I read a person’s question on one of my favorite websites..www.circleofmoms.com. The woman asked how we find time to read, and her husband made a comment that stated that she wouldn’t have time to read for herself for awhile again any time soon. It made me want to get on my “preachy band wagon.”
Let me first say that my marriage isn’t perfect, but we have done a lot of growing over the past five years and we continue to do so.
One of the issues that we had to grow on together was finding a way to juggle everything and still find time for ourselves. We are both people who like to have “OUR ALONE” time. We like to be able to focus totally on what we like to do without having to worry about offending someone else or having to worry about being interrupted. However, we are also both people who LOVE to spend time together doing things and literally will go through a form of withdrawal if we don’t get to spend time together like we want.
Now…here’s the tricky part…when we both work and still have to manage the household and the kids and also go to college full time (yes, we’re both in college full time right now.) Not to mention, my motehr-in-law lives less than 200 ft away, and anyone who lives in this type of situation, knows how much a mother calls on her dear son to help her so many little things throughout a day! When I was working, I’d literally take one whole day to focus on getting all of my homework done. I’d take the other day off to spend at least half of the day entertaining the kids so that my hubby could have time to do his thing. However, that was leaving me little time to do my own thing!! So, I had to get creative….my husband is a typical male and loves sex. So, I decided to use my God given talents to get some more cooperation from him to give ME time to do my own thing!! Trust me, when you focus on taking care of someone else to the best of your abilities, it does come back ten fold. I told him flat out, how can I be in the MOOD when he wasn’t helping with the kids or housework…I also stressed that I needed some time to unwind just like he gets. It is amazing how quickly he pitched in to help with the kids and housework. To this day, he will still jump in and help. Granted, since I’m not working, he doesn’t have to do it as often. However, our house doesn’t look that grand because I physically can’t keep up with it due to the baby kicking my tail end. However, he doesn’t complain about it, I do it enough for everyone!! I do declare once I’m able, I’m going to do WINTER cleaning.
The point is, that sometimes in order to get something you want, you need to focus on what other’s involved in the equation want more for a period of time. Once they see you willing to give more; they sometimes give twice as much. Now there are some very selfish people in this world and that won’t work, but in those cases, I’ve learned that if you withhold things from them and make them work extra hard for anything from you, that they soon learn that you can’t be walked all over. You teach others how to treat you!! I didn’t realize how true that was until I had to put that into practice. I have learned that I’m not getting appreciated like I feel I should, I’ll go on strike. My family doesn’t let me stay on strike long. 🙂 However, I have to be careful, because my husband is good at giving back what he receives. (Of course, that’s one of the things I love about him!!)
It’s all about finding a compromise that you can both live with. Life is definitely a juggling act, and determining what is truly really more important…a clean house or your sanity because you got to do something that you enjoy doing?? When it gets down to it, our kids or family or those around us, aren’t going to remember how our house was, but they will remember how you made them feel. If your happy, then that will come out in how you treat others!!! My mom was a fantic about having a clean house, but since she was, my kids were not allowed to play around here. They remember her as the woman who made them sit quietly the entire time they were around her.
