It was in Split, Croatia, where I realized our communion was made to last (no pun intended). We rented an apartment for a couple of nights in the historic center. It was what the landlord calls the “romance suite.” Which is–you know–perfect for a honeymoon (bow chicka bow wow!). The apartment is even equipped with hundreds of different colored neon lights controlled by a master remote (hence the bow-chicka). He showed us how to use the remote, the air conditioner and the TV. The guy knew how to operate every electrical devices in the house except for the washing machine. “I don’t know how to use this. I’ll ask my wife,” he said. As we finalized the paperwork, he reminisced about his younger days and travel stories with his wife before he had children. We may have drifted our attention away during his numerous stories, but he made me realized a couple of things in life.
Little Things are Actually Really Big
The landlord’s statement about the washing machine was innocent enough. But, it made me think: your wife (“your wife” in the collective sense) probably knows how to use the washing machine. She also probably knows how to load the machine, add the detergent, separate the colors from the whites, how to take care of the delicates, and which of your sweaters should not be placed in the dryer.
You might be thinking: “That’s sexist.” But wives do a lot of those kinds of things–not because we’re good at it or because of our gender–but because we care. I want my husband to look nice, smell good and be presentable. Because I love him and because it’s important to me. It’s the small things that make a marriage work. My husband also does small things for me to show he cares, like wash a sink full of dishes or vacuum just because. This kind of reliability makes a marriage strong because it’s two people working together.
Keeping it together in Split.When You’re Ready
“You should travel,” said the same landlord. “I have kids now, it’s much harder.” That is exactly what we are doing. We want to have our time together as husband and wife before embarking on the journey of raising kids. We want to pass on the diversity, acceptance, and the attitude to face challenges we learned on our travels to our children. We could take our kids with us on our travels. Parents travel with their kids all the time. Some families travel for a couple of weeks. Some travel for months–maybe even years. That’s all fine and good. But, our philosophy is that education takes the highest priority. We don’t want to pull them out of school mid-semester to travel.
It was in the lesser-populated area of Split that I started to pay attention to the little things my husband does: See, I really had to go. Like knocking-at-the-door, go. My steely bladder has had to hold some pretty gnarly pees. But, I did not think I was going to make it through this one.
The only bathroom in that particular area was a pay-per-poo (I didn’t know this, though). As I was about to walk in, a GINOURMOUS rude woman shut the door in my face. She was the keeper of the pay-per-poo toilet (that only accepted exact change), hence the door slamming in my face. So, what did husband do? He thought on his feet and quickly rushed to a nearby store. He broke a kuna bill so I could have exact change. As I walked in, though, two guys who sounded American held the door open for me (because paying for a toilet. is. ridiculous).
A good husband makes sure you don’t piss yourself. That’s Love. And that’s how I realized our marriage is a strong communion in Split.
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