The Web Sage
Copyright © 2002 by Joe Freeman. All rights reserved.
Who’s Walking The Dog?
It’s not uncommon these days to hear the term ‘pre-nup’ when someone is discussing marriage. When two people get married they define in legal terms how the assets of the marriage will be distributed should the marriage fail. But the focus of a pre-nup is on what happens after the marriage fails, not on making the marriage a success.
How do you focus on making your marriage or long term relationship a success? How do you prevent having to exercise the pre-nup? I don’t have an answer that would guarantee your marriage will never fail. After all, we are human beings who often change our mind and our direction in life, and these decisions may effect our relationships.
I do know that when you go into a relationship, both people need to be in agreement on more than how to distribute assets when it fails. For instance, we all have our own expectations about how things will be done. If you came into the relationship with a pet, your partner may expect you take full responsibility for caring for the pet. Meanwhile, you are thinking marriage is a joint venture and your partner should take some responsibility for caring for the pet. Who is going to walk the dog when it’s raining?
This example may seem trivial, but the same concept applies to things like how to spend money, where to go on vacation, which parent to spend holidays with, who drives the best car, who gets to chose which side of the bed to sleep on, who takes out the trash, who cleans up after dinner, who showers first, when to have children, who changes the diapers, who does the grocery shopping, who puts gas in the car, who is going to wash the car, who is going to balance the checking account, and yes – who is going to walk the dog?
The list can go on and on. So how do you solve it? The same way you solve any relationship problem – Communication, Communication, Communication. If you can’t talk about it, you can’t solve it!
Love is an ideal thing,
marriage a real thing;
a confusion of the real
with the ideal never goes unpunished.
Compromise,
if not the spice of life,
is its solidity.
It is what makes nations great
and marriages happy.
This inner progressiveness of love
between two human beings
is a most marvelous thing,
it cannot be found by looking for it
or by passionately wishing for it.
It is a sort of Divine accident.
- Sir Hugh Walpoe