Mr./Mrs. Fix It?

Once upon a time I helped put together a marriage conference for all of our friends. There were 12 women who attended and 6 ladies who served as the "marriage" panel. It was a pretty powerful weekend. Anyway, part of our focus that weekend was about misplaced and unspoken expectations hurting a marriage. Recently I have been discovering why some things never happen around our new house - and it's all because of expectations.

In my house growing up my Dad was Mr. Fix It. He really can fix most everything and does (unless it requires special knowledge). However, in my husbands family his mom fixed everything. Somehow, both my husband and I managed to learn almost nothing about fixing anything while we were growing up. (Probably because we expected our spouse of the opposite sex would just come knowing how to do these things - like our parents did). So now, in our house, we each sit around expecting the other to take the initative and have the skills to fix things like leaky sinks, etc.

I think we might be breaking down these expectations though. Recently we had two "fix it" incidents. One incident involved me running into our sliding glass door and breaking it. It hung in place for about 3 days and then my Dad and husband dismantled it shortly after Christmas. (They said I must be tough because a hammer wasn't easily breaking the glass). The other situation was with our dishwasher - it got so clogged that water couldn't get through to wash the dishes. My husband took the initiative and fixed our dishwasher - after reading about it at the library. Who knew a turkey baster had so many uses! So now we have a fixed dishwasher (with much less soap scum) thanks to my husbands good work.

So I think we will have to figure out for our family who does what in the "fix it" department. Often, to be honest, we call our friends and family to help fix it - they are much more knowledgable than we are. But, we are both open to learning and setting new expectations for our marriage and each other in this area. I don't think either of us relish fixing things - but we are learning to do what it takes. Funny how expectations about little things creep in when you least expect it.