Hunting Life with Your Wife and Family
You have been hunting since you were able to carry a BB gun. You enjoy hunting- being out in nature, the planning of your food plots, the scouting you’ve done along with the trail camera photos. But you’ve grown up and hunting life with your wife and growing family has proven to be a challenge.
I truly believe that balancing work life, family life and hunting is a myth. Somewhere, at some point one of them will come up short. We like to think we can have it all, but reality tells us differently.
Hopefully, most of us out there sincerely married for love and companionship, with someone we really enjoy. We have made this lifetime commitment to maintaining the relationship. Just like your hunting skills, your marriage needs to have dedicated time and work put into maintaining your relationship.
Hunting life with your wife and family can work as long as you, your wife and family have their needs met. One thing I think we can all agree on, anything worth doing will take work. So roll up your sleeves and get ready to invest some time and do some work.
Basic needs
According to Simple Psychology.org author Susan McLeod, “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs explains we all need to food, warmth, water, rest, safety, security, intimate relationships and friends. We need to feel accomplished along with achieving one’s full potential and being creative.” Those are basic human needs. In addition to those basic needs, we all have individual needs that need to be met. These individual needs are called their “love language”.
Recognizing someone’s love language is important. If you are not familiar with this term “love language” I would suggest reading “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. The five love languages are:
- Words of Affirmation- using words to build up the other person.
- Gifts- it says, “He was thinking about me. Look what he got for me.”
- Acts of Service- Doing something for your spouse that you know they would like.
- Quality Time- giving your spouse your undivided attention.
- Physical Touch- holding hands, hugging, kissing, sexual intercourse, are all expressions of love.
Once you learn someone’s love language you will be able to meet their individual needs in a real and loving way.
Planning and expectations
When people’s basic needs and love language are met, there is satisfaction. However, when they are not met, that’s when the struggle begins. There are seasons in our life due to illness, a new baby, death or a job change that changes our normal life patterns and flow. It is within those changes we need to be flexible in what our normal routine was and what it now is.
Much of what we have in our normal adult life is routine. You get up and you got to work. You work and then you come home. On the weekends you spend time with family and friends. You work on projects and hobbies. A great way to head off frustration is to share expectations with one another. This lets you and wife know what each other is thinking, so there are no surprises.
A sharing of expectations and upcoming events doesn’t have to be something to dread. Make it a fun date planning the next several months together. Once you have laid out your expectations of the upcoming events, you can begin to schedule them on the calendar. A wonderful tool is to purchase a large grid family calendar, you can get this at Amazon.com fairly cheaply.
As you plan, keep in mind that you are honoring each other. One person doesn’t dominate the calendar. Make sure to add in the time you are spending together. Having a date night once a week, even if it just means coffee and dessert at your favorite place improves the quality of your connect time.
Once you have your calendar schedules up, it may help to incorporate friendly reminders for each other. There are many cell phone apps available that can help with this:
Walking it out
Your marriage/family situation will look different than someone else’s. You may have to play around with scheduling this till you hit a rhythm that’s right for you, but don’t throw in the towel if the first few months have a few hiccups along the way. When we are truly interested in the best for each other we will work hard to meet those needs. It’s a win-win!
Categories
