A Story, prefaced by the Reason why it happened.
Life is Give and Take. It is about finding a partner that fits your Groove – melds with you so that you are not 1 + 1 = 2 ~ but that you equal so much more together.
The best relationships in my opinion are those wherein the two people are awesome individually but that when you meet, you seem to find the holes in your lives that you did not know you had ~ and then you each fill them so that the whole is better than either expected or imagined.
Sometimes, however, when relationships are new, we slide into roles that we have always held and then, after time, we have a fear that we will be typecast into that role forever.
My challenge has been that when I have done that, without exception, I have found it to be cloying and uncomfortable.
That is on me. It is my choice to slide into that role and it has happened at different times during my life. Apparently, it is my ‘expected’ role in my mind.
Here, again, is a bonus of being of a certain age … I realized that as much as that it is a role that I am good at and could totally fulfill, I do not want to hold it!
To be specific, I was born of an age where the female took care of the cooking and cleaning. I really do not care for either.
There were ‘blue jobs’ and ‘pink jobs’.
It did not matter your skill set or interest.
I have to say that I am not a Domestic Goddess on any level! And, most importantly, I have no problem with that.
Not all of my relationships were as above but in retrospective thought on my life, there have been many. (mostly the worst ones!)
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When I met my husband ~ in my early 40s ~ he shared that he was a trained Chef.
AHA!
It seems that anyone born with a penis knows that if you don’t want to do something, you do it very poorly the first time and you are never asked to do it again! (pink clothes in the laundry on purpose, for example).
I (brilliantly, I thought) took this knowledge and applied it. (Sorry, my love, but this was purposeful ~ when he reads this, he is going to be surprised to know that I did know how to cook!)
Basically, I ensured that the first time I prepared food for him it was less than Stellar.
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So, after about a year or so of being together we had slipped into our Roles.
He cooked, shopped for groceries and took care of the ‘blue’ jobs like garbage and recycling.
I cleaned after dinner, took care of laundry, all of the subtle miscellany that keeps a home from looking like a debris field and keeps it supplied with necessities ~ and I was also the one with the toolbox.
Seemed perfect!
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Despite that, there came a time that we discovered that we both felt that we were not being appreciated for what we did.
So we decided to switch roles for 2 weeks.
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And here is where the ‘Switch’ story starts.
I can’t speak for him but I was very confident. I am logical. I planned a menu for the two weeks. (Note that part of the deal was that I put on a dinner for 6 at the end of the second week as we often entertain.)
No problem. I researched and set up the menus and grocery lists for each week and created spreadsheets for each to ensure that I could put together food that would be served hot together for each meal.
I can only speak to my experience here …
Best laid plans …
- Did you know that you cannot buy a week’s fresh groceries once a week? Fish, apparently, does not hold. So much for logical planning and time management. Stressful.
- Did you know that you cannot always find what is called for in a recipe at any given time in your local store? So much for following a game plan. Stressful.
- Did you know that recipes have an assumed knowledge about what is classified as basic stuff? Danger, danger!
It was tougher than I thought.
(To be fair to Me, I believe that I went easy on him in that I in that I did not look for extraneous regular items like cleaning of floors, walls, etc. – again, this is from my point of view only – you would have to ask him!)
To bring this long story to a close, daily meals had to be adjusted based on availability ~ I look at a piece of chicken and see a piece of chicken, not ten ways to prepare it. This occupied a lot of my days on top of a full time job.
Finally – I made dinner for 6 for the second weekend.
~ made an advance soup first course as it was supposed to get better the next day. Saved by my husband when I made it with jalapenos per the recipe. Who is born with the knowledge that you have to remove the pith and seeds? First taste set my eyebrows on fire and it hadn’t even set for a day! See point 3 above.
~ based on that, I set the table with a fire extinguisher in the middle and take out menus on each plate.
Saved by Good Friends that were brave enough to attend – no one died.
(Photo actually from that dinner!)
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Logical end result for this Switch Post is that by being open to step into each other’s shoes, we realize that we each have a valid role and should appreciate the efforts we each put forward – just keep your humor about yourself and each other through the process!
You will have to ask Him about his experience, but I put forward that it was waaaay easier than mine!
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(as an aside, be careful to not give up your side of the bed and/or whether you have a TV in the bedroom – you can’t go back!)