“If we truly love, should we not release as well?”
It’s been a long day. I’ve just come home from work and headed straight for the fridge, but there’s something in the way; something that causes my right eye to twitch, my breath to get shorter and my jaw to clench … that quarterly water bill. I don’t know about you, but numbers were never my strong suit. Thank God for my wife!
You wouldn’t believe the amount of conversations I’ve had where there has been utter confusion toward me, just because I don’t look after the finances. “It’s the husband’s job to watch the money mate—you’ve got to lead your household. Who knows how many shoes or fake tans are going out the door with your hard-earned money!”.
After being bombarded with these ridiculous comments, my response is always the same. After a long pause (hopefully waiting to see if this person has actually registered what they’ve said to me—usually not), “Mate, trust me—if I looked after the finances, or did the ‘man job’ as you call it, we wouldn’t be here right now. We’d be having this conversation over the phone through bulletproof glass in Silverwater.”
Let’s be real for a moment—our culture has shifted significantly from marriage being referred to as ‘the old ball and chain’ to marriage being a team, a partnership. I know in my marriage #teamcauchi is a high-trending hashtag, and it’s always said with such pride. It gives both my wife and I such freedom and incredible trust in one another to know that we’ve got each other’s back; that my weaknesses are her strengths and vice versa. But the real winning feeling here is she doesn’t make me pay for it by discouraging me in that weakness.
Instead, her releasing me to play to my strengths helps better serve her in our marriage!
We’ve got an 11-month-old girl. She’s an absolute delight— allergic to sleep, but still a delight. Becoming a dad for the first time (whoa, that’s intense) is incredibly rewarding and adventurous, but never have I felt such a responsibility like that before. I’m constantly hearing compliments about how involved and hands-on I am with my family. At first, I was taken aback—turns out my parenting style and the way I approached the relationship with my wife by helping and being involved challenges the very fabric of society. It goes against the old ways and it’s still foreign to some people. Well, my friends, I’m here to say the culture has shifted and we need to move with it. I consider it a privilege for me as a husband and a father to honour those vows and commit my entire life’s purpose to supporting my wife and child.
It truly makes my heart smile when I see other couples for one another, championing each other in their dreams and passions, being ‘one team’. If we truly love, should we not release as well? Maybe it’s time we begin using our own family hashtag a bit more.
