To our husbands

I heard a great snip of an interview this morning from a husband and wife who together authored a book on marriage. The man brought up the following point, to which his wife whole-heartedly agreed:

Man: We men are pros at fostering good relationships with clients at work. We know how to make that client feel like they are number one - what to say and how to treat them. What we need to do is transfer those skills to how we treat our wife. So here is what you do. Around 9 am, after you've gotten into work and you've already been away from home for a bit, you call your wife. You don't call to ask what's for dinner that night, or if there is something she can help you with. You just ask her how her morning has been. You say you just called to say hi and let her know you're thinking of her. Then, later in the day, around 2 pm, you call her again. You tell her that you just couldn't move on to the next task at work without calling to tell her you were thinking of her, and that you love her.

Wife: And in all likelihood, if you do this, when you get home at the end of the day she will have cooked your favourite meal, and will have had a happier day all around. There will be peace in the home.

How true is this, women! I laughed when I heard the line about having his favourite meal on the table - I sure know I have done that before! We want to make our spouses happy. We love them to the ends of the earth - that's why we married them. But in the chaos of pleasing clients or children or friends or other people to whom we have obligations, pleasing our spouse slips from memory. As illustrated above, however, happiness and thoughtfulness and gratitude are an unending cycle. He calls me to say he's thinking of me, I cook his favourite meal, he does the dishes, I take out the garbage, he puts the kids to bed, I give him a massage, he watches my favourite movie with me...etc... As husband and wife we instinctively like doing little acts of kindness for our spouse, we love to please them. We just forget sometimes.

We don't have to wait for our husbands to make that phone call (or take the initiative in some other way), we can start the cycle ourselves. But if this journal entry happens to find its way onto a husband's desk or tucked in with his lunch or slipped into a briefcase - well, a 30 second phone call is a tiny bit of time to lead to such a grand cycle of love and kindness.