loving with intention ~ "doing stuff" together

Around the middle of January, Matt and I went through a slump. We had fallen into a rut, fueled by winter blues on my end and long work hours on his end. I wasn't keeping up with my goal of working on the house, and we were spending too much time watching DVDs of "The Office" and not enough time truly interacting. We weren’t communicating the way we needed to, and little things were building up, beginning to look bigger in our minds than they were in reality.

One night, it all came tumbling out, and some of it hurt. Both unsure of how to express what we felt, we struggled, haltingly, through the painful unpacking of some of our “stuff.” As we navigated a conversational minefield of frustrations and misinterpretations, I kept telling myself, this is your person. You don't get to storm off when the discussion is hard. You need to figure this out.

And we did. But in the week that followed, I thought more about our relationship than I had in ... well, ever. Were we going to make it, or had we already slipped into the territory of boredom and familiarity and a loss of romance? If we'd already fallen into that rut, could we dig ourselves out?

The next Tuesday night we went out to a local sandwich shop for dinner. I think we spent $10 on the meal, but the hour or so we spent at the table talking while we ate was priceless. I felt closer to him that night than I had in weeks.

As we walked back to the car, laughing and holding hands, I thought of something he had told me as we struggled through that painful conversation. After around 70 years of marriage, his grandparents were asked how they had stayed together and happy for so long. The answer was simple.

“We did a lot of stuff together.”

This simple but powerful statement stuck with Matt - and has stuck with me since he shared it.

When you’re doing stuff, you don’t have time to navel-gaze, or to drum up issues where there are none - or turn small issues into big ones. When you’re doing stuff, you’re creating a shared experience. Bonding. Making memories.

Nobody has photo albums full of pictures taken while sitting on the couch. Families don’t sit around and laugh together as they remember that one night they watched four re-runs in a row. No, the parts of life we celebrate in hindsight are those times when we are doing stuff together, creating shared experiences that knit the bonds of love and family even more tightly together.

It’s a simple concept, but for many people it doesn’t just happen. Doing stuff can take thought, planning, and action. It requires intention. But doing stuff doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. It can be as simple as raking the yard, playing a game, taking a walk, or even cleaning the kitchen.

Since that mid-January slump and the sandwich-shop epiphany that followed, I’ve been putting more thought, more intention, into the way I approach our relationship. And although we are still tired, and I’m not completely caught up on the house, doing stuff has pulled us out of that rut. Now, I know that if I feel us going there again, I can grab his hand and say, “Let’s go for a walk.”

Or he can hand me a sponge and say, “Let’s clean the kitchen.”

Doing stuff together is part of loving with intention, and maintaining a love that will last.