Month 2: Remember Love

I've just realized July is over and I haven't even blogged about month 2: Remember Love.  This month it's all about the marriage.  This was probably a really good time for this chapter to come along.  Timmy and I are in our eighth year of marriage, and we could use a little push to remember who we were when we first fell in love.

There is a lot in the chapter I did not relate to, but that's not to say I didn't take anything away from reading this chapter.  I just had to take the stories and situations and relate them to my life. 

Chapter 2 Remember Love:

• Quit nagging.
• Don't expect praise or appreciation.
• Fight right.
• No dumping.
• Give proofs of love.

I have decide I will not write about specifics my relationship with Timmy here. It's not the place to divulge that information.  So, sorry to all of you that wanted the juicy details, you won't find them here.  Besides this is MY happiness project, so this is all about me. :)

QUIT NAGGING

I never thought I was much of a nagger.  I think I was wrong.  I realized it when I read...

"I think that an adult should be able to decide whether or not to wear a sweater with out interference from others."

LIGHT BULB!  This "it's for your own good" variety of nagging is me.  I want Timmy to be the best that he can be and for me it's mild suggestions on how to better himself, but he might see it as something negative. 

"The most obvious (and lest appealing) anti nagging technique, of course, was to do the task myself."

Let's face it, if I don't do it myself, it won't be done right.  Which is not really true, it's just not done the way I would have done it.  I should be grateful for anything Timmy does to help me out no matter what form it comes in.  I need to try to be more observant and appreciative of all the tasks that Timmy does for us.  I am certainly guilty of  "unconscious over claiming," the phenomenon in which we unconsciously overestimate our contributions or skills relative to other people.

DON'T EXPECT PRAISE OR APPRECIATION

I think everyone likes to have the things they do not to go un-noticed.  I know I appreciate when Timmy recognizes that there is a lot I do for us and for our household, but sometimes I wonder if he knows, or even cares, how much time and consideration I put into our household.  This little quote is my bottom line on this topic.

"I'm doing this for myself.  This is what I want." I wanted to send out Valentine's cards.  I wanted to clean out the kitchen cabinets.  This sounded selfish, but in fact, it was less selfish, because it meant I wasn't nagging to get a gold start from Jamie or anyone else.  No one else had to notice what I'd done."

FIGHT RIGHT
Fighting is to personal to blog about, but I'll put in my favorite quotes.  Make up your own stories on how you think this relates to us.  :)

Lesson learned? By laughing along with him, I'd made Jamie think that snoring was a good subject for a joke.  I tried to be light, but I couldn't; I wish I could always laugh at myself easily, but in some situations, I can't, and I should have responded honestly, so I could avoid and eventual blowup.  Jamie had had no warning that his comment was going to enrage me.  SO much for "fight right." This time, I hadn't managed to keep my resolution - I could even bring myself to apologize, I just wanted to forget about it - but next time, I'd do better (I hoped).

It takes at lease 5 positive marital actions to offset one critical or destructive action, so one way to strengthen a marriage is to make sure that the positive far outweighs the negative. 

NO DUMPING
This I found pretty interesting...

There is a difference in how men and women approach intimacy.  Although men and women agree that sharing activities are important, a women's idea of an intimate moment is a face-to-face conversation, while men feel close when they work or play sitting alongside someone. Because men have this low standard for what qualifies as intimacy, both men and women find relationships with women to be more intimate and enjoyable than those with men.  Women have more feelings for empathy for other people than men do (though women and men have about the same degree of empathy for animals, whatever that means.)  In fact, for both men and women the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women.  Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.

This is why I get so frustrated when Timmy doesn't want to have long conversations.  When I need to vent I call up Angie, or my mom.  I don't believe Timmy understands venting (or dumping) so I don't bother him with it.  I don't know if it's something he would even be interested in hearing about, so I just don't and I give him the readers digest version afterwards. He doesn't want to spend hours over wine trying to pump up my self confidence.  That's a job for Angie (THANKS ANG)!

GIVE PROOFS OF LOVE

"There is not love; there are only proofs of love." - Pierre Reverdy

Over and over again this chapter reminded me of a book Timmy's pastor gave to us for a wedding gift, Fall in Love, Stay in Love by Willard F. Jr. Harley.  In the book Harley talks about love banks and making deposits of love in the other's bank.  When you take a deposit out (nagging, yelling, argument, etc.) you had to make sure you created a loving deposit to make up the deficit (hugs, sorry's, kind gestures, etc.)

To often I focus on the things that annoy me: postponing scheduling decisions; not answering my texts, emails, phone calls; I feel he doesn't fully appreciate what I do to make our lives run smoothly.  Instead I should remember all the things I love about him.  He's kind, funny, brilliant, thoughtful, loving, sweet, a good puppy daddy, good son, and son in law, creative, hardworking, a trooper, athletic.  He kisses me and says "I love you," every time we part and before we fall asleep, he comes to my side at parties and puts his arm around me, he rarely show irritation or criticizes me.  AND SO MUCH MORE!   I'm so lucky.

All in all to be happy, I need to generate more positive emotions, so that I increase the amount of joy, pleasure, enthusiasm, gratitude, intimacy, and friendship in my life.  That's not hard to understand.  I also need to remove sources of bad feelings, so that I suffer less guilt, remorse, shame, anger, envy, boredom and irritation.

"Is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth.  We are happy we we are growing" - William Butler Yeats