12 Little Things My Husband Does That Make Me Smile
12 Little Things My Husband Does That Make Me Smile
Description
What are you smiling for? My husband asks me that pretty regularly. Oftentimes, it is because he unknowingly does something that prompts me to smile. While his actions elicit smiles regularly, there are moments in which the effect they have on me is far greater. These are the moments in which I find myself struggling. Running on fumes as I go through the motions at the end of what felt like a stressful day, tackling what seems like a never-ending pile of laundry or dishes. Striving to meet a deadline or venturing out into the occasionally choppy waters of parenting and having the nerve to ask myself if I am cut out for this. (Of course I am. I was made for this. I was made to love these babies.
To love him.) These little things he does have quite the impact. They are like an elixir, remedying the occasional weary and/or negative attitude, turning my frown upside down — reminding me that I no longer travel this road alone and that I haven’t traveled it alone in awhile. Suddenly I am reminded that surely there is always something to smile about. Here are a handful of the things that my husband does that make me grin.
Kisses me when he thinks I’m asleep.
It's so sweet I wouldn't dare open my eyes. (Also: I do the same thing!)
Writes special notes he leaves for our daughter before leaving to work.
Nothing makes her morning more than a love note from her daddy.
Tells me I can have the last cupcake even though I saved it for him.
He knows that despite saving it for him, I probably wanted to eat it. Desserts are my weakness, and he gets it.
Asks me if I’d like to go on a date with him.
It often takes me back to when we were dating. I think it's so cute when he asks me if I'd like to go on a date.
Watches me from the corner of his eye as I walk past.
From time to time, I will catch my Mr. watching me. Clearly he thinks I've still got it going on! Holla!
Makes me glasses of water.
Oftentimes my husband will fill up glasses of water and sit them on the counter for me to drink. He wants to ensure I'm drinking enough because he knows I get headaches when I don't.
Suggests topics for future blog posts.
I love that my husband reads my words, but I also think it's sweet that he will sometimes give me suggestions on topics to consider writing about.
Asks questions about a favorite TV show of mine.
I've shared that watching my favorite TV shows is one of the ways my husband tells me he loves me without saying it. I can't help but smile on the inside when he gets in bed while I'm watching Grey's Anatomy and inquires about one of the characters on the show.
Taps me when he hears my songs.
Whether we are in church or out and about, if a song that has been declared as "my song" comes on, he taps me and says something.
Tells me I look beautiful.
Hearing my husband tell me I'm beautiful causes me to morph into a giddy teenager. It is impossible to keep a straight face when he says such. I admit there was a time when I struggled to accept his compliments, but these days I'm learning to receive them.
Steps out of his comfort zone.
There are so many instances when my husband has done something he wouldn't normally do to make me happy. I can't help but smile at that :)
Loves on our babies.
Whether he is helping with homework, dancing around the room, saying bedtime prayers, or rocking our little one in his arms, there is little I adore more than watching him interact with our daughters.
I hadn’t planned on bringing up my J-date “discovery” with TC – my feeling was, just let this thing die.
But when he left a casual, breezy message on my voicemail (pretty much reflecting the way we left things off), I had to get it off my chest, but I didn’t feel like talking to him. I sent an e-mail that stated that I noticed that he had revised his profile while we were still dating, and found it quite hurtful – if he was interested in dating other people at that time, he really should have said something to me.
His response: he would occasionally see that he’d received an e-mail through the site, and would log in to read it – but he never responded, and hadn’t dated anyone else. He said he understood how I might feel, and he apologized.
Not entirely satisfactory (why would he feel the need to stroke his ego by reading incoming e-mails on a dating site?) – but by this point, I was just done. I had already spent too much time and energy on him, and was ready to close this book. I e-mailed him with a simple thanks for the explanation, maybe we can be friends down the road, but for now, it’s best to have some distance. He wrote back: I understand, best of luck, etc.
I don’t know why I feel / felt the need to have so-called closure – but I did (feel that need), and I do (feel that I have the closure on him now).
