{"id":39513,"date":"2015-04-29T11:12:24","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T16:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=39513"},"modified":"2015-04-29T11:12:24","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T16:12:24","slug":"becoming_expert_giver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/becoming_expert_giver\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming An Expert Giver"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"iStock_000014393005_ExtraSmall\"<\/a>I\u2019m pretty good at thinking about myself. You know, what do I<\/em> need, what do I <\/em>want, how do I<\/em> feel, and so on. Marriage, and even more so, motherhood, has helped me get out of that mentality and ask myself, what does he<\/em> need, what does he<\/em> want, how does\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>he<\/em> feel?<\/p>\n

With my kids, it\u2019s easy to get in that \u201cgiver\u201d frame of mind. After all, I am taking care of\u00a0all<\/em> of their physical needs all<\/em> the time! I\u2019m constantly on the lookout for signs of hunger, fatigue, boredom, whatever.<\/p>\n

With my husband it\u2019s trickier. He\u2019s pretty mellow, and he doesn\u2019t emote readily (which I\u2019ve heard is fairly common for menfolk), so if I want to know what\u2019s going on, I really have to ask. And that isn\u2019t something which comes easily to me. Talking about myself? Got it down to a science! Asking about others \u2026 well, I\u2019m working on it.<\/p>\n

So today, as we were walking home from our Shabbos meal, I asked him,\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s your favorite part about Shabbos?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He stopped to think, and then mentioned some of his favorite things. Among them, he said he wished he had more time for reading. Since he helps me out with the kids a lot on Shabbos<\/em> (awww), he doesn\u2019t have much time to read for himself.<\/p>\n

When we got home, he transferred the sleeping toddler to his crib, the baby was happily gurgling on the floor, and I puttered around putting away the coats, blankets, etc.\u00a0 I noticed that my husband had picked up the Zman<\/em> magazine. I had been looking forward to reading that magazine. A lot. And here my husband had nonchalantly started flipping through it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow\u2014did\u00a0you see the article about the people who won the lotto?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 he remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, you should totally read it,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 I replied.<\/p>\n

Okay, I didn\u2019t mean that second, I meant sometime in the undefined future, after I had already finished with it. Just then, as the baby made known to me that he was ready to be fed, I thought to myself:<\/p>\n

“I was really looking forward to reading that magazine.\u00a0 However, here is a prime opportunity to let my husband have something that I know he wants.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not like the magazine is going anywhere, and it\u2019s not like if I don\u2019t read it this instant I\u2019ll implode from boredom (G-d forbid).\u00a0\u00a0 I need to just let him read the magazine.”<\/em><\/p>\n

So I did (let him read the magazine, not implode from boredom).<\/p>\n

And you know what? After he finished the article, he gave it back to me and I got to read it, too! Win win!<\/p>\n

Even though this was a seemingly minor incident, I felt like it was a major victory over my (totally human and normal) tendency to focus solely on my needs and wants, and a step towards becoming an expert \u201cgiver.\u201d\u00a0 It reminded me of the concept that the more you give, the more you have.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rivki’s blog, Life in the Married Lane<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m pretty good at thinking about myself. You know, what do I need, what do I want, how do I feel, and so on. Marriage, and even more so, motherhood, has helped me get out of that mentality and ask myself, what does he need, what does he want, how does\u00a0he feel? With my kids,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133028,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nBecoming An Expert Giver - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/becoming_expert_giver\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Becoming An Expert Giver - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m pretty good at thinking about myself. 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