I Never Asked | The Bench | Vividly In Love

He goes first

Saturday night is our date night. We went out, ate, lingered, and came home a little earlier than usual.

I suggested we watch a movie.

Sharlene said: “Your first go-to is a movie. You have never asked me whether I enjoy watching movies. I have watched them because you do. It is not something I find very conversational.”

I had not asked her. Not that night, and not before.

And what I was left with was not really about the movie. It was the question underneath it: how many other things has she done, for years, because I enjoy them?

I do not know. I have never asked that either.

Joshua

Your turn. Nobody sees this.

What would mean the most to your wife this week?

No name, no login, no email address. One tap.

The room

10 men have answered this week.

I know exactly, and I could do it today30%

I know what it was five years ago0%

I would be guessing0%

I would have to ask her70%

I am not sure she would tell me straight0%

These are the real answers from the men who opened this week. No name, no email address, no IP address is stored, and no cookie is set.

The turn

I thought I was giving her a night in.

What I was actually doing was choosing the thing I wanted and putting her name on it.

This is not new. Early in our marriage I used to buy her gadgets. Expensive ones, the latest ones. I was genuinely excited handing them over. I never once asked whether she wanted a gadget. I love technology, and I assumed she would love what I love, because I had not thought about it hard enough to notice I was assuming anything at all.

Years of that. Presents I chose for myself, with her name on the label.

And here is the sentence that undid me, because it was not angry and it was not a complaint. I have watched them because you do.

Not I do not like films. Something worse. I have been doing this, for you, for years, and you never noticed it was for you.

So the question is not what to do on a Saturday. The question is how much of our shared life is actually my life, with her in the room.

I do not know. That is the honest answer, and it is not a comfortable one. I have never asked.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Philippians 2:4, KJV

On his own things. That is what I have been looking at, and calling it love.

The rep

One rep. This week.

Ask her this week: “What would you actually want to do?” Then do that, rather than the thing you were already going to suggest.

If the answer surprises you, that is the finding.

6 men have logged this rep