Moving on. Still in “non-dating” mode – it’s a good feeling, NOT having to worry about the usual questions / wondering that go along with even the most simple exchanges! (at least in my stupidly overly-analytical head)
OK, one exception to my non-dating status: a second date is planned with Skydiver later this week. We’re both recently out of relationships, so it seems that there’s an unspoken rule to take this (whatever “this” is at this moment) at a snail’s pace. No problem there.
And (I’m not considering this a date) – I’m having brunch today with a guy I’ll call Good Hair Guy (GHG). GHG and I met through Match about two years ago and dated casually for a few months – he was clear from the start that he wasn’t looking for a serious relationship, and, at the time, that was fine by me. We had fun – no pressure, no questions.
We gradually stopped seeing each other, but every so often would meet for a drink – sometimes we’d wind up spending the night together, but not always. Last time I saw him was over the summer, when we had a very nice chat over a drink (purely platonic).
Today? I’m not feeling particularly FWB-ish. I’m anticipating a fun day with a cute guy friend. That’s it. (but will keep him in mind if a tryst is needed down the road)
Had a lunch date today (date #126 since my last serious relationship ended four years ago) -- I'm not feeling particularly creative with names right now, so for the moment, he'll just be known as Mr Sunday.
Sunday and I had a pretty good e-mail rapport, but when we first talked on the phone last week, the conversation felt a bit forced. Generally, in my experience, when I don't feel a connection by phone, it's rare that I'll have one in person. We wrapped up the convo by making lunch plans for today, but in the days that followed, I considered canceling -- and maybe this is wrong, but at the time, I thought that if a possible date with Mr R were to come up for today, then I'd cancel on Mr Sunday in order to see Mr R.
If you've been keeping up -- Mr R is now history. I decided to keep my date with Mr Sunday with the "you never know" mindset. Maybe we were just a bit nervous on the phone? It's a lot of pressure to say the "right" thing to a stranger during that initial conversation.
I'm glad I didn't cancel -- Mr Sunday was cute, and we had a nice, easy rapport -- we made each other laugh quite a bit. This was potentially telling - after lunch, there would have been the chance for one of us to bail if there was no interest at all. Instead, we took a stroll through the park and continued chatting.
Being a bright, sunny, sober afternoon, we wrapped up the date with a kiss on the cheek, and a mention that we should get together for a drink soon. Next time, at night. So -- we'll see.
Question: when you start dating someone new, do you search for whatever clues you can find about them? I sure do. Maybe Google, maybe Facebook -- probably both. I'm curious to see if we have any mutual friends, where they went to school (if they haven't already told me), etc.
DISCLAIMER: one last comment on Mr R, then he's going to be banished from these pages for good! I'll admit, after I met him, every so often I'd look at his Facebook page to see if there were any clues I could learn about him -- he has one of those pages where you can see all the information even if you're not his FB "friend".
Out of curiosity, I had a look at his FB page yesterday -- and he's already announced that he's "in a relationship" with this new woman! Whoa, Nelly! Just three days earlier, he had told me that they'd just had three dates together -- of course, there's a good chance that was a lie, and they'd gone out many more times than that.
But the fact remains... dude, you were telling me on Monday that you wanted to play strip poker with me, and we were planning our next dates... and by the weekend you're declaring to the world that you're in a relationship with someone else? This just reeks of "ew".
And let's not even mention the fact that relationships that take off really quickly often tend to crash and burn just as fast. Anyway: it's official -- that will be the last mention here of Mr R (unless he does something ridiculous, like contact me), because he really doesn't deserve any more typing energy.
Description
Une journée d’échanges et d’ateliers participatifs pour réfléchir collectivement à la transformation numérique dans nos associations.
Evénement organisé par un collectif d'associations bretonnes, piloté par le Mouvement associatif Bretagne.
