As I mentioned last week, fellow basketwife, Erin, is posting a series on being the wife of a professional athlete. In part three, I made a comment about being “too tired” is a cop-out in our family. It has not always been this way. I was going to wait to post about the articles/series until the end, but this one is weighing on my mind and needs to get out! I am going to skip over the Titus 2 discussion, because we do not ascribe to Biblical Manhood/Womanhood in the ways that Erin’s household does and this is not the place for such discussion.
So— moving on.
In our marriage, I have seen three distinct (what I will call) lifestyles and will address each separately. I am skipping the brief period where Kevin was rehabbing an injury and I was working full time.
- Kevin and me– living abroad, just the two of us.
- Kevin, me and The Boy– living abroad, just the three of us.
- Our current situation– Kevin abroad, me and The Boy in the U.S.
Each of these distinct lifestyles lead to different ways of dividing up the household chores and responsibilities. In this, I consider not only the domestic duties (i.e. dishes, cooking, cleaning), but household maintenance (gutters, yard work, etc).
When Kevin and I were first married, we lived abroad, and I did not work full-time. After Kevin’s injury during our first year of marriage, I did go back to work while we were in the U.S., and I worked part-time from home while we were in Europe after that. My work outside the home was minimal. Because of this, Kevin was free to focus on basketball, and I had ample time to prepare the receipts for taxes, cook/bake from scratch 99.9% of the time, run errands, get groceries, study, etc. Life was enjoyable. We had ample self-time for reading and our personal and couple interests, and contrary to what some might believe (or openly state to me), I did not spend my days shopping and eating bon-bons. I went to Kevin’s games and enjoyed cheering for his team.
During this time, when Kevin was tired, it was no big deal, and in spite of his tiredness, you would find him drying dishes (we did not have a dishwasher). I went places without him (leaving food in the refrigerator usually), and when possible, we went places together. The only time “too tired” was an issue was when he had a day off and wanted to stay home. It took me a few weeks (months?) to realize that his day off was not a day for us to go to the neighboring city and walk around for five hours. I learned to do that on the days he was out of town– on my own– or I would not get to go!
This is not to say that everything was bliss, because there certainly were times when I felt jealous or envious of Kevin’s freedom, but overall, I saw the housework as my job. There were things that I would ask Kevin to do, and generally he would do them. I know his complaint is that I do not ask him to do things (this will come in to light again later), but it is hard for me to do so when a) it makes me feel like I fail at my job and b) he should “just know” that these things need to be done (more on that later too).
Also during this period, we (after all, it takes two) became pregnant with The Boy. For the most part, during the pregnancy, things stayed the same– especially early on. In the later months, I had to depend more on Kevin to help me, because I was physically incapable of doing certain things that I used to be able to do. No matter how hard I tried, my belly was in the way of me carrying certain things. LOL!
I know that it is not this easy in other husband/wife families in the basketball community, but it is how I remember it for us. I read a study (Sorry, I can’t find it right now to link) a little while back where the conclusion was that a woman’s household work increases by seven hours while the husband’s decreases by an hour when they marry. Because I was not working, seven hours of additional work was not a big deal. I am not claiming to be Mrs. Clean, because everyone who knows me knows I hate cleaning, but I know I poured more time and energy in to making our home comfortable– particularly in the food department.
Tomorrow, I will talk about the arrival of The Boy… oh the joy… Phase two!
