The Truth Sucks... But Only at First

Not that long ago, Jessi and I were driving down the road in Moscow, Idaho where it was snowing extremely hard.  The roads were white with snow and becoming quite dangerous.  As we were driving, we noticed a newer Subaru Outback with a spare for one of its wheels.  You know the kind, the ones that look like they belong on a wheelbarrow?  The family of four looked quite comfortable inside, and likely going someplace close by judging by their clothing and lack of items in the car.  Maybe one of the kids’ sports games? I wondered for a moment why they would be driving in these conditions with a spare?  Seemed dangerous.  Why didn’t they just take a few minutes and take their flat to the tire service center?  Seemed like an easy thing to do, and considering the weather, likely a safer thing to do as well.

Granted, it’s always easy to judge someone else’s situation.  Who knows, maybe they stole the car as it sat on the side of the road with the spare recently changed?  But it got us thinking…how often do we drive with a spare in our life?  In our relationship?  How long do we travel thinking that we will take care of something when it becomes convenient?  

How bad does it have to get before we decide we “have to” change the spare?

How long are we willing to go before doing an honest self-assessment of our marriage? And when we do, how long until we take action to actually DO something about it?

Getting honest is hard because the truth can suck… but only at first.

Everyone thinks they want the truth, thinks they want to know the whole story, thinks they want the answers to the tough questions… I know I thought I did.

Then I actually had Jessi look me in the face and lovingly tell me that parts of our marriage weren’t working for her.  And even though I had parts that weren’t working for me either, it was so hard to hear.  So hard.  

It’s actually kind of surprising, because it’s not like I didn’t know things weren’t perfect.  She was living in the basement, we were going to counseling and pretty much in marital crisis.  Obviously things were not in good shape. You would think I would be prepared to hear some of what I already knew.  But somehow hearing it out loud was different.  It was raw and brutal. So hard.

So hard in fact, that there was even a fleeting moment where I wished that I didn’t know.  My feelings were hurt.  A moment where I wished I could turn back the clock and erase the truth I now knew.

Ignorance is bliss, right?

Wrong.

What I soon discovered is that the hard conversations and the truth about where we REALLY were (not where we wished we were), were the starting line to a journey towards a thriving marriage.  

It built intimacy.  It built trust. It was a building block for a healthy foundation for our marriage to rebuild upon.  

So where do you even begin with uncovering the truth and coming to grips with how your marriage is really doing?

For us, it started with a recommendation from our counselor to check out the marriagebuilders.com website as part of our “homework” for the week.  In investigating the site, which has a lot of great resources on it, we came across Dr. Harley’s Emotional Needs Questionnaire and agreed to take it and go over our evaluations together.

The basis of the inventory is that there are 10 basic emotional needs: affection, sexual fulfillment, recreational companionship, domestic support, intimate conversation, financial support, physical attractiveness of spouse, honesty and openness, family commitment, and admiration.  

The inventory has you rate each emotional need in terms of your level of need in that particular area, your satisfaction with the way your spouse meets that need, and it also gives you the opportunity to share information about how you feel that need could be better satisfied in your marriage.

There is also a section at the end of the questionnaire where you rate the 10 emotional needs in order of importance for you.

A couple of thoughts:

1) As horrifying as it is to sit and go through each of these categories and see how the “ratings” shake out, having these conversations in a calm discussion as opposed to the middle of a fight makes a WORLD of difference.

2) Prepare to be shocked.  We now commit to take this survey every year and each time we do, we learn something new.  As I take the inventory, I can't help but think about how Jessi will answer the questions.  Sometimes I’m right, and sometimes I’m off.

3) Every time we have had the courage to be honest, we have grown as a couple and our marriage has improved in that area… even though it can be uncomfortable to talk about at first.

4) The book “His Needs, Her Needs” goes in depth into each of these 10 emotional needs if you want more information about them.  When we think about putting effort into meeting our partner’s needs, we focus in on the top 5 for the majority of our energy (you get the most “bang for your buck” here).  This year Jessi even took a picture of my emotional needs rankings to keep it in her phone.  She said, that way, when she is thinking about how to fill my love tank, she doesn’t just do what fills her tank (you can see how this could easily happen when affection is #9 ranking for me, but #2 for Jessi).

5) One thing we have added in our responses (not included in the inventory itself) in each emotional need category is what IS working and going right.  It’s an opportunity to praise each other as well as makes the constructive feedback a little easier to hear when it’s sandwiched between some positives.

This growing opportunity not only helped us get to know each other better, but helped us put effort towards the areas where our marriage needed it the most.  One of the added and unexpected benefits was that it also gave us some things to celebrate.  It was nice to go into this feeling overwhelmed with a marriage that wasn’t working and come out of the experience feeling like although we have a few major areas to work on, we also have some areas that we are good at.  We don’t suck at everything! Hooray for us!

