Learning to Live with Each Other
When people first start dating, and then become engaged, I don’t know if a lot of them think about some of the details of married life. Sure, some of them do, but not all of them. I’m not an old pro yet (I’m hoping I will be by my late 90’s though!), but I have some topics that I think couples should really think about that maybe hadn’t come up before.
A lot of these also relate to living together as well.
Topic 1: Bedtime
As it turns out, Matt is more of a night person and I’m a morning person. Shouldn’t make a whole lot of difference, right? Riiight… When I’m ready for bed, he’s ready to start a movie. When we first started living together, we’d go back at the same time and he’d sit in bed and read. For the most part, this is not an issue. He stays up to play on his computer, watch a movie, etc while I go back, read a chapter in a book, and go to bed. This is good for me because he keeps the cats out with him so I can fall asleep easily. Once in a while, I ask that he come back and go to bed with me, but this routine is something both of us can deal with. Besides, it’s waking up beside him that is the best part of my day!
Topic 2: Pets
We really are just learning as we go along how to deal with having our own pets (if you don’t know, we have two domestic shorthair cats named Peanut and Lou). Both of our families had cats as we were growing up, and when we moved to Germantown, I think Matt was still feeling guilty for asking me to move. So, when I asked if we could get a cat, he said sure. My friend Jenn’s cats had kittens and the rest is history. We couldn’t just get one cat- we’re gone at work a big portion of the day and it would have gotten lonely by itself. So we got a pair of brothers. We’ve now gotten into a rhythm of taking care of them. Matt cleans their litter boxes and I feed them. We both play with them and spoil them. However, we’ve decided that once we’re in a house and pretty settled, we want to get a dog as well- A big floppy one. Matt described a scene that I’d love to see. We come home after work and the dog is sitting on the couch with Lou and peanut batting at his ears. Then the dog does one of those “I’m content, but a little annoyed” doggie sighs. *LOL*
Topic 3: Holidays
This is truly a subjective topic. Matt and I lucked out with our families, as they are both really flexible when it comes to WHEN a holiday is celebrated (could be the week before, week after, etc), so we don’t have to worry about angering one side of the family or the other with our time spent with them. Also, there are certain holidays that are more celebrated with one family rather than the other. Matt’s side always has something planned for Thanksgiving. My family doesn’t really do a whole lot for that one, since its kind of a catch-up week in the world of academia. So, we usually do something with Matt’s family for that holiday. It becomes sticky in the instance of Christmas, however. Big holiday with –big(ish) families on both sides with plans that change from year to year. We try to keep the lines of communication open far enough in advance so that we know what is going on, and how much time we need to take off of work.
Topic 4: Hobbies
Not just “what do you collect” kind of hobbies. What kind of movies do you watch? Do you like to go to the theater? Do you want to take a class (for example, cooking) together? Do you go to the gym, or go for walk? Do you enjoy sports?
A typical easygoing weekend in this Thornton household (during football season) is as follows:
Friday night: maybe get dinner out after work. Come home, play with the kitties and watch a movie/play a board game. Depending on if we have friends over, we might go for a walk.
Saturday: leisurely get up (this means around 9 for me and after 10 for Matt). Have breakfast/brunch either at home or going out to eat. Have football on the TV. I will sit and craft (crochet, beading, scrapbooking, card-making) while he’s on his computer as well. Around noon, we’ll eat lunch and take one room to straighten up, unless a game is on that we both want to watch. Then we do spurts of cleaning during commercials, or at halftime. Dinner is usually a “fend for yourself” kind of thing with sandwiches and snacks.
Sunday: Possibly church for me either at 8 or 11. Football is on the TV. Pretty much a repeat of the previous day, but we make sure that we get the chores that we avoided from yesterday done on this day.
Topic 5: The dreaded chores
After a few months of living together, Matt and I realized that we don’t have the same definition of a couple of things. What entails a room being messy or clean is included. Let me preface this by saying that my mom tried her best to get me to be a clean and organized person. It has somewhat backfired. When Matt finally told me that we HAD to clean the apartment, I chose to clean the bathroom, dust the furniture, and organize my clutter. I DESPISE doing dishes (and folding socks), but don’t mind washing the windows or scrubbing a toilet.
The best piece of advice I could give about this topic: work with each other’s strengths (or at least what they don’t mind doing). Matt takes care of cleaning the kitchen. I try to stay up with cleaning the bathrooms and I’m supposed to keep up with Laundry. Both of us don’t enjoy laundry, but I figured that if he’s responsible for dishes, I should man-up and take responsibility for laundry. Needless to say, we get backed up at least once a month.
I didn’t include topics like faith, money, kids, morality, jobs, school, family issues, and goals because those are things that EVERYBODY tells you to talk about. These are the things that I learned about just going along.