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The driver's side window of my 11-year old vehicle no longer goes up properly, kind of cocking diagonally in the window frame if I don't assist it, like an elderly person crossing the street a little off-kilter, without someone steering a bit. I have to perform some quirky moves to push the window into place while pulling the lever that runs the motor to elevate the glass.
I have avoided using drive-through anything over the past two years because of this new feature in my old car.
Sometimes, avoiding a slightly annoying issue makes sense. Not paying attention to it, not giving it a life of its own, not making a mountain out of a mole hill. I can live with my car window in its current state of working. Sure, toll booths will come into my life, and the occasional Wendy's hamburger will pass through that very window, but it doesn't affect the function enough to make any bigger changes right now. It works with my help. It poses a slight inconvenience, no more than that.
Parts of our marriages -- including one or both of the people -- may work like my driver's side window. They do what they need to do. They have a quirk (or seven), but that ranks as a slight annoyance that doesn't affect the overall performance.
A husband who likes to have the light switches in a certain position at the top and bottom of the stairs doesn't need fixing. His habit of setting up the switches several times during the week annoys, but does not change the workings of the marriage, or of the lighting. The habit grates on the wife's nerves, but she must know that he does not do this to irritate her, he likes to have the switches run in a standard "on" and "off" position. He expects no one else to attend to these multi-weekly adjustments, he owns the quirk.
A wife likes to fill the dishwasher to capacity before running it. She requests that family members place used dishes inside the washer, but does not ask that they follow her unique pattern of loading it. During the day, she may rearrange items to fit in a way that makes more space for others during the remainder of the day. When evening rolls around, she makes a final adjustment, adds anything else that will fit and starts running a wash cycle. No one else enters the equation and she does not ask for anyone else to change his way of loading the washer.
I may or may not know this couple.
Maybe your husband quotes movie lines as you watch a favorite DVD together. Maybe he quotes lines whenever something ... anything ... reminds him of a movie, during any waking moment.
Does your husband toss clothing toward the hamper, sometimes hit it and not retrieve the missed shots?
Perhaps your husband leaves "his stuff" in a couple of places in the house, like personal mail or paperwork that needs to go "somewhere". He chooses the corner of the mantel in the living room as his staging area
You, of course, can't claim quirk-free-ness. No way, and I don't even know you that well.
You may scream at the sight of a spider, no matter the size. You want your husband to vanquish thine enemy and make it quick. You don't kill spiders.
Maybe you have a habit of waiting to do dishes until you have a sink full of them, rather than doing them every day.
You might work on lots of projects at once, but don't finish any of them in a timely way. You know they will get done, but have no estimate to give as to when.
We all have quirks. What makes the difference is knowing they don't happen specifically to annoy, but they do happen, nonetheless.
Quirks does not make or break a marriage. How we view the other person's small habits makes the difference. We can learn to love them for their annoying little "must do" actions, or we can allow them to irritate us -- which seems the best route?
Next time you come across one of those quirks, smile about it. Recall some of your past experiences with it, and make it an "I love you because" item on your list, rather than carve it into the "You annoy me because" stone.
Stones attached to quirks pile up and build walls. Smiles attached to those same quirky ways will buy you another smile the next time around. Many smiles often lead to laughter.
Choose to smile.
Related Articles:
Love Is Not What You Expect
Practice Makes Perfection a Worthy Goal in Learning to Love
Ten Ways to Love: Enjoy without Complaint
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