Devoted life mate seeks more balance with husband

“Local Answers to Life’s Ques­tions” gives Gazette read­ers the oppor­tu­nity to ask a licensed coun­selor from Delaware for advice on a broad range of issues. Read­ers can sub­mit their ques­tions here and responses will be printed in the Gazette. Read­ers who sub­mit ques­tions remain anonymous.

Dear Mar­i­ann: My hus­band has lots of things to do out­side the home and I have lit­tle to do out­side the home. I don’t want him to rid him­self of his hobbies/interests just for me so I can more enrich my bal­ance of life, but, I do need him around more as life is so com­pli­cated with all the tech­nol­ogy. How can we have more time together? I do insist on car­ing for my own home, but it takes many hours a day to do it right.”

Mariann’s Response: “Bal­ance” is the opti­mal word in your ques­tion and it’s some­thing that far too often is lack­ing in our fast-paced, multi-tasking, technology-driven world. Seem­ingly the more we accom­plish, even with the advan­tages of com­put­er­i­za­tion and tech­nol­ogy, the more we try to achieve.

The focus of your ques­tion is one of recon­nect­ing in your mar­riage. Within many mar­i­tal unions, the chil­dren become the pri­mary focus for both par­ties, but espe­cially the wife/mother. Since rais­ing a fam­ily still remains more the respon­si­bil­ity of the wife, even more so when she stays at home, it is eas­ier for the hus­band to con­tinue his hob­bies, while more sac­ri­fice is needed when ful­fill­ing the oblig­a­tions of being a mother. Even though you do not offer your ages, my guess is that your hus­band main­tained his hob­bies dur­ing child-rearing years, while you became more focused on the chil­dren and let your out­side inter­ests lapse. Now that the chil­dren are poten­tially adults and you are “empty-nesters, “you have either for­got­ten about past hob­bies or need other alter­na­tives, while your hus­band has main­tained his inter­ests with­out much interruption.

Even though my math skills were far from stel­lar at Ruther­ford B. Hayes High School, I am going to return there for a moment and rekin­dle the con­cept of the “Zen Dia­gram” to for­mu­late my sug­ges­tion. If you remem­ber that geo­met­ric con­cept, it has two equally-sized cir­cles with an over­lap­ping area in the mid­dle where the two share com­mon­al­ity. The two cir­cles in my anal­ogy rep­re­sent the hus­band and wife in a mar­riage. While rais­ing young chil­dren, the mid­dle, com­mon area is usu­ally filled with kid-specific activ­i­ties and the oblig­a­tions of being par­ents. Once the chil­dren are self-sufficient, the mid­dle area becomes less-dominated by their needs. When this even­tu­ally occurs, each spouse should find indi­vid­ual inter­ests along with those that can be mutu­ally shared, ver­sus the void of being strangers once the now-grown chil­dren have departed.

From your ques­tion, seem­ingly your hus­band has a mul­ti­tude of inter­ests, while you are seek­ing solace in fill­ing both your own cir­cle and the com­mon, over­lap­ping area of the Zen Dia­gram. This leads to the neces­sity of intro­spec­tion and ful­fill­ing your needs, both indi­vid­u­ally and as a cou­ple. What out­side of the home is reward­ing to you? Is vol­un­teer­ing at the hos­pi­tal or with a local hos­pice of inter­est? Tutor­ing chil­dren at a local school who are chal­lenged by read­ing dif­fi­cul­ties? “Find­ing your voice” via singing in a com­mu­nity or church choir? Rais­ing a ser­vice dog for Canine Com­pan­ions for Inde­pen­dence which has a Delaware train­ing facil­ity? Or is par­tic­i­pat­ing in yoga or other type of exer­cise a poten­tial option for you?

And finally, what can you and your hus­band do TOGETHER to fill the empty Zen mid­dle area? Always my first sug­ges­tion is ball­room danc­ing. Just a few Gazette read­ers might still remem­ber Betsy Ann Humphries, a Delaware fix­ture dur­ing my youth, who owned a dance stu­dio and resided in the lovely brick home at the cor­ner of Win­ter and Eliz­a­beth Streets, now The Win­ter Street Inn. If you were raised in Delaware dur­ing that era, pos­si­bly you par­tic­i­pated in her classes. That was my first expo­sure to ball­room danc­ing, a beloved activ­ity for me that has never sub­sided. Not only is it great exer­cise, but a won­der­ful social out­let for meet­ing other people.

Con­tin­u­ing my list of pos­si­bil­i­ties that could be of inter­est to both of you, how about join­ing a gym? Even though your hus­band might enjoy the weight room while you attend a Zumba class, at least going there together is a start toward estab­lish­ing com­mon inter­ests that can lead to a health­ier and hap­pier mar­i­tal union for both of you.

Trav­el­ing is another avenue to a stronger mar­riage. Even though an exotic des­ti­na­tion is most desir­able, just a week­end jaunt a few hours away can be equally as enjoy­able. Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Falling Water” is just across the Penn­syl­va­nia line and an incred­i­ble archi­tec­tural mas­ter­piece idyl­li­cally set in the lush rolling coun­try­side, with a gamut of other area activities.

I will close with a final sug­ges­tion that involves the house­work com­po­nent you men­tioned. This also can be an area where you work together, ver­sus my sense that you alone accom­plish the major­ity of the clean­ing. Since you both live in the home, ask­ing him to par­tic­i­pate in keep­ing it main­tained is not unrea­son­able. Set­ting aside sev­eral hours weekly for him to help with either the clean­ing or to assist with the com­pli­ca­tions of tech­nol­ogy, would be a relief to you since I sense a feel­ing of aban­don­ment in your let­ter. Speak up and let him know what you need! Intu­ition and being able to “mind read” are not usu­ally male-attributes. Being direct, lov­ing and com­mu­nica­tive are three essen­tial ingre­di­ents to a hap­pier home.

Mar­i­ann Main is a licensed coun­selor and serves on the Delaware-Morrow County Men­tal Health Recov­ery Ser­vices Board. She is a Delaware native and an under­grad­u­ate Jour­nal­ism major of The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity. Her master’s in coun­sel­ing is from Geor­gia State Uni­ver­sity and her post-graduate train­ing is from Rich­mont Grad­u­ate University.

Posted by Mariann Main on Aug 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.