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The most boring thing about my marriage
is that my husband and I almost never have time to do anything
"just for fun." There are lots of things that we do
together. We go to weddings, bar mitzvahs and school plays. We
shop for furniture and choose paint colors. Yes, sometimes we
try and grab a few moments. But our idea of going out is sitting
down in a restaurant together after going shopping for a bed.
These activities, as important as they are, bring neither excitement
nor fun to our lives. They are, in a word, "boring."
The joys and obligations of
raising our three beautiful children, put together with our
professional lives, do not leave time in our life right now
for fun. While this is upsetting and frustrating, it is a
fact that I accept.
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So what you ask, are we going to do about
it? The answer for now is nothing. The joys and obligations of
raising our three beautiful children, put together with our professional
lives, do not leave time in our life right now for fun. While
this is upsetting and frustrating, it is a fact that I accept.
True I look back at the "good old days" before we were
married and remember how much fun we had going out whenever we
wanted, seeing every movie that came out and hanging out in the
cafes and restaurants of the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Were
those days fun? You can bet they were.
But if given a choice, would I step back
into those days? Not a chance. For as much fun as it was, no movie
or concert can be worth as much as one hug from my son as I tuck
him into bed at night. Sitting down with my kids when they come
home from their first day of camp and hearing their exciting descriptions
of the day, well, it makes it all worthwhile.
A few years ago, I went to a lecture in
which the speaker made a distinction that I always try and keep
in mind whenever I get really "bored." Many people,
he said, equate the concepts of "fun" and "happiness."
The idea behind this is that you can't truly be happy unless you
have are doing things that are fun. The truth is, he said, is
that this is not always the case. Often it is the person with
the least time to "have fun" whose life is most full
and who is therefore happy. Alternatively, sometimes the person
who has loads of time to go out and do fun things, is really unhappy
and unsatisfied with the rest of his lives. So while my married
life for the near future may continue to be a bit boring I try
not to let this bother me because overall, I am happy.
Does this mean that I have given up and
have no plans or hopes of spending fun time together with my husband?
Not at all. I just know that those fun times will have to wait
a little bit. In six months, we will be celebrating our tenth
wedding anniversary. In honor of that anniversary, we are hoping
to travel to Paris for a week to have the honeymoon we never really
had. So I'm going to hang onto thoughts of that vacation for the
next few months and when it comes, I will try to make the most
of it. In that week, I hope our lives will be filled with excitement.
But when we come home, I will continue to try and appreciate (and
it's not always easy) the "boredom" of a full life.
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