Partners for Life

This one's for the guys.
I love my wife.
So much in fact, that I try to lighten her workload whenever I can.
As a two-paycheck family, Margie comes home and still somehow manages to muster up the strength to spend time with our very active almost-three-year-old, and get dinner ready in the process.
I'm on dinner duty three days a week.  Whether it involves going out or preparing something at home, it gives her a break on the weekends.
I work a rather odd week, from Sunday to Thursday.  Margie works Monday through Friday, with every other Friday off.  It allows us to only have to send our daughter to daycare four, rather than five, days a week.
And on those Fridays when Margie's working, that's time for me to play catch-up on the housework and other "Mr. Mom" related duties.
Becoming a Child of Divorce at 13, I learned at a fairly young age to be self-sufficient.  This included, but was certainly not limited to, laundry, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning, cooking, you name it.
This also served me particularly well during my 'bachelor' years, when I had my own apartment (and my first house six years before my marriage.  The stereotypes that P.J. O'Rourke immortalized in "The Bachelor Home Companion" did not exist in my home.
That's not to say I didn't try to take shortcuts along the way.
I am a guy after all.
I'll also point out that P.J. didn't get married until he was 43.  Too many women had already read his book.
It never ceases to amaze me how many men still, yet today, expect their partners to work outside the home, then come home and still run a household with the men offering little to no help in doing so.
And then they still wonder why they're already having to call a divorce lawyer a few years into the marriage.
You owe it not just your partner, but yourself to make every effort to help make a household go.
Your partner is not your mother.  She may become the mother of your children, if she hasn't already done so, but she is not duty-bound to be your household servant or sex slave.
It doesn't work that way.  You're fooling no one but yourself if you think otherwise.
And because you may have grown up in a home where Mom submitted to Dad's every demand, doesn't mean that's the way everywhere.  It does not excuse you.
You do not make the most of your family time by doing outside activities like going to the bar after work, volunteering for charity/community activities and more or less filling up your calendar with everything but family time.
When I come home from work and sit down to dinner, we have a policy in place.  At dinner time, we do not have cell phones, iPods, or other electronic devices at the table at any time and for any reason.
And I've said it to my daughter many times:
"Dinner time is family time."
No phones are answered.  We have voice mail for a reason.  If it's that important, whomever is calling will leave a message.  Then we can decide whether to pick up or not.
We spend time talking about our day.  Our days at work, and Savannah's day at daycare.
Paraphrasing a quote from Dora the Explorer, we always ask her, "What was your favorite part of the day?"
The answer is often without exception, "when Mommy came to pick me up at school."
She reciprocates the question to us.
Our answers don't often vary from this:
"Coming home and having dinner with my family".
As career-focused as I have been over the past 25 years, I somehow have managed to shelve my overly zealous career goals long enough to enjoy the time I have with them.
Because as I get older, I realize that with every passing day, my daughter grows a little more, I age a little more, and I find myself reminiscing of the days when she was a tiny jet-black-haired bundle of babbling baby fat.
They won't last forever, as my wife had reminded me some time ago before my work hours were adjusted to fit a more family-friendly schedule.  Had I not been blessed as I have been to work for such understanding people, my marriage might have been in trouble.
But I'm also underestimating the power of my wife.
So what's the point of all this?
Don't take anything for granted.
Nothing.
Most importantly, don't wait until it's too late or near it to realize that you should take nothing in life for granted.
It took my former boss (also one of the toughest friends I've ever had) a cardiac near-miss at 44 to realize this.  While it took some time for that self-admitted workaholic to adjust to it, he eventually did.
As did I.
And the day I stop, is the day I'm in trouble.


NEXT WEEK:   The Great Outdoors