Dear Readers,

As a Mom, I am learning that patience is a big part of this role. It also means asking for what you want. The other night, I got home and my husband let me know that he needed some “me time”.

My response was unbridled excitement! See the picture below? (unbridled excitement)

Okay, not so much my first reaction.

I will admit that my initial reaction was annoyance, but I waited to share my response which was excitement. You know why? Annoyance because I was looking forward to “family time” but after I thought about it, I got really excited about him asking for “me time” for himself. Do you know why? This next part is going to make him sound like a saint and he hates when I talk about him like this.. but I am going to do it anyway.

My husband RARELY complains. I mean it, he just doesn’t.

Even in the early days of our courtship, he worked two jobs and always made time for us to be together, despite us having polar opposite schedules.. (Literally, I would head out for the day and he was heading in to the house) – It was a tough time and I did a lot of complaining about it. We went through something similar early in our marriage when we were working 5 jobs between us to get out of debt. He still didn’t complain and learning from his example, I complained less.

I have since discovered in the more than 8 years that we have been together that he does have complaints, (shocking, I know!) they just need to be drawn out of him so back to last night, I sat back and thought about it and realized this request was actually cause for great jubilation throughout Hastonia.

For two reasons-

1. He felt secure enough to tell me he needed a break
2. He also made a plan to give me some “me time” soon

I know without a doubt, that his “me time” will make him refreshed and better able to “be” with us and not feeling drained when it’s time for “family time”. Some of the best marriage advice I have ever gotten having a healthy marriage/relationship/partnership is this.

1. Try to see things through the other person’s eyes.. and really pretend you are them and feel very strongly about the thing that you are disagreeing about.
2. Ask yourself, will this matter in 30 years?

I will admit that it’s not the easiest advice to follow, especially that first one… stepping out of your own viewpoint is hard work, AND it’s absolutely worth it.

See this picture? It’s the tunic I bought myself on my shopping trip yesterday, see that happy face? It comes from asking for what you want and getting it and of course loving yourself and buying yourself something pretty (in the budget, of course!)

Now, I fully grasp that there will be times that you ask for what you want and don’t get it (as my loving husband pointed out while I was discussing this post with him) AND if you don’t ask, you definitely won’t get what you want.

Think about it…