in which I pretend to know something [part III]

{image credit: The Kit and the Cub}

Third bit of marriage advice? Treasure time with your husband and don't ever take him for granted.

Women often become absorbed in a complex agenda. As a multi-tasking bunch, it is difficult for us to concentrate on only one thing at a time, because we're jugglers by nature; if we take our eye off any portion of life, even momentarily, we fear it will all fall to pieces. To continue juggling effectively, we keep five mental tracks going at once. In the middle of one conversation we're considering yet another responsibility we ought to take care of later, and the task list for the day grows ever longer, and focusing on anything but our own agenda seems impossible.

We have to keep all the balls in the air. Right?

Perhaps. But your husband is not an item on your to-do list. You can't just check off his box and hurry on to something else. That may work for a while but ultimately it proves unsatisfactory. He is a gift to you; treat him as such. If you "fail" to accomplish all of your tasks because you took time to listen to your husband or give him a backrub after a hard day or just send him an encouraging email, that's okay. Time used to love your husband is not wasted. Never feel guilty about it.

When you are a performance-oriented person, like me, this can be hard to swallow. I tend to evaluate my own worth based on what I've recently accomplished. Productive day? I'm happy. Unproductive day? I'm downcast. When I cherish a particular vision for my schedule but it gets derailed by an unplanned event (even if that event is good in itself), I can feel frustrated. As if those hours were thrown away.

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s "own" or "real" life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one's "real life" is a phantom of one’s own imagination. (C.S. Lewis)

How much more this is true when the "interruptions," rather than being unpleasant, consist of the delightful intersection of your life with your husband's. Challenge yourself to put down the laundry basket and simply be with him, enjoying it freely--whatever that happens to look like. ;)