Category: Relationship

one

Posted on by jplatt27

One year ago today I married the love of my life. It was a dream come true for both of us.  I thought it would be the happiest day of my life.  That things couldn’t get better.

Just one year into our marriage and our love is bigger, stronger, and more passionate than ever. I’m actually amazed at how our relationship has changed over the past year.  Since we’ve been together for more than 9 years at this point, I assumed that we knew all there was to know about one another, that our love had gotten as big as it would get. But I was so wrong.

I don’t think either of us could quantify how our feelings have changed, what exactly is different about our relationship but something big changed this year. In a good way.

I look forward to many many more years together and building on the happiness each year will bring.

Check back later to see how we celebrated our anniversary!

 

Together while apart: how we stay in touch while traveling

Posted on by jplatt27

While Mike is in Florida, we’re communicating primarily through email. It started when I went to St. Lucia and knew I wouldn’t have cell service.  It didn’t even cross my mind to find a way to be able to use my phone while there. My sisters got calling cards, texting plans, and an app to call through wi-fi but I just assumed we’d have wi-fi at the resort and Mike and I agreed to email back and forth through the week. We liked it so much that even though we can chat on the phone or through text while Mike is in Florida we decided we’d primarily chat through email.

While it was weird not speaking or texting when I was away, we realized that we really enjoyed emailing back and forth. I liked taking time to sit and write an email to him–it allowed me time to reflect on the trip, to think about my response before responding. In writing to each other, I think we gave each other more quality time than we would have if we’d be calling and texting.

When we’re apart, phone calls are usually short at the end of the day when I’m tired and/or distracted and therefore they’re not very substantive, and filled with lots of  “i miss you.” While texts are nice, text conversations can be the worst.

But, when I sat down to write Mike an email (in the morning, my favorite time of day), I wanted to fill him in on what I’d been up to, what things were on my mind. I’d think consciously about what I wanted him to know, what I wanted to talk to him about. When you’re emailing, you can’t just be on the other end of the line, you have to write and you have to think about it. I’d be sure to ask him thoughtful questions, to follow up on things he’d told me to keep the conversation going. It is a different way of a communicating but a nice change of pace.

It was fun to look forward to the emails. When did I think he’d write? What would he say? I felt like I did back in middle school waiting for a note from a boy I liked and the giddiness and excitement that went along with that.

If I looked forward to emails from him every day this week, you can imagine my excitement that he’s coming home TODAY!

I’d love to know:

How do you keep in touch with your sig-o when traveling apart? (see above)

Do you remember exchanging notes in middle school? I remember getting notes from Mike in middle school.  I can still remember how he folded them–differently than I did.  

Breakfast at the table

Posted on by jplatt27

Yesterday morning, Mike took his breakfast (my favorite pancakes) and coffee to the kitchen table.  “Sitting at the the table this morning?” I said, hopefully. We always eat breakfast at home during the week but usually while watching The Today Show, Morning Joe, or Mike & Mike. We hadn’t really seen or spoken to each other for two days while Mike was working an event for his job and when he got home at 11pm and greeted sleeping me with a kiss my 1/4 awake response was “What, you’re not even going to tell me you’re home?” Welcome home, huh? The next morning, I was excited to chat, had so many things to share and Mike sitting down at the table told me that he was open to some conversation.

I love when we eat at the table together but it’s a rare occurrence.  We usually eat dinner eat on the couch at the coffee table while watching TV. But recently we’ve both realized that we should eat at our table more.

It’s amazing how much more we talk when we’re sitting across the table from each other–we’ll actually have a conversation. Not like we don’t chat when we’re on the couch but the conversation is much more engaging, much more of a dialogue when we’re sitting at a real table. On the couch, it seems like we’re just reporting out.

If you ever feel disconnected from your significant other, I suggest sitting down to dinner.

I think it’s really important for couples to sit across the table from each other and talk and listen.  Honestly, this is important for any people that are living together, family members, friends, roommates, whatever.  It’s easy to go about your business and not really talk. And doesn’t it feel so good to really talk?

I’d love to know:

How often do you eat at the table? Do you agree that sitting at the table facilitates better conversation?

Missing each other

Posted on by jplatt27

Yesterday morning I found myself texting my husband “I miss you.” No, he’s not out of town.  He’s here.  And I’m here.  But he agreed, “I miss you too,” he said.

