We all know how important it is to spend time together. Couples are encouraged to have some private time for themselves, and that is a good thing. Short breaks from the daily routine are refreshing. Many people seem to take such mini-breaks. I sometimes think everybody else does it, except we don’t. But I do discuss this topic with my wife quite regularly.
This is how our discussion goes:
– We should do something together.
– It would be lovely! How about going out for a meal?
– Sure! When could we go?
– How about next weekend?
The weekend comes and goes. We don’t go anywhere. A month passes by, then another. We have the same discussion again. Six months pass by. We still have not had that meal out together. Why not?
When you have small children, it seems to be really difficult to carve out more than a moment for private time together. It may be hard to find someone to take care of the children. And what do we do about a baby that needs to be breast-fed? Can anybody else make our children settle down to sleep in the evening? Who could we even ask to come and stay with our children? You don’t need to make an effort to find obstacles, they are so obvious and so many. And our idea to go out together is postponed again and again.
We sometimes wonder why this should be so difficult. We are not dreaming to go for a vacation in Spain. Or we do, but that would be a little too extravagant for a student’s family. We only dream of a meal together in a restaurant, going for a jog together, having sauna at the cabin, and so on. And we seem unable to accomplish even that. I would call that sheer laziness!
But maybe that kind of laziness is also a sign of something positive, namely functional family life and a good couple relationship. Isn’t is so that good home life is even more important than breaks, either short or long. Having tea together on an ordinary weekday evening, sitting on a sofa together, having sauna together, those things are important to us. I would not change our good everyday life for less good life with more vacations.
Yet we had this same discussion again a short while ago. I realized that we had had our previous moment together a short lifetime ago – in our case nine months ago. We decided to really do something about it. And we did: we checked our calendars, made a couple of phone calls – and everything turned out fine. It was not so difficult after all.
I was finally able to go out with my wife. After some time on a climbing wall and a meal at a restaurant I felt great. My wife seemed dearer than ever. The children seemed sweeter than even. We decided that when we have this same discussion again in the future, we will act more quickly. Those who encouraged us to have a private moment together were certainly not wrong.
Text: Sauli Tervaniemi
Translation: Sirkka-Liisa Leinonen
You will find the original finnish blog post here.
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