I’ve heard those words from countless men and women who somehow found themselves on the other side of marriage — divorced, and whether out of a desire for non-coupled company or just trying to do the best thing, never hesitated to advertise the greenness of their grass. To be honest, I am pretty sure I’ve said those words myself. In a sense, I wholeheartedly believe them.
You shouldn’t stay married (just) for the children, because the reality is the damage done by two people who are legally together is sometimes far worse than the damage done by those two people after they have made the decision to part.
But if you were to ask me today, at this very moment in my life, why my husband and I are still married — my response would be for our children.
As someone who helped support her family while blogging about love and relationships, it feels odd to accept the fact that some days our love feels incredibly hard. Lately, it feels like we’re just holding on to each other and our marriage by a thread. But it’s a common thread. It’s our love for our children and the family that we’ve created together.
I think that no matter how strong your relationship is, you’re going to want to quit at some point. There will be days when you look at yourself in the mirror and wonder what you’re doing. How the hell did I get here? Is this what it’s supposed to be?
There will be days when you will tally up the good and the bad to see which one outweighs the other because you aren’t 100 percent sure anymore. There will be days when you want to walk away and the only thing keeping you from doing just that are the tiny hearts that beat in the neighboring room. So you keep showing up — for them. For the kids.
We tell our children often that our love for them is unconditional. “Nothing you do will change my love for you.” And we mean it. Loving our babies is easy. It’s what we were born to do.
But being a parent — that’s the hard part. We don’t get to tell our toddler mid tantrum that it’s “not working,” or that we rushed into this parenting gig. We don’t get to get mad and walk out on our precocious preschooler or remind our autonomous teen of their mistakes again and again. Instead, we never stop trying and vow that we never will.
It can be painful and grueling and some days you may find that you’ve shed more tears than your toddler. And still we declare that it’s the best kind of work. Because it is.
So when do we determine that our spouse is not worthy of the unconditional love we extend so freely to our sweet babies? When do we decide that our marriage isn’t worthy of the work that it takes to sustain it? When do we decide — I love you but not enough to endure?
Sometimes all you need is one reason to keep fighting.
A reason beyond your faith and your vows. Something tangible you can hold onto, something you can see, a reminder of the gifts and grace that abounds. A light that shines even in your darkest night.
Our children are blossoming before our eyes, in part because of the love and care that we have put into raising them together. Our family means everything to us, and because of that we stay. We understand the trials that we face aren’t forever, but family is. We hold on and we go to work, to repair, to rebuild, to reconnect and to find our way back.
There’s a lot at stake here.
We know the toll divorce can take on not just a couple, but their children. Like an earthquake, you can prepare all you want, but you can’t possibly know the scope of the damage until after. You can rebuild and mend, but everyone involved is forever altered, continuously rattled by the aftershocks.
Even so, if the relationship is causing more harm than good, sometimes you’ll have to let go, for you, your spouse and for your babies.
But, with the exception of a toxic relationship, if you can find one good reason to keep holding on, one valid reason against letting go — start there.
For some of us, our selfish tendencies have been regulated by the profound impact of parenthood. We love our children unconditionally. Yet we might struggle to give that same kind of love to our spouse. Motherhood has taught me that there’s still room to keep going beyond what feels like my wits’ end. Even when I’ve hit rock bottom, I’m not there all alone. This is marriage.
It’s looking into the eyes of my husband, eyes as tired as mine, heart as heavy all the while, united in our love for them, and being reminded that they are a reflection of the love we have for one another.
It’s choosing love and allowing our faith to guide and sustain us. We choose each other and allow our love to (re)fill us. We choose this family each and every day and allow that to be our reason. And with each day we press on, perhaps the distance between us lessens, the length of the thread shortens and we return to the days in which we held on to each other.
Because one day they may grow up and choose to plant roots elsewhere. One day it’ll be just the two of us. And my prayer is that we’ll be glad that we stayed for the kids. Because in staying for the kids, we ultimately stayed for us.
