It took some time in our first year of marriage to figure out the whole what’s-yours-is-mine-and-what’s-mine-is-yours thing. I think this was a little harder for me than it was for the Husband. I’m not sure why. Maybe it had something to do with getting married “older” or maybe it was that he moved into the house I’d already lived in for 5 years or that—like most husbands—he had a lot of “guy things” and I had a lot of girl things.
Whatever it was, it definitely provided opportunities to learn to communicate and work through conflict. During the AtoZ Challenge, I’ve been on hiatus from my weekly Make-Up-Monday series in which I write about marital conflict {on Mondays, of course}. But whadaya know, today is Monday, I’m a day behind on the Challenge and coincidentally, I’ve got a conflict to share.
One of those Yours & Mine issues arose over the weekend. I’d promised to loan a friend a huge salad bowl that belonged to the Husband before we were married. {This man loves to entertain friends and as a result he owned LOTS of household items with which to do that, even before we were married.}
So, I’d promised to bring this bowl to church yesterday. I told him about it and thought I’d asked him to help me find it. Next thing I knew it was 10pm on Saturday night and we hadn’t yet located the bowl. I started tearing through boxes of still-unpacked-stuff from our move last July, and I insisted he help me. My attitude was poor, I’ll admit. And as I thought about it later my thought process looked a little like this:
“It’s HIS bowl. He should know where it is!”
But that’s not exactly true anymore. It’s OUR bowl. And I was the one who’d promised it. I realized later that I didn’t do a good job of letting him know my expectations—especially the part about expecting him to know where it was. And, I admit, that wasn’t fair since I was the one who packed the kitchen when we moved.
I apologized when we went to bed. But even the next morning I was still a little sideways with my attitude. During church that really came to light for me and afterwards I asked his forgiveness for being inpatient and unkind with him. He’s always quick to forgive. Sweet Husband.
Do you and your spouse have any “yours & mine” conflicts that you’re still working through?
Photo credit: © Stuart Monk – Fotolia.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It took me a while to figure it out, but there is absolutely no sharing the hair brush. His brush is to be used by him alone. He isn’t selfish, it’s just that he can’t stand to have long hairs hanging from the brush. I can live with that one ; )
That makes perfect sense. Of course, that would never be a problem in our house.
We still have Yours & Mine Issues over money. We’ve been married for just shy of 2 months, living together for just shy of a year. I’m a nursing student and working just doesn’t fit into my schedule unless I want to lose what is left of my sanity. So he is the main breadwinner. This has been a super hard adjustment for us to get used to. Him to paying for absoluetly everything and me from feeling flat out broke and having to ask him for everything. We’re getting much better but the dreaded combining of bank accounts is coming and this could be a whole new ball game
Hi W.M. – Oh, I can so relate. The money stuff is SOOO hard. But hang in there. While it’s very humbling and stressful to be in the position you’re in right now, it won’t always be this way. Right?
I had lots of fears about combining our bank accounts–most of them were unfounded. I realized that trusting him was the #1 thing I needed to do. And open communication was #2. The more we talked about money the better we got at understanding each other’s motives. It didn’t mean we always got what we wanted, but in the end it strengthened our marriage. Keep working on it!!