Got Your Back

Right now, as we speak (so to speak), I am not washing off the patio chairs. Yes, I know we're well into June, but in Utah, it just barely got warm. In fact, in today's paper was an article officially stating that we had the coldest May in 57 years.

I was amazed when I got the patio swept off and cleaned up in the hour I had before picking up the children from school. While on a roll, I planned to set out all twenty patio chairs and spray them down. I imagined my newly-released-for-summer children blissfully wiping down the chairs after I hosed them (wearing my fifties pearls and nylon stockings, I suppose).

It didn't turn out that way.

My husband, who had been working in the front yard the whole time I was sweeping up the patio, came around after I had set out half the chairs on the lawn, and told the kids to pick them up. What he was doing--spreading seed, fertilizer, and dirt on the lawns--was going to take precedence over what I was doing.

As sometimes happens, I think what I am doing is more important than what he is doing, and he thinks what he is doing is more important than what I am doing. But we've learned through trial and error and error and trial not to fight about it.

So I came in and good-naturedly plunged into the dirty work of reading the newspapers I hadn't gotten to and doing the Sudoku puzzles so the papers could be thrown away.

But it put me in mind of today's topic, which is marital teamwork. Not that I'm an expert on that subject, but, in several years of marriage, I have learned a thing. So now, while my husband sweats in the sun, I am doing the hard work of posting my next article.

Recently, two of our children had birthdays. Our son chose to have a birthday cake that would look like a computer motherboard. We had done one in the past, when our oldest was first becoming entrenched in the computer world. (My nephew had promptly informed us then that we had decorated the cake with candy and frosting in such a manner that a motherboard would NEVER be hooked up, so this time Paul did some research.) Our daughter chose to have a Little Mermaid cake, for which we already had a pan.

Paul, the number one family cook, decorated them.

While I did two loads of dishes by hand and made the dinner. (I had also baked the cakes and made the frosting.)

Paul posted pictures of the cakes on Facebook. They were truly amazing looking. He got a lot of compliments, including from me. Also my appreciation.

Somehow, no one mentioned that the cakes looked delicious, which they were. Which was my part. Part of my part.

But that's how it goes.

Together, Paul and I have put on sixty-six birthday parties for our children. By now, we are truly a team. Paul is better at cooking, wrapping presents, and decorating the cakes than I am. So, as time allows, he usually does more of those things. I usually do more of the cleaning, planning, and baking. Together, we shop and decide how we will divide up the work. In this, we are flexible, depending on what is going on. As we work, we often feel a real spirit of teamwork building that is very fulfilling.

We pull off the party together. Whatever went right--we'd both contributed to it. Whatever wasn't so great we'd both left undone, sometimes by mutual agreement, sometimes by simply running out of time. We improvise together. We're getting good at it.

This past weekend, another daughter needed a costume for a play. Paul had ideas for the hat/crown that I could not even comprehend as he described them. I know he would have been lost trying to sew a tunic. He did his part, and I did my part. At the end of the day (literally), the costume was complete. I could not have done what he did; he could not have done what I did. We both appreciate each other's contribution.

In some ways, we are quite a traditional couple. In others, we're not. This is what I believe about marriage--the husband and wife need not be forced into fixed roles; they should figure out between them how things work out best and do accordingly. Their work as the joint heads of the family is both of their work.

If I cannot deal with mold without having PTSD symptoms of recurrent visions and anxiety about it for hours afterward, it becomes Paul's job to deal with it. (Which hopefully means more than he just dumps it out and leaves the dish for me to deal with.) If there's something that Paul has trouble doing, I often step up to do it.

We both earn money. We both take care of the children. We both cook, although Paul does the majority of that because it is his favorite way to contribute. We both clean, although I do the majority of that. Without spelling it out, over the years the laundry has evolved into my job; grocery shopping has evolved into his. He does more yard work. I do more planning. We both do dishes. (Of course, he does them his way, and I do them my way. Because we're both right.)

We have learned to not keep score, but to each do what we reasonably can and appreciate our partner for what she or he does. This goes a long way toward marital happiness. We both expect each other to contribute. But we also are able to give each other a break, cut some slack, when needed.

My dad used to say that each partner cannot give 50% to the marriage, or it will fail. Each partner has to give 100% of all she and he can.

When our daughter's birthday party started, Paul was still decorating the Ariel cake. This isn't how we had planned it to happen, but I rounded up the kids and took them to the family room and started the party. He joined us as soon as he could. While he was leading a game, I sneaked upstairs and set the table. It's so much nicer to have a feeling of, "Wow! Thanks for doing that!" than "I did this much and you only did so much."

We've got each other's backs, as well as our own. It feels a whole lot better than the alternative.