In the several weeks since our first date, Camper and I have seen a LOT of each other. And it's only in this moment of reflection, trying to conjure up words for this blog post, that I'm realizing it's too much, too soon. He tells me often that he's crazy about me... and that he misses me when we're not together. I think we both need to allow for some distance, some mystery.
Saying that -- there have been those moments when I'm just thrilled to be walking down the street holding his hand. Just a few weeks ago, I looked upon those hand-holding couples with envy. Now, I'm suddenly one of them.
Yes, it's official -- we're a "couple". We determined rather early on that neither of us was dating anyone else. We've started to meet each other's friends. There are couple-y pics of us on Facebook... but I'm certainly NOT ready to declare us as being "in a relationship" on Facebook, for the world to see. Save that for a few months down the road.
And yet... I must admit, New Guy lurks in the back of my mind. To be continued...
But a big part of that method is allowing yourself to bomb lol Like knowing “wow what I just said was terrible and I have no idea what to say now…lol this is so awkward, she must think I’m a fucking weird creeper lol” and then shrugging and walking off and being OKAY with that and seeing the humor in it (imagine how weird that was to her lol) and allowing that to fuel you into a funny state of mind and loosen up. As you do it, you’ll get sharper and sharper and start hitting on all cylinders.
I have to do this because my day to day job involves sitting at a computer not talking to anyone all day and I’m very focused on my work these days because I have some career goals right now, so when Friday night comes around I have literally not socialized face-to-face all week (unless I invite a chick over to bang or whatever). So I get to the chaotic club and there’s all these titties in push-up bras everywhere and I’m like “fffffuuuuuu….” and have to warm-up and basically make an ass of myself for a bit till I get used to socializing again.
It’s really not optimal, I much prefer a schedule where I can go out a few times a week, even for just a bit, or shoot the shit with store employees or co-workers at lunch etc, but right now I’m doing solo work at home and like I say, I’m focused on that right now.
“Then, I just decide to go in there with fundamentals or something.”
This kind of thing is part of why we have routines and openers…so when you’re feeling out of it, you can just rely on something you’ve used a bunch of times before and often that can jump-start you into a getting back on track. Like when you’re tired and don’t want to go to the gym, but you force yourself to put on your gym clothes anyway, and once those are on well you might as well get your gym bag, and once you have that well you might as well put the gym bag in the car, and once you’ve done that you might as well drive to the gym, and then lift weights, etc.
“(probably should have distracted the obstacles, but fuck it, I need to get INTO the game)”
You, in state and “in the game”, is 1000x more valuable in terms of wingmanship than an out-of-state you just forcing yourself to babysit an obstacle. You might even fuck it up and lose that set for him, and that sucks, but if it gets you in state, then you guys will kill the next set and that’s worth it.
Recognizing Commitment-Phobes and Emotionally Unavailable Partners.
Rencontre départementale co-organisée par le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif et la Bibliothèque départementale du Finistère.
Programme en construction.
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique des Côtes d'Armor
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique des Côtes d'Armor
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Réservez votre vendredi 28 mars pour la journée départementale des acteurs et actrices de la médiation numérique des Côtes d'Armor organisée par le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif en partenariat avec la ville de Rostrenen, Esprit Fablab et OGO.
Cette journée, ouverte aux professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique des Côtes d'Armor, aura lieu à la salle des fêtes de Rostrenen de 9h30 à 17h.
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique du Finistère
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique du Finistère
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Réservez votre mardi 18 mars pour la journée départementale des acteurs et actrices de la médiation numérique du Finistère organisée par le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif en partenariat avec la ville de Quimper.
Cette journée ouverte aux professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique du Finistère aura lieu à Quimper.
Inscrivez-vous sans plus attendre (places limitées) !
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique du Morbihan
Rencontre départementale des professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique du Morbihan
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Réservez votre mardi 26 novembre pour la journée départementale des acteurs de la médiation numérique du Morbihan organisée par le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif en partenariat avec Ploërmel Communauté.
