Marriage Moats-Chore Time

Published: Fri, 11/11/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

(If you want to hear Lori read the story click) here

I have made many confessions in this public venue. But today I will admit something rather embarrassing.

This past weekend John did more laundry, more cooking, more dishes and more shopping than I did.

These circumstances were not the result of me being struck down with a pernicious disease, or escaping to the Poconos with my friends. It is not because I sprained my ankle, or was doing other industrious projects like repapering the bathroom, which needs it since ripping off wedges is what Benjamin does when he is bored with sitting there.

In fact I doubt that John himself would have put the pieces together. He was simply doing tasks in between his ordinary weekend fare like singing with the boys and answering emails. But I sure noticed.

I tend to keep up with the kids' laundry faithfully. But I can overlook the pile accumulating in our room until there are no clean socks left. So it was perhaps in some self interest that John hauled the mountainous basket two floors down to the basement and ran four loads. But still, he did mine too.

I also have good habits of filling the dishwasher every day, and emptying it, partly because we installed a gorgeous new granite counter a few years back and I like to be able to see it. But our new dishwasher, scarcely six weeks young, is caught between its own fancy cycles and will not start. Hence my efforts to keep up have been thwarted by a snag in the system and the counter was well hidden.

Cooking has gradually morphed to a daddy thing even under normal circumstances. I, quite frankly, am getting less ambitious and tend toward scrambled eggs and microwaveable menus than I did before the onset of twins. John is the creator of vegetarian chili and Spanish omelletes. Long gone are my handmade cheesecakes, and zucchini crusted pizzas.

As for shopping, he always stops at Trader Joe's on the way back from barbershop on Sunday night, and enjoys buying fancy Irish cheddars for Chara and ice cream for the kids. It says "I love you" in a way they can taste.

What strikes me as remarkable about this turn of events is how it blasts a hole in the "Things are not equal!" stance I clung to for way too many years to count. In the first act of The Odhners I did in fact carry the lion's share of those chores. This meant I was a Worthy Person, contributing to our collective needs. John earned the big bucks. But whereas he did not begrudge the inequities of my earning power, I most certainly did resent his shortcomings at domestic duties. I was keeping score, and he was losing.

This past weekend, those shredded score sheets flew in my face. John was not lugging dirty clothes to escape my wrath, or earn Brownie points. He did it because it needed to be done. If someone had told me twenty years ago that one day such a weekend as this one would arrive as casually as the changing leaves, I would have scoffed. I was ensconced in my self righteousness and held tightly to my "I am a Responsible Parent" badge.

I am thankful to have stayed for the second act of our life's play.

Photo by Jenny Stein

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