learning is essential
Do NOT let learning get you into a place where it is being used as a bargaining chip.
The other day, I went to mow the lawn. As I was getting ready to hop on the mower, my phone buzzed. I received a message from someone asking me if mowing was going to be “my job” now. I was ready to get mowing so I put my phone in my pocket and got going with mowing the grass. I was thinking on it and I realized that often times in a relationship people don’t want to ask for help. You might be thinking obviously willow and yes, but I don’t think I realized how far it overreached. As I mowed the lawn, I had to go back and mow a few spots that I had missed. I have a lot to learn, (pray for Michael to have the strength haha🫣😂) and my husband came out. I was asking him for some tips and tricks at how to mow better. He helped me out and then sent me on my way.
That afternoon we talked about how things were going. We talked about how I always want to learn and he is always so patiently ready to teach me. Let me tell you I am not an easy student. My favorite activity is continuing whatever I am doing even when michael has said “stop” 15 times. It seems funny but the longer I am with Mike the more confident I feel that I would be able to survive on my own. He has taught me everything from how to fill up your tire with your own air compressor (which still scares me) to his file system and how he uses excel for our budget. I have met someone who is genuinely happy spending time teaching me things that would be faster to just do himself and continues to help me better me. I love that I get to learn these new tasks and I am beyond thankful we can talk and decide if it is something that I want to learn for now or if I would rather revisit it later. The way we take tasks/chores on in my family is simply by doing them. Then if we feel like something isn’t getting done we can discuss it. I have been blessed where I am in a marriage that neither of us mind doing an extra chore or more if it is to support one another.
I don’t want to get to a place in our marriage where “learning” is my bargaining chip because that is not who WE are in our marriage. This is when I understood the message from a friend on social media. I was being asked about this being “my” task because they have had experiences either in their relationships, in their friendships, in their family, and maybe in their marriage, when you learn how to do something, that means you can do it and now you are in charge of getting this task done. However, It isn’t about whether I am capable of taking the trash out or whether mike is capable of doing the laundry. The jobs or roles we take on are taken on because we want to serve one another and that is how we serve. Keep learning. Just because you spent time teaching one another something doesn’t mean that the task has to switch managers. All it does is help make you two, as a team, be better prepared for living in this world full of uncertainty.
With love,
Willow Ann
Mike & I sitting down to do our monthly budget. We use an excel spreadsheet and adjust values as we see the month going. We talk about plans/expectations/trips and all the costs to make audre we are as well prepared as possible. I e use it as a guideline. There are times where we eat out more than usual so our eating out budget is “Over” but then we ended up spending less at the grocery store so our groceries were “under” and it evens out
