margin in marriage

Rory and I had a difficult December. Just a repeated scenario of me thinking it was time for him to take over and him thinking he had a job and a farm to tend to. It all came to a head the weekend of Christmas and things I thought had been communicated had not been heard and we both were looking at the other with a "pull it together" attitude.

Rory suggested we go back to the counselors we had seen a few years ago. I agreed.

But then, the day after Christmas, I was rocking Alden and I had this sweet, unemotional, moment of clarity. I saw the issues clearly. Sunday mornings was a trigger for us. It's a lot of work getting everyone up and out the door, and during all of December I never heard a sermon. But I was there. I just was either walking the hall with a drippy-nose Hattie, teaching Sunday school or nursing Alden. I left each Sunday morning in a sorry-for-myself sour mood and aimed the whole of that frustration at Rory. Which made him incredibly defensive, wondering how he was supposed to read my mind.

So I put Alden down, got a piece of paper and wrote out each offense, his side, my side. I honed in on Sunday mornings and wrote down what I know about Rory. He is dependable. He wants to do right by me. He works so hard for our family. He wants me to feel supported and does, in fact, support me in a hundred ways. I was hung up on the few instances that things didn't go according to plan.

Anyway. I called him up to the bedroom. I read out each situation and explained (in writing) how we were in that tricky season of no margin. If he says he'll be in at 5:00, I start watching the clock at 4:37. And 4:54. And 4:59. If he's a little late, I have grace for that. 5:03 is fine. 5:05 I can muster up understanding. 5:06 and I am done. I've had it. He's late. And I turn on a dime in that moment into a frustrated, resentful, tired, hungry woman who will now let this moment ruin the rest of the evening.

We talked about how little grace and understanding we have for each other. And we talked about needing a neutral time to bring up grievances.

And then it hit us. We need to bring back the Family Meeting.  And what is crazy about that fact is that we created the Family Meeting, at this exact no-margin season when Ivar and Elsie were Hattie and Alden's ages. In fact, the issue at hand was the very issue we worked through four years ago in our marriage counseling!

So because of this schnazzy blog, which is basically my personal journal, I was able to look up the agenda that we had created to deal with these issues: menu planning, talking through the next week's calendar, lining up babysitters so we can get out once every two weeks. It was all there. We had some serious breakthrough four years ago. And now we were tapping into all of it again. And not only that, but we felt validated that this simply is a hairy season. But we have the history to know that it is, in fact, just a season.

I wanted to link back to that post in case you, too, are in a season that needs some family organization.

What a great blog!
Good stuff, joyfullybecca.com. Good stuff.