Today's relationship lesson comes from a spoon, a sugar jar, and a boat. Let's get to it...
In the mornings Chris and I enjoy drinking coffee with sugar. There were a couple days in a row when the usually present spoon magically disappeared from the sugar jar. I know myself and know that in my hurried morning routine I most likely forgot to put the spoon back in the jar. Chris commented a couple of times about the spoon's absence (which seemed ridiculous to me) and on the morning of the last day I will ever forget to put the spoon back, I understood our disagreement had little to do with a spoon.
I'll get back to the spoon in a moment, but first, I need to get explain the boat. Relationships are a lot like boats; if there's a hole in it, working together is the quickest, most efficient way to fixing it. More often than not, when a hole presents itself, our trigger response is to panic, blame, and avoid; each of which leads to the boat's inevitable demise. In order to remain afloat, it's important to remain calm, genuinely listen to each other's ideas, present solutions, apply a fix, and keep each other accountable.
Back to the ending of the spoon story. The morning after we blamed each other over the importance of the spoon, I found a note in the sugar jar. It said "I don't care about the spoon. All that matters is that I love you." My response, which he found shortly after was, "I love you too, and for that reason, this sugar jar will always have a spoon in it."