Tag: children

Married Mondays – Old School

Over the past few weeks, I know that I have repeatedly, wrote about shutting off your devices and spending good old fashioned quality time with your spouse and loved ones.  This week I want to step past just talking about things to do with your spouse and hit on things to do as a family.

As we get further into the holiday season, take time to focus on what truly matters most.  Many of us just finished up Thanksgiving, and still have days worth of left overs.  Many of us went out for Black Friday sales on Thursday and through the weekend, and many more of us will be spending time going through all of the Cyber Monday/Cyber Week deals.  These aren’t the things that matter.  What truly matters is looking at what you can do as a family to touch those around you.  Maybe, as a family, you can start a tradition of doing Operation Christmas Child(a little late for this one now,) Angel Tree, Toys for Tots, or working with one of the many other charities out there.  As a family we have made it a point to do something every year.  For less than you would spend on junk that you don’t need, you can use that on someone else.  We tend to fill our lives with stuff, and we retreat to our STUFF to make us Happy, but then we just need the newest thing, or the thing that is better than someone else’s.  And we get stuck in a cycle of want.  Let’s put it in perspective, the phone that many of you are reading this on, will cost you over $600 ($10-30/month at a time.)  If you feel that you can use that same phone for a year longer, what could you do for someone else, for another family, for someone in another county.  As a family take a moment to do something for someone else.  We are now a global community, from your house in the US, you can with a simple click, buy chickens for a family in another country.

This week’s title I took from the book my daughter is reading right now Diary of A Wimpy Kid : Old School.  It has taken her a little while to understand what it is really about.  From what I have seen of it so far is one of the things that I have been touching on over the past few weeks.  Stepping away from technology, actually communicating with words from your mouth, and enjoying what is around you.  Enjoying the outdoors, enjoying company, enjoying each other.

For our marriages and for our families, shutting down the electronics, and spending time playing, using your imagination, talking, and being present changes everything.  The past couple weeks, my wife and I have had the chance to just chill at the house after the munchkin has gone to bed.  It has been awesome to unplug, not watch a show or anything, but spend time together with the Christmas tree on.  We have been able to take this little bit of time to catch up with each other, and put into practice what I’ve been writing these past few weeks.

Also as we get further into the holiday season, I encourage you to make sure that you are taking time out as a couple and as a family, to refocus and rebalance your needs and wants.  Focus on the things that you can do together as a couple and/or as a family, that don’t involve the TV, computer, or game system.  Pull out an old board game, do something that requires imagination, and give them your full attention.  The worries of tomorrow can wait until tomorrow.  Don’t make you family, your spouse, your loved ones, compete for your attention. Go Old School, shut down and have family time.

by corymcglone

Married Mondays — Communication is Key

communication

[kuh-myoo-ni-key-shuh n]
noun
1.the act or process of communicating; fact of being communicated.
2.the imparting orinterchangeof thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs.
3.something imparted, interchanged, or transmitted.

hearing

 [heer-ing]
noun
1.the faculty or sense by which sound is perceived.
2.the act of perceiving sound.

listen

[lis–uh n]
verb (used without object)
1.to give attention with the ear; attend closely for the purpose of hearing; give ear.
2.to pay attention; heed; obey
This week, I wanted to touch on something that I have been hinting out the past couple weeks.  One of the things that I feel give my wife and I a successful marriage is that we communicate with each other.  Communication, true communication is back and forth.  It is listening, and then responding.  You cannot respond properly if you haven’t listened to everything that is being said.
Now let’s be honest, the women in our lives will use words that we don’t understand and will say things in ways that we have to really pay attention.  Listen to her words, watch her actions, listen to her voice.  Does this look ok? and Does this LOOK ok? and How do I look? are not the same question, and an answer with the word fine, does not mean the same either.  It comes down to knowing the question that was asked versus the question you think was asked.  My wife had a co-worker at one time that would always answer that they thought they heard in the most intellectual way possible.  A simple question about the time could turn into a story about Swiss watch makers, and 15 minutes later you still didn’t know what time it was.
It comes down also to sometimes she is just going to need you to listen.  Sometimes you just need your spouse to listen to you.  I have always struggled with trying to find the answer or resolution half way through the story.  I’m planning my response not as a rebuttal to conversation, but as a way to work something out.  Guys STOP do this.  There are going to be things that we can’t fix.  There are going to be things that are going out that you don’t want a certain level of detail on.  When you are there as the ear to listen, the hand to hold, and the shoulder to support, sometimes that is all they need.  They don’t always need you to fix it.  Be there, be present, be a listener.  Some times they do want you to take action, just not always right then.
The other factor into all of this is vocabulary.  I included the definition of the work hear as well as listen, but I’ve been very careful not to use hear in this.  Hearing is only receiving the sounds, we hear the keys of the keyboard, we hear cars outside, we hear someone at the door.  We listen to music, we listen to our children, families, and spouses.  You also know over time what the proper vocabulary is for whatever mood you are both in.  As time goes on you learn when to just shut up and let them vent or stew.  Just make sure that you are there for all parts of the communication process.
Take this week, and again as I have said before, put the phone away, put down the game controller, put the computer away, wrap your arms around your loved one.  Ask them about their day, and be truly interested.
by corymcglone

