This week I’ve read a few good articles/blog entries by Sheila Wray Gregoire. I’ve been reading Sheila’s blog entries for about a month now and I find them very useful and smart. I just got her book Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight: Help for Women Who Want to Feel More In the Mood
The first column I saw this week that caught my interest was over at Heart of the Matter where she does a great job of talking about how men and women think differently. It took me a while to figure out that I could take Anthony at face value and not have to worry about what he was thinking when he wasn’t talking (I’m still not used to the fact that someone may actually not be “thinking” about anything in particular at a point in time). Sheila’s column does a great job of pointing out we have to learn this, accept it, and then act on it. Stop being suspicious or pressuring for some piece of information that doesn’t exist.
Her blog entry over at …to Love, Honor and Vacuum was about love languages. We’ve read this book and discussed our own as well as those of some close relatives and friends. It is a great concept and does help understand someone who is different in how they give and receive love. Again, the trick is to use the knowledge once you’ve caught on. Anthony’s love language is time, especially time spent watching a movie (I’ve discovered that it is very hard to multi-task in a darkened room) or making love (he settles for a quickie sometimes ;-). Obviously, time is not my love language, unless we’re talking about giving me time alone to read. I struggle some times to sacrifice time spent on getting lots of things done so that I can just sit still and be with my husband.
My love language is gifts/acts of service and my husband has gotten pretty good at using that language for me. Yes, I’m admitting he’s a better person than I am. Or maybe he just has different priorities than I do, no need for multi-tasking or accomplishing a dozen different things in a day, he’s happy just getting 4 or 5 things done and having one or two of them be for me. And while he’s doing that act of service, he’s not grumbling about having to do stuff for me, or reviewing some list to see if I’ve done an equal number of things for him, or worrying that he won’t do it right and I’ll get mad. He’s just excited thinking how happy I will be when I find out he’s done this thing for me. Oh, Lord, let me be happy and let him know more often just how happy I am to spend time with him.
