Prologue to a Twins Blog

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

What Did I Do Good Today?



Once the dust settled after my husband and I got engaged, married and moved into our new home, we found that we had fallen into a relationship slump. It was about a year into our marriage by this time and we had settled into an unsettling routine.

There were no big fights, yelling or arguments, we had just found that we didn't enjoy each other's company as much as we had. We pretty much stayed in different rooms whenever we were home at the same time and our conversations were reduced to discussing what was for dinner or if the mail had came. In a weird way, we had drifted apart. We were newlyweds, this wasn't suppose to happen.

One day it just hit me how awful things had gotten so I talked with him about it. He was feeling the same way, not really even enjoying my company either. So, we decided to work together to improve our relationship.

One thing that I invented during this time was the game "What did I do good today?" Right before going to sleep, we had to tell each other one thing that the other person did good during the day that we are thankful for. I attached two rules to the game:

  1. What the other person did good had to be something that wasn't so obvious. For him, that meant he couldn't tell me that he enjoyed dinner or that he appreciated me cleaning. It had to be deeper and more thoughtful than the obvious things I had done during the day.
  2. We also couldn't use the same "good thing" two nights in a row.


Over time, things returned to normal with us, and I attribute a lot of it to this "game" which put us both into a more positive frame of mind. The funny thing is that even now, almost 10 years into our marriage, we continue to have our nightly ritual of "What did I do good today?"

Last night's was that I appreciated that he took the initiative to get the twins ready for bed without me having to shout "It's time for bed!" And for me, he said that he appreciated that I called to say that I was running a few minutes late.

I'm looking forward to starting What Did I Do Good Today with the twins when they get a little older. It's a great way to remember to tell someone every day how much you appreciate him or her.

Is there something special that you and your spouse/family do to let each other know how special he/she/they are?





    6 comments:

    1. No...but this is going to make me do it now. :) Thanks for posting this, and Happy Thanksgiving!

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    2. This is a great idea.. My husband and I need to work on things like this. Thank you for sharing it:)

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    3. I remember you telling me about this! It's such a great idea! I need to show my husband more gratitude and appreciation.

      BTW, thanks for the tip on the ladybugs/beetles. The ones on the tree have left but we still have a couple in our house. UGH

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    4. This is such a great idea!!! I have learned that our marriage is like a beautiful garden..you cannot just plant it and hope for the best. You must constantly work on it and nurture it.

      This is a wonderful idea and we are going to do this!!! Thank You for sharing!!

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    5. After raising our older three to the preteen stage, now we are in "toddlerhood" again around here and my DH and I have definetly noticed those "feelings" again, or lack of feelings. This is definetly a hard stage, but we learned thru very hard times that we can survive this. I love your idea! And it would be great for the older 5 of us in our home to adapt. Glad I came across your blog today! Thanks!

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    6. I love this! Thank you for this great idea.

      I just gave you an award on my blog

      http://3kidsin2yrs.blogspot.com/2009/12/happiness.html

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