Cette journée ouverte aux professionnels et bénévoles de la médiation numérique aura lieu à la salle des fêtes de Ploërmel.
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Le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif vous invite à participer à un webinaire autour de l'illettrisme le 12 novembre de 13h à 14h. Le webinaire est destiné à tous les aidants numériques professionnels et bénévoles de Bretagne.
Comment mieux identifier, accompagner et orienter les personnes en situation d’illettrisme ?
Un adulte sur dix est en grande difficulté dans la vie quotidienne avec la lecture, l’écriture ou le calcul, impactant ses capacités à utiliser pleinement les outils numériques.
Vous êtes un aidant numérique professionnel ou bénévole et vous vous demandez comment identifier ces personnes, répondre à leurs besoins immédiats et susciter l’envie d’aller vers l’autonomie ?
Nous vous proposons de découvrir trois outils et dispositifs concrets qui vous permettront de favoriser l'inclusion numérique des personnes en situation d’illettrisme et de les aider à développer leurs compétences digitales, à accéder aux services en ligne et à utiliser les technologies de manière autonome.
Ce webinaire est organisé en partenariat avec l'ANLCI, le GRETA Bretagne occidentale, le CLPS et la Région Bretagne.
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Le site PORTREA bénéficie depuis peu de nouvelles fonctionnalités, c'est pourquoi le Hub Bretagne pour un numérique inclusif vous invite à participer à un webinaire autour de cet outil le 8 octobre de 13h à 14h.
Ce webinaire est destiné à tous les professionnels ou bénévoles concernés par les thématiques de l'accompagnement numérique, de l'accès aux droits ou de l'accueil.
As you may have already surmised from my last post, I had a lovely, wonderful date with Adventure Dude. In a nutshell: dinner, drinks, more drinks, sitting closer, kissing, talking, more kissing, talking…
In total, it was a five-hour date that just flew by. Very giddy-making. Second date already planned for this week.
He mentioned something about this being such a great date, that he’s feeling compelled to take his Match profile down… I told him that it was important for us to take this slowly. (though secretly pleased that he’d say something like that… but only time will tell)
Now, for the latest news with “This Guy”:
While I just met This Guy a few weeks ago, there have been a few things that have been weighing in the back of my mind already – things that I haven’t mentioned here because I didn’t necessarily want to admit them to myself.
He’s not exactly a romantic sort. I would toss a few flirtatious lines in my e-mails, and his responses would be quite perfunctory. I joked about this with him, and he said that just wasn’t his preferred genre for flirting. Fair enough... but if you can't flirt back a little bit, meet me halfway? Hm.
He’s very involved in his career – while this is a good thing, he did mention early on (unsolicited) that he feels that he needs to “get his life on track” before he can think about getting married and having kids. While I’m certainly not looking to get married tomorrow, when a guy states that kind of thing early on? Consider yourself warned.
I really don’t get the impression that he’s “into” me. It feels more like a buddy situation, with things only getting intimate once we’re alone at my place.
With that in mind: we had plans for last night, and even before my great date with Adventure Dude, I felt that I needed to have a little chat with This Guy. For one – while I enjoyed sex with him last weekend, I felt that we jumped into it too quickly. The little battle between my hormones and my brain led to the former bitch-slapping the latter. I had temporarily forgotten – oh yeah, I DO like to have more of an emotional connection with a guy before jumping in the sack!
When I mentioned this to him (that we had moved too quickly – I left out such terms as “bitch-slapping”), he was receptive, and very respectful of my feelings. This was surprising – HE then brought up the “where do you see this going?” conversation. I had to be honest – we both have a lot of out-of-town travel coming up, so it's pretty much impossible for us to try to forge any sort of serious relationship right now -- but I'd still like to hang out, and take it day by day. He agreed that that seemed like the best plan.
I’m glad we discussed this, and am content with the situation right now. Now very curious to see what happens with Adventure Dude! As Dating Trooper reminded me of my own advice: just enjoy the moment!
