Tonight my husband put the dinner plates in the dishwasher. He put them in facing the wrong direction. As I reached to turn the plates the other way, the correct way, it occurred to me how foolish I have been for the past twenty-four and a half years I have been married.
My husband doesn’t load the dishwasher very often because I always come behind him and rearrange what he has just done. If I could go back in time, I would never rearrange the dishes he placed in the dishwasher.
Tomorrow morning, the plates will be just as clean facing the wrong way. And there is really no right way.
After I finished loading the dishwasher tonight by myself, I went upstairs and asked Nick what is the most important advice he would give a married couple.
I won’t tell you what he thought there should be more of.
“I can’t say that. This is a family friendly blog.”
“How do you think families get started?”
Ignoring my husbands comment, I said, “The main problem in marriage is thinking there is only one way to load the dishwasher. You alienate the other dishwasher loader and end up doing it all by yourself. ”
“Yeah, that’s true,” he said, as he watched the Timberwolves play against Portland on his smart phone.
“Do you feel better about our marriage now that I’m not rearranging the plates in the dishwasher”?
“Way better.”
It only took me twenty-four and a half years to realize how I could help my husband feel better about our marriage. All those lost years where we could have been loading the dishwasher together.
Shared memories of loading dirty plates lost.
Perhaps tomorrow I will watch the Timberwolves play basketball on my smart phone and he will load the dishwasher himself.
Or maybe we can do it together and make a new memory?
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Do you rearrange the dishwasher when someone else loads it? Or what is the most important advice you would give a married couple on a family friendly blog?
Please click here to comment, or just scroll to the bottom of this story on my blog.
xo
Pamela
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