Teamwork

I've seen two versions of this on several different fb posts today.

I distinctly remember telling my husband, during a particularly rough patch, "I don't need you to do this life with me. I WANT to do this life with you but I do not need you to survive it." I was pretty proud of my "I am woman, hear me roar" statement at that moment.

It's a true, and untrue statement all at the same time.

Truth - If, God-forbid something happened to my husband or my wedded status, I would in-fact survive. It wouldn't be the same and it wouldn't be as great and it wouldn't be my dream. Life would look very, very different than I have imagined our future. It would make me sad and it would make me angry and it would even probably take a good amount of time to get to "survival." But survive I would...

Untrue - I DO need him to do THIS life. The life that we are living right this minute, the life that we have envisioned for our future, the life that we want to live (well, I haven't asked him today so I should say I want to live (haha)). This life, the one we keep fighting for, the one we keep asking our children to hold onto, needs both of us together needing each other.

There is absolutely no shame in needing a person. There is no shame in needing each other to get through life's every day crap. It's not even all the big stuff; it's the nitty-gritty day-by-exhausting-day stuff that we need each other for. He needs me to start dinner because I get home earlier. I need him to do the laundry because it's something that totally overwhelms me. He needs me to remind him about appointments. I need him to make sure the bills are all paid. He needs me to set my alarm early to make sure the kids have gotten up. I need him to stay up later to pick up kids from events.

Now, could we do these things on our own? I mean, of course we could. We are both pretty competent people. But the point is that we don't have to do all of it ourselves. We are a team. We do absolutely depend on each other and need each other as a part of our team.

Depending on each other isn't weakness, it isn't a lack of independence, it's teamwork.