How is She Feeling?

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, sickness happens. Actually, not only sickness, but aches, pains, bruises and all around not feeling good in general. Those things just seem to show up when we least expect them, giving us a rap on the head and saying “Not this time, Charlie.”

It seems to me that guys have two different reactions when we get sick, depending on the sickness and probably depending on the guy as well. Our first reaction, which we are especially good at applying to pain, is to gut it out. “I’m a tough guy. I can handle it. I’m gonna keep on keepin’ on.” Our second reaction, which we tend to do for anything that makes us feel bad like the flu, is to go find a hole and crawl in it to hide. We won’t admit it, but what we really want then is for somebody to baby us.

Generally speaking, when we’re sick, the rest of the family manages to get along without us; at least for a few days they do. On the other hand, when our wives don’t feel good, everything goes topsey turvey. The whole family falls apart, cause mom isn’t there to take care of things.

Now, here’s where we tend blow it; we expect our wives to gut it out and keep on keepin’ on. We ignore how bad they might be feeling and still expect them to do everything that they usually do. Oops, foul, wrong call. We act helpless, as if we can’t put breakfast cereal in a bowl and frozen food in the microwave.  C’mon, it’s not really all that hard. We really can feed the kids, wash the dishes, take them to soccer practice and even wash the clothes.

The other way we mess up is not babying them. Now, if we expect our wives to baby us when we’re sick, isn’t it fair that we baby them as well when they need it? Okay, maybe you weren’t born with the “nurse gene” I know I wasn’t. Nursing someone who’s sick is not my forte; but loving my wife is. So, sometimes that means that I need to play nurse. It may not be natural for me, but I figure if there are male nurses out there, I can learn how to be a nurse for my wife.

Love takes many forms, and one of the biggies is to take care of one another. Well, if you expect her to take care of you, then you should be just as willing to take care of her. That means being sensitive to how she’s feeling and being willing to do what you need to, so that you can take care of her.