10 Lessons We've Learned About Quality Time

I don't really like running all that much and I especially don't like running uphill.

One day while running with Roger, he gave me some great advice.  He said don't sit and stare at the top of the hill, just keep your eyes on what's right in front of you, it never looks as steep.  Great advice for running and for life.

Sometimes when I work on goals, the end goal looks really "steep" and nearly unattainable.  But if I keep my eyes on the baby steps in front of me, it's not nearly as intimidating and somehow it's easier to take those first steps.  It's important to look up to see where I'm headed, but not to stay focused there.

One of the goals we have worked so hard on is spending quality time together.  We mentioned that we work and plan to spend 15 hours a week of time together. That's quite a bit of time if you start to really lay it out on your calendar and can be intimidating at first.

Why 15 hours a week?  Because Dr. Willard Harley recommends that couples need that much time in order to sustain a feeling of being in love.  Roger also loves his obvious statement that people who are in love are never the ones talking about divorce.  Since we don't ever want the "D" word to be in our vocabulary again, we choose to make the time a priority.

We wanted to share some of the steps we've taken and what we've learned along the way to get to 15 hours of quality time a week, something we believe is a critical component in helping our marriage thrive.  It's definitely not a prescription, just sharing what's worked for us.

1) There are no shortcuts and no substitutes to quality time.  When we don't spend the time, our marriage suffers.  We are less connected, less patient, less giving, less intimate, and become increasingly self-centered.

2) Being intentional is KEY.  You can't make it to 15 hours without planning ahead and making arrangements in advance, especially if you have kids.

3) It doesn't have to be a big chunk of time to be meaningful.  We often retreat to our office or bedroom for just 15-20 minutes to reconnect and have some uninterrupted conversation.  We also share coffee and breakfast together most mornings before the kids are up to connect before the day gets started.  It's only about 20 minutes, but it's a great way to start the day.

4) Intentional does not always mean intense.  We have one date night a week planned where we just hang out and have fun.  Sometimes we ride bikes, eat out, go for a walk, enjoy a cup of coffee... play.  Our focus is on enjoying each other and our time together.  No issue resolution, no major kid talk, no scheduling... just FUN.  We laugh, flirt, chat, dream, plan trips... anything that's enjoyable to us both.  It's often on these dates that I'm reminded what an intelligent, handsome, hilarious man I married.

5) It's important for us to have a "business meeting" each week.  We set aside a couple hours every Sunday to sit down and do our family business for the week.  This communication isn't nearly as fun, but is extremely important to the flow and function of our week.  During this time, we go through each day of the upcoming week, share what's on our schedules, talk about our kids' schedules and do a lot of division of household/kid needs. We get specific about pick ups and drop offs so that there are as few miscommunications during the week as possible. This is where we plan out our 15 hours a week and then look at when we can spend quality time with our kids, family, and friends.  We map out time for exercise and other appointments that we have.  We use Google calendar (and share our calendars) so we can know the day's agenda no matter where we are.

6) Keeping the slate clean.  During our "meeting" on Sundays, we also make time to bring up any small conflicts or issues from the week that weren't able to get fully resolved for whatever reason.  This helps keep the issues from compounding and keeps the slate clean.  At first it's hard to ask the question, "How do you feel like we're doing this week?", but even a hard conversation is worth it and brings us closer together.

7) Asking questions (and of course listening to the answers) is a great use of our time together. I've learned so much about Roger from asking questions.  Not just the tough ones, but asking about his goals for the future, dreams for our family, and even what he would like me to pray for him about have led to some great conversations and even changes in our lives.  More on this later, but I love working to be a Roger "expert".

8) Going on dates doesn't have to be expensive.  We do lots of our "dates" at home before the kids wake up and after they go to sleep.  We do trades with friends for babysitting and ask for babysitting from our parents and niece for Christmas and birthdays. A lot of times we go for walks or bike rides (so we can still talk) which doesn't really cost a thing.  Also, we try to do more "coffee dates" instead of dinner dates because it is incredibly less expensive... I've also been known to pack and bring food with us.

9) Getting away is great, but we don't have to go far. Although there's definitely something to be said about the get-away weekend Roger planned for us at Grouse Mountain Lodge complete with flowers, champagne, luxurious meals, and a couples massage... it was awesome... but that is definitely the exception, nowhere close to the norm.  It's special to get-away somewhere new, but not necessary for meaningful quality time.  Often in the summer, you'll find us out on our chaise lounges sharing coffee, our daily devotional and some connection time.  It's not exactly a "get away" but yet, that's exactly what it is.

10) No excuses.  There are a million reasons why we've put our marriage on the back burner.  But we've learned the hard way that NONE of those seemingly critical "emergencies" are as important as the health of our marriage.