Is it Really All that Important?

Have you ever noticed how quickly and efficiently women can destroy your plans? It doesn’t matter if it’s your wife, your mother or your daughter, any women seems to have this innate ability to totally abolish whatever plans you have. You know that saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men…” I’ve never heard the end of it but it think it should say, “…were destroyed by a woman.”

Okay, I know we all tend to grumble when our wives mess up our plans, but enough grumbling. Let me ask you, when your wife messes up your plans, is she doing it with malice? Is she really trying to hurt you? Is she really trying to show you that your plans aren’t important? Is she out to get you? For that matter, where those plans really all that important after all?

No, your wife isn’t out to get you. She just has her own ideas about what’s important, and those ideas obviously aren’t the same as yours are. To her, watching the big game, going on that fishing trip, or going out with your buddies for bowling night just aren’t very important; maybe because they have nothing to do with her.

Really, how important are those things? Granted, you enjoy them and you get to relax for a while. Nothing wrong with that, but is it important?

Let me put this in perspective for you. Are those things more important than your relationship with your wife? Ouch! Yeah, that’s the question that really hurts. When we choose bowling night with the guys, over going out to eat with our wives, we’re telling them, “This is more important to me than you are.” Ouch again! If that’s the way you are acting towards your wife, no wonder she’s giving you the cold shoulder.

Granted, there are things that are important enough that we have to say no to our wife’s desires. When the car is broken down, it’s kind of hard to ignore it and go out to eat. Work sometimes steals time that we would ordinarily be with the family, whether we want it to or not. There are things that you might plan, which just plain have to be done.

That’s not the same as what I’m talking about though. What I’m talking about are the times that we grumble because she messes up plans that really aren’t all that critical. So what if you don’t get the garage cleaned out this weekend, because she wants you to go look at antiques with her. You really didn’t want to clean out the garage anyway. Why complain if she keeps you from fixing the back porch? It’s been broken for six months anyway; another week or two won’t hurt anything.

The key here is in deciding what’s more important. If your relationship with her is more important, then you really have no reason to grumble. On the other hand, if it’s one of those situations like the car being broken down, let her know (without grumbling), she’ll probably understand.