I Thank My Husband Every 4 Minutes

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Abstract

t. We’ll take even the most spectacular things for granted, if we have them for long enough.</p><p id="36c0">So insofar as my marriage requires “work,” it’s the daily work of reminding ourselves how good we’ve got it. And to do that, we’ve developed a simple habit: we say thank you. All the time. For everything. Even (and especially) for the dumb routine things we do every day. I clocked it once — on average, we thank each other 12–15 times an hour, or around every 4 minutes.</p><p id="8245">For example, here are just a few of the things I thanked my husband for for yesterday:</p><ul><li>For getting up when our daughter shrieked bloody murder in the middle of the night for no reason, as she is often wont to do</li><li>For making the coffee</li><li>For reminding me that I no longer need to slice grapes in half for our youngest, as she is now old enough to eat them without choking</li><li>For not judging me when I slice them anyway, because my Mom-sized amygdala is too active</li><li>For agreeing wholeheartedly when I said, “I’m just fantastic, you know?”</li><li>For packing the kids’ lunches, and for making them approximately 1000x healthier than pepperoni sandwiches I ate as a child</li><li>For giving me a high-five for a thunderous burp</li><li>For putting sunscreen on our youngest child (not unlike catching a terrified frog with your bare hands)</li><li>For shuttling the kids to school</li><li>For caulking the eaves</li><li>For walking around shirtless & sweaty after caulking the eaves</li><li>For banging me on my lunch break (admittedly unavoidable; see above)</li><li>For shuttling the kids to ballet</li><li>For ordering way too much Mexican food</li><li>For watching way too many episodes of <i>Better Call Saul </i>with me while we ate said Mexican food</li><li>For playing the inevitable game of bedtime whack-a

Options

-mole where our half-asleep children ask for increasingly crazy things (“No, kiddo, I will not go get you a quarter. We don’t take loose change to bed.”)</li><li>For turning down the AC to my preferred sleeping temperature (Arctic)</li><li>For continuing to be my husband (x10)</li></ul><p id="5522">He does all this almost every day, and a lot of people might feel silly saying thank you for something their partner does all the time, out of habit.</p><p id="1627">But it’s not silly. It’s important. Not for the person getting thanked — my husband is not an attention-hungry narcissist who requires constant fawning and validation — but for the person <i>doing the thanking</i>. Me.</p><p id="a690">Because all of these little things he does give me pleasure, and I don’t want to become numb to them. And the best way to do that is to keep noticing them, every day, every time.</p><p id="5886"><i>Enjoy hearing about my weird marriage? Sign up<a href="https://addiepage.medium.com/subscribe"> here</a> to get emails when I publish a new story or subscribe to Medium with <a href="https://addiepage.medium.com/membership">my referral link</a> to contribute directly to my work.</i></p><div id="4605" class="link-block"> <a href="https://addiepage.medium.com/subscribe"> <div> <div> <h2>Get an email whenever Addie Page publishes.</h2> <div><h3>Get an email whenever Addie Page publishes. By signing up, you will create a Medium account if you don't already have…</h3></div> <div><p>addiepage.medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*uJGUVlJ0HYZJ5hZ6)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

No, I am not a brainwashed Stepford wife

Anyone who has been reading my essays here knows a handful of things about me: I’m a little unusual and a lot too confident. Motherhood doesn’t always suit me. These last few years have been rough.

But you’d also know that — despite all these challenges — I still really enjoy my marriage.

I’m not a marriage genius or anything. I’m just lucky. My husband and I are bizarrely compatible. He knows what I want for dinner, because he wants the same thing. We both hate receiving gifts. We agree on which people “get it” and which people don’t.

We also fill in each other’s weaknesses. He takes care of the kids, I take care of the money. He does the daily chores, I do the deep cleans. He has the acute panic attacks, I have the slow-burning existential crises. We map well.

But even very lucky marriages can fall apart, simply because humans will get used to anything. We come pre-installed with autopilot. We’ll take even the most spectacular things for granted, if we have them for long enough.

So insofar as my marriage requires “work,” it’s the daily work of reminding ourselves how good we’ve got it. And to do that, we’ve developed a simple habit: we say thank you. All the time. For everything. Even (and especially) for the dumb routine things we do every day. I clocked it once — on average, we thank each other 12–15 times an hour, or around every 4 minutes.

For example, here are just a few of the things I thanked my husband for for yesterday:

For getting up when our daughter shrieked bloody murder in the middle of the night for no reason, as she is often wont to do

For making the coffee

For reminding me that I no longer need to slice grapes in half for our youngest, as she is now old enough to eat them without choking

For not judging me when I slice them anyway, because my Mom-sized amygdala is too active

For agreeing wholeheartedly when I said, “I’m just fantastic, you know?”

For packing the kids’ lunches, and for making them approximately 1000x healthier than pepperoni sandwiches I ate as a child

For giving me a high-five for a thunderous burp

For putting sunscreen on our youngest child (not unlike catching a terrified frog with your bare hands)

For shuttling the kids to school

For caulking the eaves

For walking around shirtless & sweaty after caulking the eaves

For banging me on my lunch break (admittedly unavoidable; see above)

For shuttling the kids to ballet

For ordering way too much Mexican food

For watching way too many episodes of Better Call Saul with me while we ate said Mexican food

For playing the inevitable game of bedtime whack-a-mole where our half-asleep children ask for increasingly crazy things (“No, kiddo, I will not go get you a quarter. We don’t take loose change to bed.”)

For turning down the AC to my preferred sleeping temperature (Arctic)

For continuing to be my husband (x10)

He does all this almost every day, and a lot of people might feel silly saying thank you for something their partner does all the time, out of habit.

But it’s not silly. It’s important. Not for the person getting thanked — my husband is not an attention-hungry narcissist who requires constant fawning and validation — but for the person doing the thanking. Me.

Because all of these little things he does give me pleasure, and I don’t want to become numb to them. And the best way to do that is to keep noticing them, every day, every time.

Enjoy hearing about my weird marriage? Sign up here to get emails when I publish a new story or subscribe to Medium with my referral link to contribute directly to my work.