Let's Look - Marriage

 

Linking up with Andrea and Erika for Let's Look today.  

The month we are looking at how we working on our marriage, I guess in honour of Valentine's Day.  

This one sort of stumped me. I couldn't think of things that we actively do to work on our marriage, which can be good or bad I suppose.  Perhaps they don't come to mind right away because we have a good marriage or maybe we should be doing more! Who knows. What I do know is that we do not get along everyday and we definitely get on each other's nerves for various things, but overall we are doing well, and I feel grateful for that.  We are in that stage of having young children where things are busy, we have different challenges everyday, and there are lots of opportunities for stress to get the better of us. 

Fortunately we balance each other out fairly well, which may not always be appreciated in the moment but in the aggregate it works out.  There are things that bother both of us, but usually only one of us is upset about it at a time, so the other one can be the voice of reason while the other one is freaking out. I guess we have a good sense of when to let some stuff go.

We know what is important to the other person in terms of getting our workouts in, tidying up the house, getting to work on time, and dealing with the kids' stuff. We try not to put any one task on the other person, and try not keep score in terms of who is doing more at any given time.  It all evens itself out in the end. 

I always say that I look after OPEX and Dave is CAPEX.  Which means Dave is in charge of Capital Expenses, such as the mortgage, home repairs, budget, investments, etc. and I am more Operating Expenses like food, kids' activities, social calendar, etc.  There is a bit of crossover, but that's the general breakdown. (I don't mean that's what we pay for, just what we manage.)

We do make a point of celebrating our wedding anniversary with a special meal and bottle of champagne.  We find time to go out for dinner, a game, or golf by ourselves, but it's not a scheduled sort of thing, it just happens organically. We have taken trips together without the kids, but at the age they are now, we really just want to travel with them instead of leaving them at home. 

We are also lucky that we have similar interests, which I suppose is partly due to the fact we have been married for more than 15 years, but we also retain our own activities and respect that.  We have the same approach to a lot of things as well, like getting up early and out the door. 

We're just grinding it out, so if you're like me and don't have an active plan for working on your marriage, know you're not alone!!

celebrate our wedding anniversary

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