Prioritize the Important Among All the Things
Newsflash! Marriage is hard. Like you needed me to tell you that! It’s a no-brainer, huh? And even if you and your man lived alone on a tropical island. Take a moment to imagine your man all tan and muscular. Mmmmm…Ok, that’s enough! 😉 Even there, marriage would still have its hard times! Unfortunately, not many women I know (ok, none) get to just live life chill on the beach with their hunk.
In reality, we have to balance work, keep house, possibly parent, feed our fam, pay bills, handle laundry, and deal with extended relatives. We tend to stay exhausted and overwhelmed with everything on our plates. A lot of times women get so wrapped up in the urgent that we can overlook the important. Then one day it hits us that the important has been on the back burner longer than we’ve realized and its burned. Your once exciting relationship has virtually unraveled and there’s this huge distance between the two of you. It’s almost as if each of you has just started doing your own thing.
So how do you prioritize your husband while managing everything that needs to be done?
1-Housekeeping
What if we prioritized our house according to our husband’s standards? What’s important to your man when it comes to the house? Does he care if the sheets get washed once a week? Does he want the sink to stay empty of dirty dishes? If you can’t handle it all, consider pushing aside the things that your man doesn’t really care about and just hit those areas that you know are important to him. Would that be possible for you? Could you mentally, emotionally, and physically let some of those things go in order to have better balance?
Y’all we have 4 kids and 3 animals! I love those signs that say, “Excuse the mess, my kids are making memories.” My hubs on the other hand? He functions much better emotionally with a clean, ordered household. Again, 6 people, 3 animals. That doesn’t even include the fricking fish! We make all kinds of messes! But over the course of the years I’ve learned that dishes, laundry, and floors are priorities. I can let go of organizing closets by color, matching socks, and dusting blinds. So even though I don’t mind matching socks I don’t prioritize it. I focus more on the stuff he finds important because he is important to me. Also, his mood is important to everyone around him.
Side note: I do have to brag on my man because he’s also willing to do the housekeeping tasks that are important to him. He actually probably does more dishes and laundry than I do now that I’m working two jobs LOL!
2-Nutrition
Maybe you’ve heard that old saying “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. But what exactly does that mean? Personally I could live off of greens, nuts, and dairy. I don’t think my man would be a very satisfied happy soul eating like that!
What if you didn’t cook meals you know your husband isn’t crazy about? Love pasta salads but he’d rather have an entree with two sides instead of a bowl of it all mixed together? Make it separate and just mix yours. Chicken, pasta, and broccoli get tossed to make a yummy pasta salad for you. See what I mean? 🙂
And turning the tables, what if you made and ate meals that you’re not crazy about but he likes? My Mr. likes a chicken and rice casserole with cream of mushroom and cheddar. Not my favorite, but I will pop that sucker in the oven and eat through a whole serving because I know my husband likes it. I’d rather have an enjoyable family dinner together around the table any night than force my likes on him or be a discontent wife over what we’re having for dinner. Therefore, that’s not a big deal to me. He’s a big deal to me.
3-Work
What if we put our husbands above work? Say what?! What does this even look like?
This one is kind of a big deal, especially for wives who are the breadwinners in their family or really enjoy the success of climbing the ladder in the corporate world. I’ve “been” and done both – working 40-50 hours a week and staying home full time. In both, I’ve tried to prioritize my husband over my employer.
Especially when the employer is male. For some reason if my boss is a guy I feel like putting work above my husband is like letting another man lead me. Is that just crazy or can you understand where I’m coming from? You know what I mean?
What it looks like is this…Leave when you need to leave. Don’t offer to stay late. Rush home to your man! If he really needs you, be available for your man as much as possible while you’re at work (without getting in trouble of course!). Don’t text coworkers of the opposite gender. Women can tend to be spaghetti, meaning all the things of life intertwine in their brains. Try to place boundaries between work and home. Work while you’re at work. When you leave and you’re driving home, practice deep breathing methods to breathe out that work stress and prep your mood to enjoy your Mr.!
4-Finances
Ohhhh another major part of life that can be hard to prioritize your husband above. Why? We have to make money to live, we have to spend money to sustain our life styles, and then there’s playing with money. Let’s be honest…men and women don’t really spend recreational money on the same things. There’s always something else we could buy, something else we could spend money on, and there’s only so much money we have. So opinions and habits differ regarding a limited resource that we work our butts off to get. What could go wrong?! Yes that was sarcasm!
But then a light bulb went off for me! What if wives paid attention to how much the bills cost? When I was a stay at home I honestly couldn’t even tell you how much our water bill is. It was a total guess for me! Now I can give you close estimates for paychecks that I haven’t even received. I know how much the bills are and what paycheck they come out of.
What if we didn’t overspend? This isn’t too hard for me because I’m the natural saver of the couple. Now where I can run into mixed priorities is in my taste. Line five similar variations of whatever – jewelry, furniture, vehicles – and the one I like will inevitably be the most expensive out of the group. Cue eye roll. I have to settle sometimes for a midrange item in order to prioritize my husband above my material wants.
In a quick google search, I found that over 60% of husbands were still the breadwinners in 2015. Let’s think about that for a moment. It may sound super old fashioned (which I’m really not – promise!) but I recognize that my husband makes the majority of our money and I want to prioritize him and show him respect in the way that I spend OUR money. That’s right, it’s ours but he makes most of it so I’m showing him respect by how I spend it. Makes sense to me! 🙂
READ RELATED:
PRACTICAL TIPS FOR BUDGETING TOGETHER
THE EMOTIONAL SIDE OF BUDGETING TOGETHER
Important vs. Urgent – Prioritizing Life
What if the things we did, we did with the importance of our own marriage at the forefront of our mind? What if we respected his parents because we respect him? What if we prioritized his opinions because we prioritize him? What if we were able to prioritize our husbands among all the rest of life and that crazy full plate? Maybe, just maybe 😉 the important would remain important. Keep calm and carry on friend. You got this!
To get to know me better, read more about me & my saved love
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