When I went to visit my grandmother, she always had talking points that she’d refer to as we caught up. She’d accumulate and curate the topics of conversation between my visits. Topics included stories and obituaries she’d read in the paper, news about my grandfather who rarely shared anything more significant than what we could expect from the weather over the weekend, random thoughts she’d had that needed sharing along with questions that needed answering. She always giggled at herself as she brought her discussion agenda out, blaming her memory for her handwritten notes that kept the conversation on track.
I would smile as she slowly worked her way down the bullet points on the scrap of paper, her handwriting barely legible even to herself. And when we got to the end of her list, she would ask me if there was anything I had to share. My update was more unstructured. I told her about whatever came to mind; how I was doing at school, or which books I had recently read, or when I was planning to see my parents, all the while secretly commending myself for having a better memory than the 84-year-old mother of my mother.
It took me another 20 years to understand the genius of her conversation notes.
I’m a crappy husband
I’m not a particularly good husband. Not that I’ve had affairs or that I regularly beat my wife in a drunken rage. I was about to make a joke about beating my wife infrequently, but realise it’s in poor taste, so decided to leave it out and just tell you that the thought crossed my mind.
Anyway, the reason I’m a shitty husband is because communicating doesn’t come naturally to me. I spend most of my life silent, processing what is going on in my head. I was once told I have a ‘rich inner world’ which seemed apt. And having this inner world I’ve come to realise makes me difficult to live with. It must get lonely spending time with someone who does nothing but tumble their thoughts and ideas inside their skull like cement in a cement mixer that’s been welded shut.
The Article
A few months back, my wife read an article about how to better stay connected to your spouse or partner. The article described how we, as a couple, should each week make time to come together, not unlike business partners, and update one another on how the business of having a family and a relationship was going. The aim of the meeting was to share priorities, to identify where we weren’t aligned and where the other person might need support. The session was also intended to plan for the week ahead and to make sure that there wasn’t any misunderstanding on what one person expected from the other.
When I read the article, I groaned, and my arse puckered. I don’t like forced ‘deep and meaningfuls’ with people. When I’m forced to create connection with another person, I feel pressured and the whole thing seems contrived. In the end I feel more separate from the other person and end up feeling lonely and depressed. It’s a bit like date nights with your partner that don’t go well.
The article did however provide and agenda for these ‘family business meetings’ (that sounds like my family is into organised crime). It was the fact that there was an agenda that pushed me to go on the first of these meetings with my wife.
The meetings
And the meetings were awesome, all thanks to the agenda. Jane and I started going out on Sunday mornings and we worked out way through the 9 agenda items. And with each meeting I was reminded why I married my wife, how interesting and amazing she was, and how fun it was to hang out with her.
The thing that I love about our Sunday meetings, and what makes them so wonderfully different to date nights is that there’s no pressure. We aren’t there to rekindle the romance in our relationship, or to rediscover our love for one another, or to recapture everything that’s lost in the day-to-day grind of being married with kids and trying to hold down jobs.
On date nights I found myself worrying that we might not find our spark. I worried that I might not say the right thing, or I might not come up with anything to talk about that’s meaningful. Or worse, that I might not get out of my head.
But with the agenda items, I don’t have to worry. I’m answering questions, responding to topic prompts and taking in what my amazing wife is experiencing and thinking as we navigate living and raising kids together.
So, every Sunday we get a babysitter to come a look after the kids for 3 hours. Jane and I (my wife’s name is Jane), then either go for a walk or a swim, maybe a hike (we’re thinking about a sauna next weekend) and then we go out to breakfast. And while we eat and drink caffeine, we go through the following agenda items:
1. What do we appreciate the other person did for us this past week?
2. What upcoming events do we need to be across in one another’s calendars?
3. What’s the plan for the week – who’s driving kids where, when are we going to be home etc.?
4. Are there any goals we want to accomplish in the week that’s coming (mine always have something to do with writing)?
5. “How can I support you this week?”
6. Any challenges we’re facing that the other person needs to be aware of?
7. What is a virtue or self-development area that we are focusing on now?
8. How are our finance looking (it’s amazing how much we have to discuss in this section)?
9. What upcoming event is there that we can look forward to?
And that’s it. Answering and listening to my wife answer these questions gets me out of my head and makes me feel closer to the person I’ve decided to spend the rest of my life with. I love our Sunday morning Mafia meetings.
Discussion agenda and loved ones
I think my gran’s agenda items did the same thing as the agenda items for my weekly Mafia meeting. It took the pressure off having to find something to discuss that would create a connection between a 21 year old boy who was trying to become a man, and an 84 year old woman who’d had done so much living it would take most people 2 lifetimes to compete with her adventures.
There is no way around it, the discussion agenda made me a better grandson and is now making me a better husband.
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