We’ve actually spent a decent amount of time together this week. We were in the car quite a bit last weekend. We had dinner together the past two nights and watched quite a bit of TV together over the course of the week.  So how can we miss each other?

I’ve noted before that time together isn’t always quality time (along with other notes for living together). And the time Mike and I spent together was not quality time. Mike’s been preoccupied with work and I’ve just been down overall this week (hence the lack of posts) so we’ve been zoning out in front of the TV and not spending time chatting or connecting after work.

We go through periods like this where one or both of us is busy or preoccupied and our relationship is on the back-burner temporarily.  We’ll feel seriously disconnected and like we need to catch up with one another. Neither of us are unhappy or alarmed at this.  We simply recognize it for what it is and hope to reconnect with a date this weekend.

I’d love to know:

Do you ever feel disconnected from your significant other?  How do you deal with it?

How I talk to my husband

Posted on by jplatt27

We had a great Valentine’s Day!  I’m looking forward to sharing it with you all probably tomorrow or Friday.  For now, some thoughts I had on Monday.

Most of the time, my words towards my husband are warm, caring, gentle, loving, encouraging, happy, complimentary, cheerful, appreciative, or pleasant.  I say a lot of “thank you” and “I love you” or just give him a big hug and say “mmm.” This afternoon when we met to hand-off our car, the first thing I said to him was “you look so sexy in a suit.”  So most of the time, I speak kindly to Mike.

But then there are other times when my comments are snappy, short, biting, or accompanied with an eye-roll. These lines of snappiness come out so quickly that I don’t even realize I’m saying them until it’s already stung. And they hurt my husband. I don’t want to speak to any person like that and certainly not Mike.

I don’t know where they come from either. Two examples:

  1. While we were making the cake balls, Mike asked where the sprinkles were. I said “here” or something along those lines and when he turned around and looked for them on the other counter, couldn’t find them and asked again I pointed with head and eyes and said “they’re right here” and rolled my eyes as he picked them up.
  2. This morning I was sitting in bed blogging when Mike came in and turned the heat on. Within 5 minutes, I was really hot and snapped saying something like “it’s so hot in here, can you please turn the heat off?” with a tone of serious urgency. When Mike was like “uh, yeah, sure, what’s with the attitude?” I replied by saying “it’s just so hot in here I can’t stand it” and proceeded to storm out of the room saying that it was “frickin’ ridiculous.”

Like, why do I this?  Clearly, none of these things deserve attitude.  And honestly, sharing my behavior here is a little embarrassing. Luckily, Mike is pretty easy going and lets things roll right off his back. But that doesn’t make these outbursts ok.

I don’t want to get in the habit of treating my husband like this regardless of how infrequent these things are. So what do I do? Try to take a deep breath to compose myself before I make a rude remark? Apologize instantly if I let one slip out? Try to be uber-aware of my facial expressions and keep my eye rolls to a minimum?

I’d love to know:

Do you have moments where you’re snappy like this?  Where do they come from and why do we act like this? How do you rein it in? 

 

 

 

 

Girl time/guy time

Posted on by jplatt27

I’m back from a long weekend in Florida with my friend Lauren. We planned this trip in the fall and I was so looking forward to the girl time and the sunny weather. We had a great weekend: went for long walks in the morning, did quite a bit of shopping, ate good food, and just talked a lot. As always, it was so good to spend quality time with her.

I love spending time with my girlfriends and I think it’s really important for men and women to have time with their guy friends and girlfriends on a regular basis.  I’ve said before that I think spending time with girlfriends is good for the soul and I truly believe that.

When you’re in a relationship, it’s really important to prioritize your friendships and have girl time and guy time. Honestly, I’m having a hard time articulating why this is important but believe me, it is. It’s good for me to talk and talk and talk with a girlfriend over a glass of wine and dinner. And it’s good for my husband to chat with a buddy over beers and wings.

Because I value and crave girl time so much, I wonder if I may have isolated my husband from my friends.  In the past, friends would ask if Mike was coming along and I’d say “nah” because I just wanted the girl time and quality time with my friend. Now that we’re married I truly do want my friends to know my husband and my husband to know my friends. But I still crave the girl time so I’m not sure how I’ll find that balance.

