Let Me Ask You This…Week 4
What’s good about your marriage and life?
I wanted to start this week by giving a shout out to Mom Zone in Phoenix AZ. They’ve picked up this blog and will be posting it on their site each week.
We’re in syndication!
For those of you just joining us, I’d highly recommend that you read weeks, 1-3 before reading this week.
Why, you ask? I’m trying something new with this blog. I decided to do a parenting series, instead of just posting what others say, or anything about my life, cuz I’m boring!
Each week I’m asking a question that you can explore for yourself.
I’m doing this because I believe parents need to figure out what’s going on in their lives before they can make changes in their child’s life.
Think of it this way.
We all know that Oscar the Grouch doesn’t really believe that anything new works. His children know that about him too. Yes, in our little play Oscar has kids! Because he’s grouchy and doesn’t really believe anything new can work, when he tries something new with the kids, they don’t take him too seriously.
What if Oscar were to look at his life, what makes him happy, and what doesn’t. What if when he reviewed his life he remembered where he learned to be a grouch. His aha moment might be that as a child he modeled his behavior after an adult who was grouchy. It wasn’t really in his nature.
All Oscar needs to do is remember that grouchy isn’t really his nature each time he feels grouchy, and soon things will begin to change for him.
He will also see that giving up being grouchy makes him far more capable of instituting a new parenting perspective or new way to teach his children. His children sense this new attitude and become more willing to comply.
If Oscar didn’t look at his life first he never would have found that aha, and all attempts to use new parenting methods would fail.
That’s why this blog begins with you, your marriage and the things that are working and not working in your life.
Here’s this weeks questions:
What’s working in your marriage and life?
What isn’t working?
Do you have a solution?
I’ll go first.
Working: What’s always worked is our friendship. We’re so comfortable with each other that we can forget to touch base and have conversations.
Not Working: We’re both workaholics. When we do see each other, we’re tired, often too tired to have a “quality” conversation. For a while that was okay. Then we began noticing that we were drifting into our own worlds. That bothered both of us.
Solution: Recently we’ve begun dating again. I don’t mean a formal date, I’m talking about being emotionally light and playful everywhere we go.
We’ve noticed it feels like it did when we first began dating, oh those many years ago, 32 years ago to be exact. We’ve begun to restore our emotional intimacy. I’m not talking about sexual intimacy here. I’m talking about our connection.
Many years ago a wise person said, when you’re married, there are actually three people in the marriage. There’s the individual know as DH, and the individual known as DW. The third member of the marriage is our connection.
When we fight, or complain about the other one, the connection is affected and diminished. When we’re kind to each other, flirting, or complimenting the other one, the connection is nourished.
Remember, your children are watching you. You are the biggest role model they’ll ever have. “They see you when you’re sleeping, they know when you’re awake, they know when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”
Consider going out of your way this week to be kind to DH, and watch what happens.
Now, don’t get all up in arms because I said the women should go first. In our society women tend to wait, expect and maybe feel entitled to be treated well first, and then they will return in kind. But I’ve found the exact opposite to work far better.
We’ve all heard that women begin looking at things through the emotional center of the brain and that men begin looking at things through the logical center of the brain first.
If you want a closer emotional connection, then it’s easier if you, the woman are the one to create the emotional intimacy to begin restoring the connection.
Your child(ren) will see you being kind to each other, and hopefully will begin being kind to siblings, friends and parents too. It’s worth a shot.
Here’s an interesting article on just what I’m talking about. http://bit.ly/gOTTtI I’m just saying…See you next week.
Sharon Silver is the author of Stop Reacting and Start Responding and The Authentic Parent Series. Go to proactiveparenting.net to download two free chapters from her book and learn about other Proactive Parenting programs. Find Sharon on Twitter and Facebook.