It is clear that there are moments in life where one must simply act without counting the hours it takes or try to measure. You must just throw yourself into it. This is true for parents. It is true in one’s coupledom. It is also true in some jobs, such as teaching. Every volunteer out there knows it is true for them.
I find myself at the end of my school year as a teacher. At the same time I am also a mom and a wife. Just ten days ago or so, I finished my mandate as a committee president for a residence of people losing their autonomy.
We must not count these hours. If we were to count them all, we would probably realise that we are just a little nuts.
Even if I recognise that we don’t do what we do for recognition and it is nor really measurable, sometimes I can’t help it and I try to quantify it. I was playing around with different thoughts on how to measure my last number of weeks: the number of exams; the numbers of questions; the number of work hours; the measurement of exams in inches or centimetres.
I was playing with numbers. Even if I only had 106 students (reduced load this year) I still felt the end of the year. To finish my year on time, I got to sleep a whole hour my last night.
Here is the end of my school year in numbers. I had three competencies to evaluate per student. Each competency was evaluated more then twice. I also tested for knowledge. All in all I had more or less 1500 evaluations to judge and mark. I also had two « other » competencies that deal with general ways of functioning in class to evaluate. You can imagine that the numbers represent not only hours but weeks of correcting as I was supposed to actually teach and maybe have a life.
It is the same with volunteering. You do it wholeheartedly and you don’t count the hours and you should not compare it with what other members of the committee do.
It is different when dealing with life as a couple. We tend to count. How many times did I wash the dishes? How about him? We look at what we contribute compared to our mate if we feel we are doing more. I doubt that people speak out about feeling that they themselves don’t feel they are doing enough unless their mate is overly controlling and won’t let them contribute.
Even if sharing perfectly down the line is ideal, it is not realistic to be able to separate the time, the tasks and the responsibilities equally. Being human we notice when we are carrying the lion’s share of the load.
When we are married to someone with a serious medical condition, sharing the load is always being revisited. In certain extreme situations there is no room for negotiations. In such situations the healthy spouse simply must do. The danger is to continue to do so when the medical or emergency situation is resolved.
I have had many occasions and reasons to think on the subject. I want, and on occasion have demanded, to make the carrying of the load more equal. For me, I want my husband to give himself fully like I do. What he can offer depends on his medical reality.
The danger is the habit either the person with the medical condition or the spouse may develop in what they offer or do in their partnership during the intense moments. There is a danger that one may continue to contribute less or the other continue doing more as they try to control everything.
In this area, it may be important to count. But as you count, you should consider:
- the exhaustion, the ability and the endurance of the person dealing with a medical issue
- the importance for the person with a medical condition to feel proud of his or her contribution
- the exhaustion and the stress of the spouse
- if children are involved
After all, it is important for the couple to measure the contribution of each individual of the couple…both must give 100% of what he or she could in the circumstances.
The rest of the article will be published soon. Sorry for the delay