The Lists No Marriage Should Keep

This might come as a shock to any of you who are still completely starry-eyed about marriage, but no such partnership lives out its life in perfect harmony. You and your spouse will have what I’ll call differences. And even if you got many of those differences out on the table in premarital counseling or by reading the latest book on marriage a few weeks before your Big Event, the day-to-day realities of wedded life are going to reveal differences you had no idea could be lurking about while your heads were in the clouds.

Yes, it takes actually being married, living in the same house, and making a life together to discover these little gems.

Now that I have dimmed every star in your sky of love, now that those of you who have been married a good amount of time have nodded so vigorously that your necks are sore, let me tell you this: some lists should never be kept in marriage.

I’m talking about the lists that can form in your heads beginning with the first difference.

He doesn’t . . .

She doesn’t . . . .

Then, slowly at first, but picking up speed as the weeks, months, and years go by, the lists can grow.

He makes me crazy when he . . .

She drives me nuts when she . . .

There. You each have a list in your head that can make a super organizer envious. Only what you’re organizing is discontent that’s easily converted to verbal weaponry.

“You never . . .”

“You always . . .”

I’m not telling you anything marriage experts don’t, and I’m not an expert despite decades of marriage to the same man (with whom I have differences). But I can share what my husband and I do to combat the tendency to want to drag out those lists when a difference pops up.

Although we realize it’s human nature to form such lists, we also know we have the power to appropriately bury the lists. Here is how some of our conversations go, with either of us starting the conversation:

“I wish you wouldn’t (fill in the blank with something unimportant).”

“Oh?” the other says, calm and collected. “That’s on your list? Well, do you want me to get out my list?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

And you know what? It works. Whoever took out their list quickly puts it right back where it belongs: buried; powerless to harm; not, as 1 Corinthians 13:5 says of love, keeping a record of wrongs. And more and more, the thought of “Do you want me to get out my list?” keeps the list out of sight in the first place.Now, I’m not talking about serious marital issues that must be addressed, even if you need a professional to help you do it. Your relationship deserves transparency and every fighting chance. And some annoyances can be addressed calmly and will disappear after the offending spouse is made aware that he or she is causing you suffering and is willing to make a change (Okay. I didn’t know you hate that!).

I’m talking about those might-always-be-that-way differences that are merely bothersome and sometimes annoying, but if used as a weapon will no doubt do harm. One or more of those differences could also be the very quirks you would miss most if your spouse were suddenly gone from your life, a suffering you don’t want to think about.

So he doesn’t care if the bed is made. If you care, make it yourself.

So she doesn’t care if the car is vacuumed. If you care, vacuum away.

Admit it. Unless you are much more angelic than most spouses, you probably have such a list in your head. The goal is to keep it in its place: buried; powerless to harm; free from record-keeping. Pray it there if you must. [Tweet “Your marriage is more important than socks in hampers or caps on toothpaste tubes.”] It’s more important than a drop-the-mic moment when you get farther down your list than your spouse does in a dust up, right before your wedded bliss blows up in your faces. Those times take a while to come back from.

Remember the trick when one of those differences pops out:

“Oh?” the other says, calm and collected. “That’s on your list? Well, do you want me to get out my list?”

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

Jean Kavich Bloom is a champion coffee drinker and mostly productive, pink-bathrobed freelance editor and writer. She does not garden, bake, or knit but says playing Scrabble is exactly the same thing. Jean and her husband, Cal, live in Indiana. They have three children (plus two who married in) and five grandchildren. You can read her blog at bloominwordstoo.blogspot.com.