People know that in marriage, it’s important to agree on the important issues.
But before you’re married, you don’t know what issues are going to end up being important.
I’m convinced that a major source of harmony in my marriage is that the Big Man and I are both early-arrivers.
We like to get to places early. We always have plenty of time in the airport. We often have to stall just before going into a party, so we don’t ring the buzzer before the official start time. Whenever we meet friends someplace, I know that the Big Man will be the first one there, and I’ll be the second. (It’s nice: we always have a few minutes to catch up, just the two of us.)
Once, when we were going to Kansas City, I realized at the airport that I’d left my ID at home. We had so much time that I left the Big Man with the bags, turned around, went all the way back home, came back to the airport, and still made the plane.
So we never bicker about timing.
Some people are late-arrivers. Some of my best friends — and my own father — are late-arrivers. These are the folks who sprint through train stations, who pay the late pick-up penalty at day care, who say, “If you’ve never missed a plane, you’re spending too much time in airports.”
For them, it’s a hobby and a challenge. The Big Man and I prefer to have plenty of time. And that’s a suprisingly important source of harmony.
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Via Ben Casnocha’s terrific blog, I found this very insightful post by Marshall Goldsmith about why it’s not always a good idea to try to “add value” to other people’s ideas. I absolutely agree. I’m a real know-it-all, and recently realized just how annoying that probably is — so have been trying to work on this for the last several months.
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