Laughter is the Answer

Dads’ Survival Guide: Partnering — Our Marriage

Dads make plenty of New Year’s resolutions. The annual list addresses any number of areas:

— Health: Hitting the gym and dropping some pounds.

— Intellect: Less phone scrolling and more book reading.

— Work: Proactive vs. reactive. Strategic opposed to tactical.

— Finances: Saving for college instead of spending at Costco.

— Fathering: Teaching moments with sons. Quality time with daughters.

— Faith: Reading God’s Word, prayer and moderating vices (drinking, gambling, etc.)

Improvements. Advances. Earnest efforts. By Dads. Striving to be better. Across multiple aspects of our lives. Bravo. Whether we deliver on our resolutions or not, at least we’re trying.

Yet, there’s one area getting overlooked. Not given the necessary attention. Despite being a critical component of Dadhood.

Dads rarely make New Year’s resolutions to improve our marriages.

Marriage Metrics

Improvement can’t start till we know where we stand. We need metrics. Viable forms of measurement. Empirical. Observable. To evaluate current status. And set targets for getting better.

Dads love metrics. Part of our every day. Bathroom scales. Bank balances. Bonus payouts. Speedometers. Stock tickers. Sports scoreboards. And Fantasy standings. (I finished dead last this year — Uggh!)

Performance based. Result-oriented. Easy to see. And compare.

So, how do Dads measure our marriage? Assess the condition of the relationship with our wife?

Number of years wed. Number of kids bred. Achievements of the brood reared. Metrics, for sure. But sadly, there are plenty of unsuccessful marriages producing successful offspring.

How about “Happily married.” The most common cultural appraisal. An upbeat, jolly valuation. Visible. Observable. And sufficiently amorphous for any couple to claim. Regardless of their true marital state.

Except “happy” is circumstantial. A moment in time. Based on the situation at hand. Whereas marriage is forever. A lifetime commitment. Unconditional. Rather than transactional.

Serious Business

Dads recognize marriage is more than just outcomes. Cheery clichés can’t possibly convey the meaning and richness of a marital journey. A lifelong experience. “Till death do us part.”

Serious stuff.

Marriage is serious business. Especially the parenting part. Child-rearing has high stakes. Consequences. For not getting it right. Dads. Moms. Under the gun. To execute our roles. Properly. Expertly. With each child. During every phase. Newborns to young adults.

Marriage is expensive. The cost of kids is astronomical. Not just the food. The activities. And the stuff. Stunning. How much we spend on kids. Even before they head to college.

Pressuring us to earn more. Lots more. To cover the costs of children. On top of the mortgage. Cars. Taxes. Doctor bills. Vet bills!! Holy cow.

Marriage is exhausting. A stressful, anxiety-ridden, taxing grind. Decision after decision. Choice after choice. Amid the constant whirlwind of activities. So much coming at us. From so many different directions. With a pandemic thrown on top.

Who has time to think? About anything. Like our marriage. With so much serious stuff going on.

Laughing Matters

On the night we brought our second-born home from the hospital, he developed a fever. We rushed him back to the emergency room at 3am. The Intern-on-call knew the protocol. But was inexperienced. She tried performing a spinal tap. Poking my 2-day old with a giant needle. For hours. Unsuccessfully. Perhaps the most terrifying situation I ever witnessed.

Fortunately, our son recovered. After a NICU ward stay, he came home completely healthy.

And maybe that’s the point. Kids recover. Financial troubles blow over. Careers get back on track. Couples find a way to overcome. And move on. Sure, life and death situations arise. But most of what we experience is not a 5-alarm fire. It just feels that way. At the time.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing. Allowing us to see more clearly. Reflect. Perhaps we’re taking life too seriously. Taking ourselves too seriously. Maybe, Dads and Moms ought to calm down. Chill-lax. And enjoy the journey. Take all life’s ups and downs with a smile. Laugh a little. Laugh a lot, actually

Because laughing matters.

The Marriage Metric

Laughing. Together.

In the early days of our marriage, we laughed together. A lot. Giggled. Chuckled. Chortled. Good, hearty, healthy laughs. All the time. We had fun. Even through situations that weren’t so fun. Simply being together. Exploring. Discovering. Building bonds to last a lifetime.

Laughter is the antidote. For the stress. Fretting. Worry. When we can laugh at ourselves. As a couple. Our naïveté. Bumbling and stumbling. Figuring stuff out. When we had no idea how.

Laughter. The barometer of marriage. An ideal metric. For Dads. To improve on.

Because Dads are aces. At making others laugh. Dreaming up ideas. Hatching new ways. To make our wives smile. Our kids, too. We’ve done so for years. And we love it. Being funny comes easy for Dads. The clown-like nature in all of us.

For 2022, let’s resolve to laugh more. With our wives. And as a result, make our marriage better. And get the coming year of to a terrific start.

Go, Dads. Go.