Rediscovering our Marriage

One of the nicest advantages to having Caroline away this summer is that I have rediscovered that I HAVE A HUSBAND.  It's as if I suddenly noticed that I have this wonderful man that I had forgotten about.  We had become caricatures of ourselves, or maybe just lost a whole lot of ourselves while putting out fires for the last ten years.  I had become so sad whenever I looked at him.  He always looked completely stressed out and angry, short-tempered, nothing of the funny, fun-loving, relaxed positive guy that I fell in love with eighteen years ago.  Now I see him and I think, "Oh, yeah, he has needs too, and I have not been meeting them at all!"  We had become short with each other, no time for romance or date nights.  The humor seemed to have left us.  That's a bad thing when you can't laugh together anymore.  

Well, we are laughing again.  I am seeing again how beautiful his eyes are, this wonderful blue-green with yellow speckles.  His face is so much more relaxed.  We went out to dinner for our anniversary and had a great time being pretty goofy.  He's goofy at heart.  Life has made us way too serious.  We need to just walk on the beach together, run together, go out more.  We really enjoyed our weekend away to see Caroline last month--we haven't been  away from our kids for more than one night, and we had three!  

I want to bless him.  I truly do.  I went kind of overboard for Father's Day.  I spent way more than I ever have on this occasion, and more than I should have, but I feel like I spend time and money on everyone else's needs, even my own, and he gets the dregs.  So he opened a lot of presents.  I was happy to see him so pleased.  And now I am realizing that his giftedness which is acts of service I miss completely when the laundry is not done and he can't find anything in the morning, or when the house is disheveled.  He does a lot for me all the time, but I need to remember that it is the little things that mean a lot to him.

So we need to really take advantage of this time without being caregivers all the time.  She may come back before the end of the summer, and I don't want to have wasted this time we have been given!