If you’re taking the time to read my work, I have to assume there’s a decent chance you’re wanting to be a better father today than you were yesterday. And then a better one tomorrow than you were today. If you have a partner, though, the route to becoming a better father can’t help but go through a process of working to be a better partner to them.
There are millions of words of theory on how to do this being published every year, from the academic to the conversational to the humorous. But what can you put into practice now to be a better partner – as in, within the next hour, or at most before you go to bed?
To be a better partner is to take responsibility.
“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong and repairs the evil.
The only crime is pride.”
Sophocles
Manly men acknowledge their shortcomings. If your goals are growth and wisdom, that’s a big component of how you get there – not convincing everyone you’ve got everything sewn up good and tight, but rather being honest and vulnerable enough to admit you were wrong about something. In a practical sense, you’d be foolish not to in a respectful partnership. You might be able to pull wool over everybody else’s heads, but your partner knows you well enough to know better.
This isn’t being the strong one. It’s rote dishonesty.
Refusing to acknowledge your mistakes and shortcomings, then, is tantamount to insulting your partner’s intelligence. If you’re in a situation in which they know you’re not perfect, you know they know you’re not perfect, but you’re pretending to be anyway. How could that possibly be interpreted any other way than your feeling your ego is more important than your partner? There’s a certain toxicity to someone who can’t let go of their ego long enough to admit a mistake, especially to someone they supposedly share everything with.
To be a better partner means wearing gratitude.
“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.”
Henry Ward Beecher
Everyone’s partner wants to know if their work and worth are valued by the person they’re doing life with – and they won’t know if you don’t tell them. It can be easy when something is so patently obvious to you for it to escape mention – you may feel so certain of your affection for your partner, commenting on it can feel like remarking on the blueness of the sky. As much as it seems otherwise sometimes, though, your partner can’t read your mind. Air your thoughts out on the clothesline here.
If you struggle with how to express yourself, frame how you’re feeling in the context of a journalist question:
- Who: “Every time I see someone with a sour look, it reminds me how nice your smile is.”
- What: “Your cooking is great, I’m glad I get to enjoy it.”
- When: “When I see you playing with the kids, I’m grateful they have you.”
- Where: “I can’t look at that hospital without being thankful for you and the kids.”
- Why: “Sometimes I think about life in another context and am reminded of how grateful I am for this.”
- How: “I always feel close to you when you _______ , thank you.”
We can make a lot of progress in our quest to be a better partner by being honest – not just with the negative elements we present, but the positive ones our partners do.
To be a better partner means burning your scorecard.
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”
Mark Twain
Nobody is saying you need to ignore every slight or be a wilting violet. If there’s something between you and your partner, have it out and get it dealt with – in the moment. But once it’s been sorted and you’ve had your hug, it’s over. You don’t get to fold that situation up for a rainy day then run it up a flagpole during a subsequent disagreement. All that’s going to do is make for a mistrusting partner.
Think about it this way: If you started getting in a heated discussion with your partner, and they pulled a tape recorder out and started recording the conversation, you’d probably have an issue with that. You’d wonder why it was necessary to preserve the conversation for posterity. What’s it going to be used for? Who’s going to be privy to this? The dynamic is no different if you salt the conversation away in your memory. Just let it go.
Because what’s the endgame here? You keeping that ace up your sleeve just waiting for the apex of a fight so you can pull it out and bludgeon humility and deference into them? I don’t know how much time you’ve spent around human beings, but 99% of the time with 99% of people, this would only perpetuate disdain.
To be a better partner, specialize in the small, quiet intimacies.
“Intimacy is not about sex, it’s about being seen, heard and known.”
Brené Brown
So many guys focus almost solely on intercourse frequency as a supposed barometer for the health of their relationship with their partner. But sex is just one component of many in what should be a diverse culture of intimacy between you and your partner. How are you personally fostering a spirit of intimacy the other 99.75% of the week?
Consider this in the framework of Love Language theory as proposed by Dr. Gary Chapman. Debate his larger premises if you will, but the scaffolding suits our purposes for self-analysis here. Are you:
Speaking affirmation?
