Marriage Counseling should teach...

you how to deal with the real issues of living with another person.   With the divorce rate steadily increasing, standard marriage counseling just doesn't seem to be working.  I realized that perhaps they are counseling us on the wrong issues.  They talk to the couple to advise them on how to nicely work through the major issues (according to them) of marriage such as where to eat holiday dinners, how you will spend your monies, how many children to have and when to start having them, etc.  But if you think about it, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners come but once a year; children either arrive or they don't; and you either spend your money or save it. Period.  Now the day to day living, that's another thing.


Take for instance, do you like the shades up? or the shades down?  

Or possibly a little of both?

Both of these are varieties that my husband randomly uses; I myself prefer both shades up so I come along behind him and open them all the way.  This is a daily occurance in the Harding household!

Or if you have mini blinds:  do you open  them straight, slanted up, slanted down, or raise them?  (that's 4 choices for your window treatments.  With 365 days a year to contend with this issue, it is obviously much more important than 3 yearly holiday dinners)

Again, I prefer my blinds both up or at least both opened.  I like a lot of light and could give a hoot if someone decides they want to look in and see me in whatever attire I happen to be in doing whatever it is that I do all day long.   Therefore the blinds are opened twice every day in the Harding household - I wait until he is settled in his easy chair watching the morning show and then I go around the house and REALLY open all  the shades and blinds.


Do you squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom? the top? or the middle?  That is 3 choices x 3 times a day  x 2 of you x 365 days EVERY year - obviously the shear numbers of this make it much more important then whether you spend a few dollars on Starbucks coffee everyday when he prefers to save money).

I was horrified after he borrowed my toothpaste
and returned this mangled thing.  

                                                                                   

Yep, this is how my tube looks (all the way to the end of it) when only I use it.
Then I cut the bottom off to access the rest but alas that is a story for another day!!

 Do you like the toilet paper to roll from the top or the bottom?  (Not even gonna guess how many times a day this could annoy you)  Actually I'm just glad when he remembers to put a new roll out!!  Do you want the toilet lid/seat up or do you prefer it down at all times?  We have a double sink in the kitchen.  To me that means a clean sink (on the right) and a dirty sink (on the left).  When I wash a few items I place them in the clean sink to air dry while other dirty dishes go in the left sink.  My husband just sees 2 sinks....need I say any more?  But these are not the things you discuss in marriage counseling so we dig our heels in and let them know that our way is the right way and they need to change.  Instead of drying the few clean dishes and putting them away before he puts dirty ones on top of them, I  have to let him know that he messed up my clean dishes.  These every day, all day long, little nuisances that drive us crazy are so soon what we define our marriages by.  How do we learn to live in peace and harmony with our soul mates you ask?  It is a trick that I don't profess to have conquered yet; but I 'm trying.  I thank God for him when I am correcting or fixing what annoys me.  So when I'm opening the blinds, I thank God he got up before me to let the dog out; when I pick up the wet bath mat, I thank God he likes to be clean; when he asks to borrow my toothpaste, I thank God he still has his teeth and a cute smile and I give him his very own tube that I have stashed away, and when he puts the dirty dishes in the sink, I ... . shoot, I just said I haven't conquered all these annoying things yet!!