Married Mondays — The Elusive Mythical Date Night

Hey everyone and Happy Monday.  This week I want to talk about the elusive date night.  Let’s face it, life comes along and date nights get few and far between once you get married.  Now I don’t want this to be discouraging so just stay with me through this first part…

  1. The initial dating phaseonline-dating-header2
    1. You are on your best behavior, ALL of the time.
    2. You are still getting to know each other.
    3. You are spending time just the two of you
    4. You are spending time with friends
    5. You fall madly in love.
    6. You talk about everything and nothing for hours
  2. Engagementproposal
    1. You are in love and don’t care who knows it.
    2. You know and learn more about each other
    3. You go on private romantic dates
    4. You talk mainly about the upcoming wedding
    5. You unintentionally alienate your, not as close friends
  3. The Honeymoon Phase (The first year(s) of Marriage)Just Married
    1. You are involved with yourselves
    2. You spend hours upon hours talking about how much you love each other.
    3. You have a few close Friends that you still get together with
    4. You go out as much as possible at least a couple of times per week.
    5. You love each other and those around you are close to sick of hearing about it.
  4. The Career PhaseCouch couple
    1. You are both working hard on your careers trying to get things in line for a family.
    2. You go out when you can.  Usually just on the weekends
    3. You catch up with your friends if you can, but you don’t make as much effort
    4. You still spend as much time as you can with each other, but occasionally work gets in the way.
    5. Long nights of talking turn into binge watching shows while you finish up extra work or browse Facebook, or read some blog.
  5. The Family PhaseA-family-watching-TV-006
    1. Kids are now in the picture or on the way or both
    2. Life has gotten crazy.  Days, weeks, months, move faster
    3. You go out sometimes maybe.
    4. The big outing as a couple is a trip to the grocery store without the kid(s)
    5. You take the few hours that you have of grown up time to catch up on shows, reading, and to catch up with each other.

I could go on with lists but I won’t you all get the picture.

Where do you find yourself in this list?  It doesn’t matter where you find yourself, eventually you will hit one part of these lists or another.  This happened with my wife and I.  We realized one day that we hadn’t really done anything for ourselves for a while.  We started making sure that we at least got a weekend just us every few months.  You have to spend time working on your marriage.  It doesn’t matter how strong of a marriage you believe that you have, if you aren’t continually working on keeping in touch with the person in your bed at night, you’re not on the right track.

I fully understand how busy life can get.  Face it you have 3-4 hours of family time each day, you have 1-3 hours of spouse time, and 16 hours things to do after you’re 8 hour work day.  It seems impossible to make time for it all.  It takes A LOT of effort.  But anything worth anything isn’t easy.  It wasn’t easy at the start of the relationship getting to know each other, but you found time for each other.  Now that you’ve been together 2, 3, 7, 10, 20 years, are you still willing to put in the same time and effort?  I hope so.  Yes, dates are going to become few and far between once you have kids.  Make the effort to go out, by yourselves, start with once a month.  Go to a nice grown folks dinner, go out to a movie with real people as the actors, and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT go grocery shopping.  Any date that ends in the Wal-Mart/Kroger/(Insert Local Store here), is not a date.

And this if for the men reading this, make the effort.  Surprise her, do something you wouldn’t normally do.  She has dropped hints, at some point recently about something she would like to do, make it happen.  We are men, we are doers, even when you fail, if your plan is so jacked up, it will give you something to look back on and laugh about. To the women reading this.  We are men, we are doers, we are literal.  We are not going to pick up on the hints that you are dropping in small doses.  We need direction.  Don’t mention something 4 years ago in the middle of doing dishes after that one meal that we had, and expect us to remember in intimate detail.  We are going to let you down when we plan a date.  Sometimes we will knock it out of the park, but we will try.

Not every date has to be epic.  But you need to ensure that you are taking time for yourselves.  Go out for coffee and just sit and enjoy being with each other again.  Pick one thing that you used to do when you were dating, or engaged, or newly married and go do that. Take time to remember those things that you used to do before life got in the way.  Maybe your favorite date memories were riding around in the car talking with no real place to go, maybe you loved going out for coffee and desserts and reading a book together.  No matter what it was that brought you closer together and built that love that you have that used to drive everyone around you crazy when you were starry-eyed lovers, do the best that you can to go to that point again.

If you don’t know by now, my challenge for you this week – Go on a date.  Spend time together, as just a couple, catch up on each others lives even if it’s only for an extra couple of hours that you get together.

by corymcglone