The slow movement is gaining speed. Christine Louise Hohlbaum has an entire blog devoted to our relationship to time and our too-often inability to make friends with it. Her Power of Slow concept does not say necessarily to live life slowly, but rather to live life mindfully. I like that concept. I’ve been trying it on for size.
Except I’ve run into one little wrinkle. I have learned that marriage can test your definition of time, mindfulness, and the nonspatial continuum like no other.
When looking up the definition of time, I found many:
- The duration of one’s life; the hours and days which a person has at his disposal.
- A proper time; a season; an opportunity.
- A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
- Hour of travail, delivery, or parturition.
- Performance or occurrence of an action or event, considered with reference to repetition; addition of a number to itself; repetition; as, to double cloth four times; four times four, or sixteen.
And, my favorite:
- Tense
You got that right.
Single people are often given kudos for “taking charge.” While married people are oft rewarded for staying side by side, slowing a little when needed and picking up the pace when warranted. Yet, always staying connected.
But, what happens if your nickname is “Velocity” as mine is? And, Husband’s is something that means “analyzing something until the end of time so no mistakes are made?”
I live in leaps and bounds. Husband is content to plug away, taking life in small bites. I tend to live life as if the house was on fire. Husband would never have a house fire, as he would never be so careless or unprepared or would be able to put out a flame before it dared to flare.
No way is the best way. It’s just different.
But, different is sometimes hard for the late bloomer bride. When single, things happen at your own pace. No one could stop you – or start you. And, if you have been single a long time, you develop a sort of rhythm and expectation around how quickly (or slowly) things in your life move – everything from how long you are willing to commute to work to how much deliberation should go into buying a new dishwasher.
(We just went through the latter, which involved checking the last two years of Consumer Reports, visiting several online stores, and will soon involve visiting the physical store “just to be sure.” I would have one-clicked a new washer to our house in about 20 minutes had I been single.)
Yes, expect your decision-making, movement-making, charge-taking to all change once the vows are spoken.
Two things I’ve learned in an attempt to traverse this new time territory:
- Develop your patience. Joint decision-making takes time. (There’s that word again.) It’s why people complain about all those company meetings they have to sit in. Building consensus, getting people up to speed, weighing the options, considering the alternatives – it takes something. And, not everyone reaches the same conclusion in the same time-frame as the others. So, in marriage, it can feel like a colossal waste of time, sitting there waiting for the other to have their decision epiphany. But, you’re gonna have to do it for harmony sake.
- Talk more than you think you need to. (As you can imagine, Husband is thrilled with this tactic.) However, it may be an eye opener for the LBB that there now exists a second person to consider at all. So, it deserves mentioning. We both have to remember the pace at which you live has significant impact on the other. So, you have to, literally, check in with them on things you wouldn’t have given a second thought to had you been single. And, sometimes you have to light a fire under their butt. And, that means you have to verbalize. Request. Suggest deadlines for decision-making. Have a summit. Whatever it takes to get it on the table.
Anyone else have ideas on reconciling differing “life paces?”
My mother used to say, “It’s all in the timing.” She would be sure she made Dad’s favorite dinner, had the children (that’s me and Patricia) in bed, soft music on and then she would tell him what he could do to make her happy after she asked him the same question. Of course that worked in the 1940′s. All I had to do in the l960′s was bake bread which he called “manna from heaven.”
Tina’s comment that she and her husband both have things that they procrastinate on brings up an interesting discussion (maybe another LBB blog post?). That is, how do you gently and lovingly discuss (not nag) your loved one when they are procrastinating on something, which in some way effects you? I do it, he does it, but how do we “call each other out” without creating a marital “flare up”? An LBB never had anyone to “answer to” before, and, now, not only does she have a responsibility to another person, that person’s decisions effect her too. What tactics work for others?
I always thought I was fast paced type A until I met my husband. We’re kind of like the hare and the jaguar, although we each have some things that we procrastinate on which of course are the same things that are high priority, “must be done now” things in the eyes of the other. I can’t say for sure how we get around this, but I do know that we never stop long enough to really ponder it.
How lucky you are to have similar “paces”.
If you were to look at me and my husband side by side, you’d say he’s the turtle; I’m the hare. Believe it or not, however, I do things mindfully (albeit MUCH more quickly than he). If it is true that opposites attract, our relationship is proof. Much like your Husband, mine deliberates until a) the problem goes away on its own (and if I’m involved, he’s guaranteed it won’t. I’m a master of ‘keeping it in existence until you give me a reaction, buddy’!) or b) he comes up with the solution and feels he’s fully exhausted all reference materials and resources to reach the ultimate decision.
You’d think your Husband is German. I KNOW mine is!
PS Thanks so much for blogging about The Power of Slow. I am blushing!
But, of course! Yes, sometimes I wonder if Husband is from somewhere else…frequently.