The house does not rest upon a ground – but on woman of the house. (Mexican proverb)
As true as the above statement is, we tend to ignore its significance nevertheless. Adult life is such that we spend innumerable number of hours working for our organizations. We then go home, have our meals and hit the sack – snoring to glory. The monotonous cycle repeats the next day and then the next, and then the next… We work like bull, eat like there never will be tomorrow, watch News on television as if our lives were dependent on it, and then sleep as if we were deprived of it till that moment! We are so busy with ourselves and our routines that other members of the society, and indeed the family, generally don’t get as much attention from us as perhaps is required. And that my friends’ forms the basis of my contention in this article and I wish to draw your attention to this serious aspect of our passing life.
Family and home are integral part of our lives. We feel safe when we are at home and feel comfortable when we are with our family. However, we do take each of these for granted at our own ultimate peril, I must say. It is one fine day, when things go haywire between the family members and yourselves that you wake up to the reality. You suddenly realize, to your surprise, that there are bunch of issues that have cropped up from nowhere. And the rifts are so deep that it just does not make sense to us. We feel disappointed and… and wonder why? I mean, after all, we have been working hard and providing all that we can for our family. Haven’t we? We have been honest and truthful to them and have never taken any step that, we feel, should disappoint the family. Then why… why so many issues? What more does our family want, we wonder? We grope around for answers, but find none.
Well that’s the whole point of this article. It is just an attempt from my end to perhaps make you realize that we indeed need to do more today – to avoid looking for answers later. We really need to spare more time for our family, for our wife and children today – to spare us any heart breaks tomorrow. We perhaps need to go out of our way to make our family feel a part of our “own-selves” and… belonged.
Kindly note: For the purpose of this article – I shall not delve into the time we spend with our Parents. That part of the story is all too depressing (especially for “migrant” children like us – who are unfortunate to be living away from our Parents) and hence will keep that part of stats for some other time and some other article. I have always felt, for all that they do for us, we can never come close to doing justice with them (in the time we spend and devote to them). But yes, I shall definitely talk and concentrate on the time we devote to our other part of family and specifically the time spent with the “better half”.
Life, we know, changes after marriage. Overnight a person suddenly becomes a part of you, and your life. Your perceptions about life take a dramatic “U-turn”. You suddenly start “planning” your future in all earnest. The day of careless living becomes passé. Your dreams suddenly are filled with thoughts of your future with your wife. The “I” in our life very smoothly shifts into the “We” gear, if you know what I mean. We try and work even harder to fulfill all the lofty dreams that we see together with our partners in life. Life suddenly becomes more purposeful and interesting.
Somewhere down the line though, in our zest to extract more out of life, we end up spending lesser and lesser time with the one who perhaps has been the inspiration to our dreams. Such prolonged “neglect” of the family (read “spouse”) ultimately leads to cracks in the very fabric of the bond that we “thought” got made the day we put the sacred Mangalsutra around our spouses’. It is my belief that we tend to settle down in the relationship and start taking our spouses flippantly and get obsessed with thoughts of professional progression, promotion, ways of minting money, buying a car, a house etc. The priorities change and life for us turns more materialistic. In the pursuit of such materialistic individual happiness – the relevance of the relationship formed out of marriage is all but lost. Sadly so.
I must confess, it is in the periods of me being alone during my official tours and/or when my wife was away for her holidays (visiting her Parents place), that I first started thinking about the “lost moments”. In these periods, of me being alone at home, I have cursed myself for not caring enough for the person who today matters the most to me. The lack of quality time I spend with my wife (when she is with me) keeps nagging me even today. And every time I look back at the lost opportunities/moments – I get into another bout of depression and frustration.
It was some couple of years back (in one of the many official tours I was making in those times) – I ended up collating some data that I am presenting to you today. I had conveniently forgotten about the same till I felt the need to revisit it the last time my wife went away on her holidays. To my utter disappointment – I did find the stats to be relevant even now – in fact more so now. I am sure you too will be able to connect to the stats presented here.
