The reality that Mr. Jordan and I work in the same relatively small office, live in the same relatively small condo (which are a mile apart) means that we get to spend A LOT of time together. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love my husband. He is my very best friend and I would rather hang out with him than anyone else in this world BUT all this togetherness has definitely taught us a few things:
1. There is a huge difference between time spent together and quality time spent together.
2. Picking our battles is a must.
3. Taking time for ourselves is actually healthy.
Quality Time
Perhaps my favorite lesson is time spent together vs. quality time spent together. When we are together at work or at home there is always some distraction whether it’s work, people or the television (especially during baseball season) which makes it really hard to connect emotionally...as a woman I’ve realized I definitely need this. We’ve instituted date nights to take the time to connect. It doesn’t happen every week because of life but definitely happens when we need it.
Last night we tried a new restaurant Davanti Enoteca in Littly Italy. There was a 2 hour wait so we went to the Vintage Lounge down the street and had a Martini while we waited for our table. I loved this date! We talked and shared great food and really connected. It seems that every time we have a date night like this we learn something new about one another. I hope that we can forever learn something new about and from one another!
Picking our battles
While taking a Marriage and Family psychology course in college, I had an assignment to interview a couple that had been married a long time. I chose my parents, who have now been married for 33 years. I interviewed both of them individually and both of them talked about the importance of picking your battles and realizing that you can’t win every fight...nor should you want to.
Mr. Jordan and I have similar personalities in that we both can be a little stubborn and a TAD opinionated (notice that’s actually a big tad). Thankfully, we both share the mantra of picking our battles. When we disagree on something I try to ask myself, "Is this really worth arguing about?" If the answer is "no" than I try to let it go and if the answer is "yes" then I tell Mr. Jordan how important this is to me and ask if this is really important to him. This doesn’t always work, we are human after all but it does work most of the time. By the way, this is what happens when two social workers fall in loveJ
Taking time for ourselves
When we first started dating, we pretty much did everything together, which was great because we got to know each other on a really deep level. Now that we are married I have learned how important it is for: Mr. Jordan to spend time with his guy friends; Me to spend time with my girlfriends; and both of us to spend time alone. I felt really guilty about this one at first because I felt like I shouldn’t want to take time for myself but I’ve realized that this is actually really healthy for our marriage. This can be difficult sometimes but I try to plan weekends with my girlfriends and time away just working out or blogging when Mr. Jordan is hanging with the guys, like tonightJ
Sometimes Mr. Jordan gets the best of both worlds...date night at a Cubs game.
Perhaps my favorite date was the 3 weeks we recently spent in Spain and Italy.
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