Rene
By Rene Thompson
We find ourselves in an unexpected season of our lives these days: With Adam’s job at a mine in Blackwater coming to a close, he had been sending off his resume to companies all over Central Queensland. When a job opened up in a mine nearly three hours away we accepted it as the Lord’s provision until he was accepted someplace closer to home. We prepared ourselves for him to be away for seven days at a time as he drove up the street for his first shift at Isaac Plains.
My car had coughed, sputtered and died just before he was to go away, so the kids and I broke out the bikes, and we’ve been seen pedaling our way around town, which is thankfully quite flat, like a little group of Europeans to wherever we needed to go. If my part-time job finished after dark, the kids rode to my work in the afternoon and escorted me home. I hadn’t been on a bike for about twenty-two years, and I’ve NEVER worn a push-bike helmet before, so riding after dark was a bit of a comfort to me, while I got my ‘cycling’ legs back.
I have been amazed to find that what I’ve dreaded, in Adam’s being away from home every second week, has actually become something of a blessing. Eighteen months ago, we were a homes-chooling family, with our own business, who travelled, learned, worked and breathed together all day every day. Now we have become a ‘normal’ family; kids are in ‘real’ school, Dad is working long hours, and Mum is working part-time, trying to be home when the kids are. It has been a difficult transition in many ways, but each of us has discovered new things about ourselves in our new circumstances. But every second week with Adam away was going to be a real stretch!
Adam has always called me during the day, just to say ‘hi’. Now he still calls when he can, but always in the evening at bedtime. We put his call onto speaker phone and the four of us talk about the day, look forward to what’s coming up tomorrow and we pray together before going to sleep. When we’re all home together, we don’t often make the time to do that anymore.
What I have noticed is that I am needing to ask him more specifically how he wants things done around here. My temptation is to run this ship how I see best, but that just causes so much frustration when he is home on his week off, because he and I think so differently. We have very different ways of tackling the same issue. For example, when I’m working an afternoon shift, I have expected that dinner would be made and ready when I get home. I have left instructions out for the kids to cut up vegetables, what time to put whatever into the oven, so that they all can eat around 6pm whether I am home or not. But often I’ll come home, when Adam is on his seven days off, and nothing has been cooked, one of them has eaten nachos for dinner again, another one isn’t hungry, the third one might be on dessert already and I dig through the fridge and make a sandwich. My frustration knows no bounds on these evenings! But I understand that it is just our different way of looking at the same event: eating.
For me, routine is incredibly important. Order, predictability, structure, call it whatever you want to, but I need it to function well. Without it, my brain is chaotic, and I find myself anxious and stressed beyond reason. Adam has never had routine in his life, and feels gagged when it is forced upon him. For him, to have his life dictated by time frames and deadlines can be straightjacket-like torture. So how do we reconcile this little issue in our family? How do we present that ‘united front’ to our children when we disagree with each other’s basic mindset?
Believe me, this, along with a few other choice issues, has been one of the most high and treacherous hurdles we have grappled with in our relationship to date. We have not come to some brilliant agreement. Not by a long shot. However we are learning to compromise and see the wisdom in each other’s craziness.
I don’t know how many times some lady or other has said to me “My husband and I are just incompatible!” often in an attempt to justify a split in their relationship. And my answer is frequently “Of course you are.” Have any two people had the same upbringing? Same parenting, same discipline methods, same expectations of family life, curfews, spending money, chores? Do any two people share the exact same personality types, tastes, desires, drives, priorities? We see in our own children how they develop differently depending on personality, birth order, changed circumstances. How can we possibly expect to leap the gender wall as well, and find a man and a woman who are going to see eye to eye on even a few issues? Incompatibility is a given when you try to bind two people together as intimately as marriage is designed to do! I suggest that ‘incompatibility’ is not the problem, but ‘selfishness’ is. We know what makes sense to us and when someone else, sharing the same air, doesn’t see it the same way, it raises the hackles on the back of our necks.
So I ask, “What do you want dinner time to look like in our family?” But see? There’s the first problem with this: The words ‘dinner time’ suggest that there is only one time of day when one can partake of this meal. I am sure my very practical husband is right when he says “We’ve taught the kids to cook for themselves. They’ll eat when they’re hungry.” I mean they are 16 and 13 years old now. But for me, it’s more than keeping them alive. To me, it is more about relationships than the practicalities of life. By learning to prepare a meal and serve one another, they have a chance to honour someone other than themselves. And to have a meal ready for me when I get home is normal in my mind: I was cooking the family meal at 13 when my Mum needed to be away in the afternoons.
So again, I ask “What do you WANT dinner time to look like in our family?” And we have yet to come up with a working compromise on that one. At least it is in the process. I am also finding that, when Adam is home, I want to be available to him, to sit and talk, but also to help him out with keeping up on emails (I type faster than he can), and remembering dates (Dates, I remember. Bank account balances? Not so much). So I tend not to spend time with anyone else while the family is home. But when Adam is away, and the kids are in school, I am trying to make time to have coffee with neighbours, or ladies from work. I want to use this time to build relationships now. And to get little projects done around the place. And get some study done.
Not that I resent Adam being home because I can’t get anything else done. That has been a temptation too (I’m learning I’m really not THAT nice a person sometimes!). But, especially with him away for these weeks at a time, I appreciate him so much more when he is home. I am learning to have different expectations of myself, and what I will get done each week. The weeks Adam is away are much more structured and busy. The weeks he is home, I can relax more, smell the roses, and enjoy the less structured time, as long as I don’t expect myself to get the same amount of stuff done around the house. It’s my balance for now.
I constantly shake my head at God’s plan in putting such different people together as Adam and I. We have never had any doubt that He had designed us for each other, but it has not been an easy ride by any means. Our personalities don’t sit neatly side-by-side like books; we fit like jigsaw puzzle pieces, with each one filling in the gaps left by the other. And, as we both stop trying to fill those gaps with our wrong-shaped pieces, and allow the other to use their strengths where we are weak, the puzzle of our lives is gradually producing a pretty amazing picture!
Rene Thompson has been a regular contributor to MarriageWorks Magazine since its inception (as Family Talk) in 1989. Rene & Adam and their two children now reside in Emerald, Qld. Australia. You can still contact them by email adamjthompson@yahoo.com
