Podcast: https://bit.ly/49tfIws
Have you ever played the game whack-a-mole? Moles pop up randomly for a moment, and you try to hit them with a mallet before they drop back down. If you pick a couple of mole holes close together, you can always hit the moles in those holes. But when you try to cover all the holes, you miss most of the time.
Life is this way. When we focus on a few things, we do those things well. When we try to do too many things, we tend to do poorly at all of them.
I mention this because it’s a big reason why folks don’t have good, much less great, marriages.
Society tells us we can have it all. But the truth is, you can only do so many things well. When we take on too much, we generally don’t do any of it well. We get distracted by one thing, and others get ignored. Then one of the things being ignored pops up as a problem, and we try to whack it. Odds are we’ll fail to hit it and also lose control of what we were doing well.
Focusing on your marriage is not enough if you’re trying to cover too many other things. If you want a good marriage, you must focus on a reasonable number of things. That probably means letting go of some things. Perhaps you can pick some of them up down the road when life is less busy. Perhaps not. And that’s okay. The right priorities now lead to better outcomes later.
What might you let go? It could be a committee or volunteer role. It could be a hobby that’s consuming more time than it should. It could be saying no to the next kids’ activity, even if everyone else is doing it. It could be letting the house be messier than you’d like for a season. Only you know what’s crowding out your marriage, but something probably is.
Whack-a-mole is particularly common when you have school-age kids. The kids need your help, and you want to spend time with them before they grow up and move away. Making the kids one of the things you focus on is good and right. But don’t let that move your marriage off the board.
Take some time to think about all that you’re trying to do. Is it too much? Have you allowed your marriage to become too low a priority? If you are losing the game, what are you going to let go?
To help you find things to set aside, ask yourself these questions:
- What am I doing out of obligation rather than calling?
- What would happen if I said no to this for six months?
- What’s stealing time but not adding value?
- If I had to cut one thing today, what would it be?
Less really is more!
~ This is Paul, and Doing Marriage Well should not involve a mallet!
This is Sue, the sweetest rabbit we ever raised, who we passed on to our daughter-in-law years ago. She is inside recovering from an injury.
The kitten is Kit, who is very friendly and has made friends with everyone. She sleeps with the very large dog, who has no idea what to do with her.
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with ideogram.ai & Paul Byerly
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