A couple weeks ago, Essence.com relationships editor Charli Penn-Watkins (also the great blogger behind the Man, Wife, Dog blog) got a chance to sit down with Will Smith while his wife Jada was completing interviews for her HawthoRNe. Mr. Smith gave some candid relationship advice and this little nugget stood out for me:
“If you don’t give your husband thirty minutes to himself when he first gets home, he’ll stop coming home,” Will told me, straight up. (You’re thinking, no way, right? I did too!)
When I asked Will when a wife is supposed to say her piece, he responded, “anytime after that.” Will reminded me that everyone’s home needs to feel like a happy place and it won’t if you’re “greeted with negativity” every time you enter the door.
Since transitioning to a work-at-home mom earlier this year, I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to stop what I’m doing each afternoon around 5 p.m. to transition into what I call “Daddy’s coming home” mode. I do a quick sweep of the first-floor for toys and other messes, I make sure the kids have some activity to do at the dining room table, and I attempt to have dinner started, if not almost completed.
Before some of you start rolling your eyes (yes, I can feel it!), let me tell you that I wasn’t always like this. He would come home and I would be on the verge of tears from the stress of everything that happened that day: the refrigerator broke, I missed a deadline for an assignment, the kids were fighting all day, etc.
I noticed that the tone of our entire evening together hinged on what happened in the first 15 minutes when he came home. If he came home and everything seemed to be in order (even if it really wasn’t), we were able to relax together after the kids went to bed and reflect on the chaos of the day. But if he came home to craziness, the evening usually dissolved into nothingness.
Giving him 15 minutes (30 just doesn’t work for me) when he comes home to breathe, take his shoes off, change clothes, etc., before he jumps in with our evening routine has worked wonders in our household – what about yours?
Do you have a policy where you give each other space when you come home? How has it changed your relationship?