I’d love to know:

Can you articulate why girl time and guy is so important? (I’m hoping you’ll have the words that are escaping me at the moment.)

How can I bring my husband and my friends together?

************************************************************************

PS–Check out my article on staying cheery in the winter over on Healthy Living Blogs!

Gym membership and marriage

Posted on by jplatt27

Love this article from the Wall Street Journal about conquering the gym:

The 27 Rules of Conquering the Gym.

The one that sticks out to me the most is this analogy comparing the gym and marriage:

26. A successful gym membership is like a marriage: If it’s good, you show up committed and ready for hard work. If it’s not good, you show up in sweatpants and watch a lot of bad TV.

I love that!  Because it’s so true. Just having a gym membership and showing up isn’t going to get you in shape and just being in a relationship isn’t going to make it stimulating, satisfying, or happy.  You have to work at it.

Sometimes it’s harder than others.  Sometimes you’re pumped to lace up the sneakers and rock out to your Glee on the elliptical and sometimes you have to repeat “just get out the door” over and over again to get yourself there.

Sometimes you’re excited to listen to your significant other and share your thoughts/feelings/experiences with them and other times you have to remind yourself to be patient and loving so you don’t rip their head off.

But when you do put in the effort, it feels so damn good.

Day One

Posted on by jplatt27

January 1, 2012 was a good day.

We got up and relaxed and then picked up breakfast items at Starbucks.  We came back and made coffee in the mugs Mike got me for Christmas and had breakfast.

Then we had our money conversation where we figured out our budget, made some goals, and came up with a plan to monitor our variable budget lines: the tracker below.

Our current goals: allocate money each month for life events (i.e. friends’ weddings, Christmas) so we don’t have to put those things on our credit cards, and pay off the lowest of my student loans by the 4th of July. In addition to those two joint goals my goal is to pay off my American Express by April 1. (You can read more about our various accounts here.)

Our other new plan is to chat each time one of us gets paid about upcoming expenses so that we can stay on top of things and continue to be on the same page. Usually we’d just chat when the accounts were getting low, or after one of us randomly checked our online banking. This often left us frustrated and feeling like “we have no money.” But that’s a reactive way to deal with things and we don’t want to be reactive, we want to be proactive. Being reactive leaves you feeling out of control but being proactive will leave you feeling on top.

After our talk, I got in bed to read Catching Fire (the second in The Hunger Games series). I love laying in bed reading especially when it’s sunny out and the sun shines through the window. Of course I fell asleep.  Then I woke up to our neighbor talking on the phone and wishing someone a Happy Birthday! Like not OK. This happens pretty regularly (mostly at night when I get in bed at 9pm) so I figured it was a good opportunity to knock on the door and tell her.  She didn’t answer the door.

We had lunch and did laundry.  Folded it while listening to an old episode of the Dave Ramsey show.  Have you listened to this show? It’s crazy how much debt these people have paid off. Mike and I find it inspiring.

Then we headed down to the National Mall to throw the frisbee around. It was a warm day for winter, Mike was wearing shorts, and when my heart rate started to get up after a few good throws and catches, I took off my jacket.

Sometime in the last two years, Mike and I started throwing the frisbee around. I’m not sure why but I’m so glad we did. Mike really likes to play sports, any type of sport, and when we throw the frisbee around I feel like his buddy.  It’s also exercise, I can get a pretty good sweat going and feel my heart pumping. And it’s a good time for us to chat. When we lived in our old apartment, we’d walk up to the mall and toss it around on the lawn in front of the Capitol. Now that we live further from the Mall, we’ll have to make more of an effort to get down there to do but I really hope we do that more.  Why not take advantage of the great city we live in?

We stopped at Pinkberry on the way home for a light snack.  And then hit the grocery store to get ingredients for dinner.

We made a butternut squash calzone , using the filling from Jessica’s stuffed shells, with a gorgonzola cream sauce on the side. OMG was this good.  I think Mike almost died of satisfaction.

Then we watched Crazy Stupid Love.

January 1, 2012 is reflective of a lot of things I hope the rest of the year will be filled with: productivity, fun, quality time together, creativity in the kitchen, and relaxing time. We were out and about but also home. We were productive but also had time to play.

I’m really hopeful for 2012.  I think it’s going to be a great year.

I’d love to know:

How did you spend January 1, 2012?