Marriage Means Doing Things You Don’t Have To Do

Posted: 5 years ago

Marriage Means Doing Things You Don’t Have To Do

I casually mentioned to my husband I was taking our son in for a blood draw the next day. I had asked him to do it the last time because this procedure takes it out of me, but he is in the thick of it at work and I felt I needed to step up. The next day, I was about to walk out the door for the appointment, when my husband walked through it to take our son instead.

He didn’t have to. But he did.

I told him to go. I told him to book the ticket so he could cheer for his favorite team in person. We are in a phase where manning three children under six is tiresome and sometimes grueling when alone. He tried to back out of going, knowing what the reality of the weekend would mean for me. But I kissed him goodbye and told him to have fun.

I didn’t have to. But I did.

As nice as these recent anecdotes are, life is fuller than we’d like right now. It’s full of late-night work sessions, dinner plans gone awry and deadlines that keep getting pushed back. Things have become routine, too much so. I realize when we get to this place of unrest, this place of discontentment, we’ve let the outside circumstances get in the way of our daily commitment. We forget to encourage, to bless, to sacrifice for one another not just in the big ways, but the small ones.

We sometimes forget to do the things we don’t have to do. That’s when the joy slips.

But it always comes back when we recognize it. It comes back when I make the bed because he likes it even when I don’t care, it comes back when he takes on more than his share of parenting because I’m exhausted, it comes back when we put our ambitions, plans and pleasures aside to take off the load weighing the other down. It comes back with an extra kind word, a thoughtful gesture, a playful touch to build each other up.

Our marriage thrives when we step in when the other is being stepped on. Our marriage is at its best when we remember it’s mutual servanthood, a daily series of actions that together make up one great love.

We find the life we are looking for when we do the things we don’t have to do.

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Jillian Benfield

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