoiding the fly swatter can piss me off. For the most part my anger fiercely burns for about two hours; the average play time of a feature length movie, or the time it takes for a pie to be made. 

In that time Mr. E can walk in unknowingly...or sometimes he's the cause of it because hey we're human, and it's all I can do not to lump him in with all of the other no-good-very-bad-awful things that are happening to ME. Because in my life the world revolves around me and my wants and desires and when things don't fall into place the best I can do is lash out. 

Except I can't. Because I'm not five. Or even fifteen.

My marriage is a partnership- we're equal and equivalent and all the other ways to say THE SAME. As in neither of us is more important than the other. None of our wants or hopes or goals is more important or less important because the other person has them and we don't. That's not to say that we have the same goals, but just because they're different or our methods clash doesn't mean that the other person is WRONG. Because nobody likes being told that they're wrong. Nobody likes being yelled at or having the door slammed in their face or listening to that self-important "I told you so" voice from their spouse.

One of my favorite things about my husband is how much he has taught me about patience and forgiveness and turning the other cheek. Our story is one of opposites: we fought more before we got married than we ever have after that knot was tied (literally; we did a hand-fasting ceremony). We would bicker all of the time, but I didn't mind because

a) I kind of like to fight 

and 

b) I am independent and assertive, hear me ROAR! 

and 

c) we rarely did it in person so I wasn't very inconvenienced.

But fighting face to face is extremely inconviencing. You have to face that person over and over again as you slam through the house pointedly trying to avoid the other person. All of a sudden we were playing musical rooms, each of us huffing and puffing to get our own way in 800 square feet. Nobody is winning here. Frankly, at this point, neither of us even like the game anymore.

So tactics had to change. Being at odds about one thing usually led to us being at odds about everything so Long Nights On-Set Without Checking-In turns into Never Being Able To Fold the Towels Correctly or Don't Leave the Nice Knives in the Sink. This is not conducive to getting your husband to do what you want. In fact, this isn't getting you anywhere.

I am breaking my habits and trying again (and again) to be more like my husband: reserving judgement until the situation has been explained. Keeping my cool. Trying to understand his point of view. When I reach out like this and let him know that not only am I trying to reign in my gut-reaction, but also trying to see his way of things, Mr. E is way more accommodating- partially because he has a sympathetic heart and he knows how hard that can be for me, but also because by treating him like my partner even at my most out-of-control moments he is reminded that I have crazy love and respect for him. Seriously.

To get your husband to do what you want (and enjoy doing it) you need to treat him as your equal. Sometimes that means physically swallowing the rage and bile that threatens to spew forth when you've told him for the umpteenth time to put his shoes away. So remember to  put a cork in it- he'll be more likely to help you out or listen to your side of the story if you show him self-control.

Write #fiveminutefriday

Write. For five minutes straight. One-word prompt, five minutes, no editing. I'm linking up over at Lisa-Jo Baker (aka The Gypsy Mama) where we read, write and encourage.

I write in fits and starts these days. Time seems to be slipping away from me when before I was drowning in it. It seems like it's feast or famine over here.

This is supposed to be the start of it all. This is the beginning of our real lives, our adult lives, our lives that don't revolve around school or splitting our focus on things that are more or less mandatory but holding us back from what we want to do.

And then the realization hits: I'm holding me back from what I want to do.

I want to be an employee not a temp. I want to help on movie sets and craft all of my Christmas presents for my friends and remember to take the dog for her walk everyday. I want to lose weight and I want to sleep in and I want to write like my life depends on it. I want to have kids.

But you can only pick two of these things (maybe three) and I'm taking the bits of me that are falling to pieces and sowing them in fields far and wide to see what grows. I'm working on my job like my sanity depends on it (because I think it does) and that leaves a tiny sliver of space, a crack, an opening for my words and my thoughts and my voice to thrive.

I'm writing.

Step Three: Indulge Him

This sort of seems counter-intuitive, but to get your husband to do what you want, let him do what he wants.

I think I get the most flack for this part of my relationship with Mr. E, but it's what works for us and might work for you, too! There are a lot of things about my husband that I don't quite understand (football. leveling up characters in Mass Effect 3. his affinity for drying knives) but I roll with it all because it's important to him. I'm sure I have plenty of quirks that he scratches his head at (fabric types. which pan is best for stir-fry. why he can't use my Wii remote).

The trick is that by including him in the conversation and validating his interests as just as important as my own, he's much more approachable about other subjects because he knows that his opinion is valued. 

Interpretation is important. I'm not "allowing" or "letting" my husband do anything. That implies a level of control and pants-wearing that we don't subscribe to. 

We strive to keep our lives as balanced as possible: there are things we do together but there are also things we like to do alone- even if we're in the same room as each other. There are plenty of projects or activities we would rather do as a couple, like watching a show together, or running errands, but just as often we are content to sit in the same room while he plays a game online with his brother and I sew. 

It's all a matter of perspective. Since I have my own projects that I prefer to do alone, I'm not constantly nagging Mr. E to do something with me. That way, when I need his help or would prefer his company, he doesn't feel obligated to make me happy.

By agreeing to encourage and support his hobbies, I'm ensuring support for mine as well- fair's only fair, right? I figure as long as we talk about why we want it, how we can benefit from it or why it would make us happy, then we're not side-lined with any passive-aggressive feelings.

Right? RIGHT? Maybe I haven't been married long enough. ;)