Kindly note, however hard I tried to place the figures in various slots (to brighten up the scenario!) – I ended up with more or less the same end result. I have tried to take the most sanguine scenario and I hope you will find them realistic in your cases too. The first table shows the number of hours we spend doing an activity all by our own selves. Here they are for you:
Activity | Daily (on 5 working days) | Saturday | Sunday |
Work/Office | 9 | 0 | 0 |
Commuting | 1.5 | 0 | 0 |
Sleep | 8 | 9 | 9 |
Watching TV | 1.5 | 3 | 3 |
Having Meals | 0.5 | 1 | 1 |
On Phone | 0.5 | 1 | 1 |
Daily Chores | 0.5 | 1 | 1 |
Shopping | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Preparation of Meal (by Spouse) | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Total | 112.5 (22.5*5) | 17 | 16 |
Total avg. hours spent on ourselves (in a week) | 145.5 | Hours |
Total Available Hours (in a week) | 168 | Hours |
Total Hours spent with Spouse (in a week) | 22.5 | Hours |
Total days in an year | 365 | Days |
Total days spent with our spouse in a year (22.5*52/24) | 48.75 | Days |
Reducing Holidays/Official Tours spent alone (approx 15-20 Days/ year) | 28.75 | Days |
Total days spent together in 35 years | 1006.25 | Days |
% Time devoted to spouse | 7.8 | % |
“No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” (Elbert Hubbard, American Writer)
As you can see – even conservatively speaking (i.e. considering we work for “normal stipulated hours” at office) we spend not more than 13% of the time with our partner (week on week basis). All it means is that, out of 7 days in a week – we end up talking/interacting/spending “quality time” with our wives’ only for around half a day (or a bit more)! Now if that is not less – I don’t know how much is? Won’t you agree? And, increase the time of commuting (from home to office and back) and or increase the time spent in sleeping or even the time spent in watching TV silently (which we all do most of the times) – that percentage dips… even further. Again, if I add those weekly parties, which we indulge into (all alone with our friends) – it will add to the time we spent on “ourselves”, resulting in further decrease in the time spent with our family. And hey, take the yearly stats, and the figures become depressing in the current context of discussion (i.e. when individual holidays/tours etc are added).
Taking an average period of married life to be 35 years, the statistics becomes pretty dreadful. Refer to the above stats and you will see that we will not be spending even 3 full exclusive years, out of an approximate married life of 35 years, with our spouse! Now that is not even 10% of the total time available to us in those 35 years. Gosh! In fact, with modest figures that I have taken, we will be lucky to spend more than 7.8% of the time together and that, for me, is preposterous – especially with someone whom we love.
Mind you, I am only taking a scenario where the spouse is a house-wife. If both of them work – the percentages will take a huge hit and decrease even further. Now most of you may say that while we are at home we are with our wife, so why this farcical assertion? Well – for such people I say, look for yourself and decide for yourself on the time you spend talking to your spouse or spending time listening to her. You will know what I mean.
For someone we call our better halves; for someone we consider a part of our life and being; for someone whom we expect to be truthful to us for their entire life, not sparing an avg. of 2 full hours per day is ridiculous, to say the least.
I have to wonder then – are we doing justice to this sacred relationship? For someone (for whom) we profess undying love and (from whom) we expect more than that in return – are we really doing enough? No Sir, neither do I – and dare I say, nor does anyone married and reading this article. We all are failing our family and especially our wife. So, am I going overboard with these stats? Well, may be I am. But, am I giving too much credence to something that should not be taken too seriously? Well – I don’t think so. The relationship built under the so called institution of marriage demands all seriousness and care. You see, funny one-liners about spouses will keep getting made. Jokes about how husbands’ never end up talking to their wives because they do not like interrupting their better half – are good ways to poke fun at the expense of someone dear to you. I say, crack such jokes (and pamper yourself) – but don’t allow them to become a part of your philosophy. The bottom line shall always show the only relevant truth – We need to do more. Yes Sir, we need to do more to reassert our love for our life partners. And if being vocal at times is necessary – there is no shame in doing that.
I have always felt I have failed my wife more number of times than I can count. And no, it is not because I have been up to something “naughty”. I feel I have failed her because I perhaps have not cared to spare time for her, as much as I could have till now. I have failed her because I perhaps have fought with her more number of times than I can count. I have failed her because I have never truly expressed my love for her, as many times as I should have till now. I have never perhaps been able to tell her how lucky I am to have her in my life.
I have failed her on most counts as mentioned above. And when she is not around, I miss her and I yearn to tell her how much I love her. But every time she comes back from her holidays (or I come back from my tours) – I find it awkward saying exactly the same things that I keep reminding myself to say (when I am away from her). I convince myself to wait for an opportune time, to look in her eyes and tell her that I love her. Alas, that opportune moment has not come till now. And… the wait continues…
However, I intend to devote more “exclusive” time to my family (specially my wife) and spend some valuable time with them (including my kid) from now on. Because if I don’t, I know I will be reading this article 40 years down the line and repenting every moment that I have lost in working hard, chasing my own dreams at someone else’s expense. I do realize that corrective measures are in order and that they need to be taken now. And I do hope, after reading this, you will chart your own remedial path. Remember, no man on his deathbed could ever look up into the eyes of his family and said, “I wish I’d spent more time at office”. And needless to say – you only get one chance to get on that deathbed. I am not sure it would be a pleasant feeling then.
Someone once said – Love of your family is life’s greatest blessing, and once you marry – your Wife is a major part of it.
Increase that percentage of time you spend exclusively with your wife, because remember, your life depends on her.
Think about it.
Mantosh Singh..
8th May 2007’ - 7th June 2007’
