One of my least favorite things is sharing a sink with Mr. Gray. Our hotel room this weekend only had one sink. It was pure torture, I tell you (you know, if torture comes in the form of spending a weekend with your family). As I complained several times throughout the weekend, it made me think about the way we came to terms with living together when we got married.
Mr. Gray and Baby Gray apparently have similar ideas about how to behave when water is present.
Thankfully, we have his and hers sinks in our bathroom. This is not a problem we deal with daily. It used to be, though.
When we were in College Station, we only had one sink. We only had one of a lot of things. Somehow, I didn’t vomit (I had the urge, I’m sure), and we made it through. How?
It’s about compromise. It’s about picking battles. It’s about talking through it before holding it all in and exploding over something small. Of course we live differently. He’s a man; I’m a woman. He’s into the big picture; I’m into the details. The key is deciding what’s important. What are the non-negotiables? That is going to be different for everyone, but for us, we (well, I) have a few.
One of my non-negotiables is water on the bath mat. Mr. Gray took the time to make it a habit of drying his feet before stepping on the mat. It’s not necessarily important to him, but it’s important to me, so he made it part of his routine.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:4
Other things are not as high on the priority list, but still worth talking about. I let him know I would like him to do those things, but if they don’t get done, I do it and go on about my day (closing closet doors, leaving a glass on the counter, silly stuff like that). The key is to keep it from building up and blowing up. When we stay in communication about things, we don’t end up arguing about it. We talk about what we need to do to accommodate each other better. I’m the queen of leaving lent in the dryer. Mr. Gray gently reminds me each time he checks the filter that it needed to be cleaned out; I like to think I’m getting better about it.
I remember moving into our condo in College Station and seeing the differences materialize. It was daunting at first, but we figured out how to navigate through it. It was nice to have a little flashback of that this weekend and see how far we’ve come.
