I always feel like I have something in the hopper. If I’m not running errands, I’m dealing with phone calls or working on a project or paying bills or picking up the kiddo. I’m often doing two or more things at once. Somewhere in all of this, I fit in my marriage, usually in conjunction with two or three other tasks. A computer processor starts slowing down when there are too many processes running in the background. Response times become sluggish and sometimes can seem to standstill.
Imagine that effect on a marriage.
Multi-tasking is a fundamental way of doing business for many parents, but when it comes to marriage-time, it’s better to suspend some of the functions in order to spend quality cycles with or on your spouse. It’s far to easy to take them for granted. Multi-tasking generates stress in individuals and in marriages. This is especially true when couples quantify what each other does. When partners begin to feel neglected, it’s far past time to shut down some of the excess.
With so many different forms of communication available from instant messages to email to cell phones to text messages, it’s amazing that communication isn’t better. On the other hand, imagine the marriage where one partner is up earlier than the other every single day. We’re going to call this partner Wanda. Wanda gets up, Wanda has coffee, showers, dresses and then wakes the children. She gets them ready for school. She takes them to school and then heads off to work herself. She arrives at her office and dives into her workday all before her spouse even begins to stir in bed.
She may receive a blurry phone call saying good morning, a quick text message or even an IM after her spouse is at work. Both partners work about eight to nine hours in a day. Wanda went in earlier, so she’s off earlier. She’s got to hit the dry cleaners, the grocery store, grab the kids, get the homework done and at some point pick up a present for a co-worker’s birthday. By the time her husband gets home, she’s already put in 12 to 14 hours that day.
There might be a quick kiss on the cheek, but she’s busy and there’s stuff he needs to do. By the time the kids are settled in for the night, Wanda’s trying to finish up a little bit of work she brought home and her husband is balancing the checkbook and going through the bills. Chances are strong that Wanda will go to bed first. They’ll murmur a few words and then she heads off to sleep and will be sound asleep long before she feels her husband slide into bed.
This couple is living seemingly parallel lives and from just this one sampling, it seems like both just take the other for granted. On the up side, there’s a continuity to their daily lives that they both count on. On the downside, Wanda goes to bed alone most nights. If this pattern continues, she will begin to resent the loss of intimacy. She may ask her husband to come to bed early and he may resent that if the only ‘quiet’ time he gets to relax is after everything is done, which is usually about the time his wife goes to bed.
Do you see the problem?
We’ve all had days like the one described above, but when that day is the norm – distance is going to blossom in the gulf between husband and wife. They’ve got so much going on that they aren’t making time for each other. It’s a process that they suspend – their marriage – in favor of their responsibilities, commitments, children, work and even their friends. Wanda took time out of the day to pick up something for a co-worker. If her husband did the same, she might not ever know because there wasn’t much time for mentioning it.
Multi-tasking is fundamental in modern life, especially when you have kids. But don’t let the quick text message replace meaningful time with your spouse. Don’t let assumptions fool you that everything is all right. Don’t believe that just because you’re both busy, eventually you will get around to it and then it will be fine.
Living parallel lives doesn’t mean you’re going to end up in divorce court. But living parallel lives doesn’t mean you’re going to have happily ever after either. I’ve been in Wanda’s shoes. I’ve felt the resentment. I’ve felt the distance. At some point, you have to put yourself and your marriage first. Bear in mind, the mistake I made was thinking that I was putting my spouse first. It’s not – it’s simply not taking the marriage for granted. It’s taking the time to get the intimacy and attention you need and when you do – both spouses benefit.
So CTRL-ALT-DELETE some of the multi-tasking functions in your life everyday and make the time spent on your marriage active rather than passive.