Marriage Moats-Keep Score

Published: Sat, 12/31/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

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

There is a game of equilibrium that shows up for me at Christmas. I want to predict the size and cost of every gift that comes in my direction, and send one of comparable value first. This is difficult to juggle when dealing with office mates, friends, relatives and family. Sometimes the discrepancy is small, and can be overlooked. But other times I am given a present from someone when I was not expecting it, and I wish I had a spare fruitcake in my pocket.

This year there were some quaintly well matched gifts amidst the web of offerings in which I took part. I gave my son a mug made by Zazzle. He gave me one too. My coworker made me a felt ornament. I handed one to her. There was no need for supplemental gifting, like there was the year my brother in law gave the twins exquisitely embroidered wool capes, and I gave him a rock.

I admit it was a rock, but not merely one I scraped up from the mud. I bought it in a store, and it doubled as a candle holder but still despite its hefty weight it did not score well on the what-I-give-you-equals-what-you-gave-us scale.

Marriage is an ongoing flow of exchanges. This includes acts of kindness, rescues, paychecks and wrapped gifts. The variety makes score keeping more complicated than trying to follow twelve concurrent volleyball tournaments. For instance, the toilet upstairs clogged on Christmas eve. All things plumbing fall into John's domain, for some unspoken reason that I have no interest in challenging. Somehow fixing that problem counted like a thoughtfully chosen pair of earrings under the tree, which there wasn't one of. In fact there was nothing under the tree from John. To anyone. He explained that the new roof over our heads was gift enough, and if you are talking pure numbers I must admit that he did out price the whole pile.

Watching the score is indeed tempting. It readies my mind for the expectation of what I deserve. But when two people finally learn how to give everything with a generous heart, there is no score board yet invented that can keep track of their winnings.

Photo by Jenny Stein

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