Marriage is a mutual support network. As you take your vows, words reinforcing that come your way: “Love and cherish” “Through sickness and health.”
You kinda understand the point at the time, but not really. You haven’t lived it yet.
So, yes, you back your spouse up over the years. You do your best to care for the other person and split duties as best you can, but that still doesn’t drive the lesson fully home.
As our three kids left home for college and jobs, my wife and I rediscovered many things about “our” relationship, most of them good. Raising kids frequently puts the focus on their lives and making sure you prepare them as best you can to be productive human beings in this wild and crazy world we inhabit. Even with great parenting, that’s probably not completely possible.
One of the things that becomes more apparent to us at this stage of life is the mutual support of each other. On simple days, that’s just a recognition of our division of duties around the house or in the yard. On more complex days, that delves into our emotional and psychological well-being and offering an ear to the other, voicing perspective. Sometimes it just means being there for the other person. That provides comfort and companionship.
The genesis for this column, amusingly enough, came from a ritual we’ve developed fairly recently. It isn’t something that occurs every day. But it does encompass recognition we both have of each other where the other person needs help and we provide it. Mutual support.
Debbie is athletic. She works out regularly. She spends a lot of time doing much of our yard work, planting, moving, lifting, digging, cutting, trimming, using power tools. As you might imagine, she is often extremely sore because those are muscles we don’t always use and when we do, we aggravate them.
She requires assistance afterwards. I provide that. I Kinesio tape the painful parts of her body. It’s the least I can do. It makes me feel productive and useful knowing I’ve helped her out, and the tape does provide extra support to heal her aches and pains.
In return, she clips away at skin between toes on my right foot where I had a painful blister and maddening soreness for months. Bit by bit, every five or six days, she gets out the clippers and digs out the pieces of skin contributing to the pain. It gets better every day as the sore spot shrinks under her expert medical technique.
You may find those two examples amusing. You may have similar ones in your own marriage, like cutting their hair during the coronavirus, even if it’s a bad haircut. Or you may find yourself playing amateur psychologist during this time of isolation to give your partner just the little bit of sanity that prevents them raging uncontrollably (a severe concern these days).
Regardless, over the years we develop mutual support probably never envisioned during those initial marital vows. We learn mutual support. We learn to give and do it in new ways over and over.
The marriage grows. Our self-awareness increases. When done well, we become better individuals and as a collective unit.
You kinda understand the point at the time, but not really. You haven’t lived it yet.
So, yes, you back your spouse up over the years. You do your best to care for the other person and split duties as best you can, but that still doesn’t drive the lesson fully home.
As our three kids left home for college and jobs, my wife and I rediscovered many things about “our” relationship, most of them good. Raising kids frequently puts the focus on their lives and making sure you prepare them as best you can to be productive human beings in this wild and crazy world we inhabit. Even with great parenting, that’s probably not completely possible.
One of the things that becomes more apparent to us at this stage of life is the mutual support of each other. On simple days, that’s just a recognition of our division of duties around the house or in the yard. On more complex days, that delves into our emotional and psychological well-being and offering an ear to the other, voicing perspective. Sometimes it just means being there for the other person. That provides comfort and companionship.
The genesis for this column, amusingly enough, came from a ritual we’ve developed fairly recently. It isn’t something that occurs every day. But it does encompass recognition we both have of each other where the other person needs help and we provide it. Mutual support.
Debbie is athletic. She works out regularly. She spends a lot of time doing much of our yard work, planting, moving, lifting, digging, cutting, trimming, using power tools. As you might imagine, she is often extremely sore because those are muscles we don’t always use and when we do, we aggravate them.
She requires assistance afterwards. I provide that. I Kinesio tape the painful parts of her body. It’s the least I can do. It makes me feel productive and useful knowing I’ve helped her out, and the tape does provide extra support to heal her aches and pains.
In return, she clips away at skin between toes on my right foot where I had a painful blister and maddening soreness for months. Bit by bit, every five or six days, she gets out the clippers and digs out the pieces of skin contributing to the pain. It gets better every day as the sore spot shrinks under her expert medical technique.
You may find those two examples amusing. You may have similar ones in your own marriage, like cutting their hair during the coronavirus, even if it’s a bad haircut. Or you may find yourself playing amateur psychologist during this time of isolation to give your partner just the little bit of sanity that prevents them raging uncontrollably (a severe concern these days).
Regardless, over the years we develop mutual support probably never envisioned during those initial marital vows. We learn mutual support. We learn to give and do it in new ways over and over.
The marriage grows. Our self-awareness increases. When done well, we become better individuals and as a collective unit.