The Single Life

My sister Jill and I chatted online a little last night, and she gave me some insight into the challenges of marriage and how to overcome them. She'd gotten a little frustrated last week because her husband often puts off completing his household chores for a few days. A while back, they'd sat down and discussed what needs to be done around the house and divvied everything up between them. She'd pretty much kept up on her end, but he would wait, for example, to take out the garbage till it had been overflowing for two days.

So last week, she had a few words with him about how she felt she was making more changes for the marriage than he was. He responded that he thought he'd made at least as many sacrifices and started naming them. In the conversation that ensued, they each discovered a few things. First, each was giving more to the relationship than the other had realized. Second, each had room for improvement.

It turns out that their perceptions of each others sacrifices were partially influenced by their individual priorities. He, for example, felt that taking out the garbage was a lower priority than other things he was getting done, and thus was comfortable putting it off a little. After all, said he, with the garbage can in the cupboard under the sink, it's not as if the slightly heaping trash was visible. Keeping the garbage level below the rim of the can was more important to her. She gave similar examples going both ways.

After talking it over, they both resolved to make a few changes for each other. The two keys to a good relationship that she named were the fact that their relationship was a higher priority than anything but their faithfulness to God, and in-depth communication. Nagging about the garbage wouldn't have solved anything--that was just a surface detail. Talking in depth about the bigger picture helped them to better understand and appreciate each other, and to bring their lower level priorities in line with their top priorities.