How often are you saying “I love you” when you’re not either parting company or in the bedroom? Are you paying compliments to physical features with no thought to point scoring? Are you going beyond vanity and praising things like work ethic, cleverness, skills, or parenting?
Engaging in acts of service?
Are you ensuring there’s equity in the division of household labor? Remember, completing household tasks isn’t “helping out” or “doing a favor” or “covering,” all of which I’ve seen anecdotal accounts of husbands saying to their partners. There’s nothing manly about shirking work, no matter what that work looks like. You have the same kids, the same pets, grunge up dishes and socks and toilets, dirty the car, enjoy shorn grass, and enjoy bills not having gone to collections just like your partner.
None of these things should fall to one partner or another by default. If something in particular is generally done by a partner in particular, that needs to have been discussed and made explicit, not left subject to creeping expectations. Don’t turn a blind eye to your letting more and more slide onto your partner’s plate.
Giving your partner quality time?
This poor term has gotten sorely misused. The typical paradigm seems to be the family laughing around a board game after a supper of homemade pizza, which all the kids helped make from scratch with a yeast proof and everything. But what I mean by this term is, are you providing your partner with high-value time during which you are not distractedly flicking your phone screen or bouncing your eyes between her and the television like you’re at a Wimbledon match? Are you sitting down with at most a pair of beverages between you and deeply, reflectively listening?
Casually, lovingly touching throughout the day?
That doesn’t mean selfish, possessive touch like breast groping or bum pinching, even if it’s playful and welcomed. At root, those are rather self-serving actions. How about meaningfully touching a forearm? Tracing your fingers across their back as you pass by? Pausing for a moment before a kiss to consider their face?
“Wait,” the well-read among you will protest. “You forgot about gift giving!” Well, let’s chat about that separately:
To be a better partner, turn typical gift giving on its head.
“Sometimes the most ordinary things can be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people.”
Elizabeth Green
Marketers of all shapes and stripes want you to think you need to prove your devotion with gifts that are extravagant, elaborate, or both. It doesn’t have to be that way, though. Rather than breaking the bank and cluttering your house, do gift giving differently:
Invest thought and time, not necessarily money.
Rather than making a gift monetarily expensive, make it something you’ve obviously invested thought into. If there’s something your partner is interested in, find something unique associated with it. If you’re not conversant with it, find a community online and ask the question – reddit is a great resource for this.
A gift doesn’t necessarily need to be durable.
Most people default to trinkets when they’re in gift-giving mode. It’s understandable, because your initial thought is that every day spent with it makes the purchase price worth it. However, it doesn’t take many years of gift cycles for things to pile up in the house – and worse, nobody is keen to dispense with a gift, so they’re destined to become permanent fixtures.
So rethink here. Can you gift an experience instead? A bouquet of favorite flowers? An exquisite meal out? A piece of original writing? Memories don’t take up any floor space, but have their own lasting power.
You don’t need a reason to give a gift.
If you bump into an opportunity to gift something, don’t tuck it away for four months in anticipation of a birthday or the holidays. Give it to them now! We have the good fortune of having a florist down the street, and the last time I was in she was asking what the occasion was so she could construct the arrangement accordingly. My response?
“It’s Monday.”
If you don’t want to be quite so cheeky, find some small victory to commemorate. Was there something at your partner’s job that went well? A personal best bested? A particularly good meal cooked? Give them a gift. Obviously you don’t need to run into a store for every little thing, but sometimes it’s the unexpected, random gifts that have the most impact.
. . .
We all want to “have a better relationship” or “be a better partner,” but we too often leave these as nebulous, ill-defined, ‘someday’ concepts. Those things don’t typically come from seismic shifts, though. You don’t need a second honeymoon, or a new car with a big floppy bow on it in the driveway, or champagne in a hot air balloon. You just need quiet kindnesses, applied consistently.
Don’t make this a ‘one day’ I’ll do it thing. Make this ‘day one’ of doing it.
—
This post was previously published on The Unbothered Father.
***
You might also like these from The Good Men Project:
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: iStock
