Ear­lier today I had a brief con­ver­sa­tion with a friend on face­book. She’d posted about her day, how she was tired, and about this amaz­ing din­ner she’d made. I com­mented, that I’m not a real big fan of cook­ing, and when ever I don’t feel like cook­ing I don’t.  I said that my fam­ily would have been eat­ing cereal or pizza for dinner.

Her response was that her hus­band enjoys a nice meal, and that she wanted to be a “good wife”.

This got me thinking.

What is a good wife? I thought we, as a soci­ety were kind of beyond the Betty Crocker house wife thing. Am I mis­taken? I couldn’t help but won­der why she asso­ci­ated cook­ing a meal for her hus­band  with being a good wife. I wouldn’t have cooked if I felt tired. Does that make me a bad wife? I don’t think so.

I think she and I sim­ply have dif­fer­ent ideas about what makes a good wife. To be hon­est I’ve never really thought about being a “good wife”.  Just like I never think about being a good daugh­ter, or a good friend, or…even a good mother. I am what I am.

I think I’m pretty darn amaz­ing, and this is backed up by the peo­ple in my life who tell me so.

I don’t know why, but this bugged the crap out of me. That women today still cor­re­late putting an admit­tedly deli­cious sound­ing meal down in front of their hus­band directly with the qual­i­ties that make a good wife.

This friend (I’ve never met her in real life, she’s a mem­ber of a local mom’s club that I belong to), has a pretty hec­tic sound­ing life, she has two small chil­dren, both who have spe­cial needs. I think if she felt tired, she should relax, and not be stand­ing in front of a stove…but that’s just me.

If cook­ing is some­thing that brings her plea­sure, if see­ing her hus­band pat his stom­ach in enjoy­ment after that meal makes her feel happy then I say she should cook to her heart’s delight. But I don’t think that she should do it just because her hus­band enjoys a good meal. I mean, we all enjoy a good meal don’t we?

I also hope that she didn’t have to clean up after-wards. It’s kind of a rule in my house, who ever cooks doesn’t clean. It doesn’t always hap­pen this way, but it cer­tainly makes the prospect of cook­ing for me much more appealing-even though I’d pre­fer to do the clean­ing. (If you don’t know –I’m a bit of a clean freak.)

I am not say­ing that as hus­bands and wives we shouldn’t do things just for the sake of mak­ing our spouses happy. That’s one of the great things about being in love…that mak­ing  the one you love happy in turn makes you happy. I just think that take out or left overs would have been just as good.

What I’m try­ing to say is that we as women spend so much of our lives car­ing for oth­ers, putting oth­ers first, and my friend seems like she does a lot of this. Which is what really prompted this post. I hope that she takes some time for her­self, which is what I would have done if I felt exhausted after a long day. I think it is so impor­tant for women to nur­ture them­selves too, so that we can nur­ture the ones we love and not suf­fer from burn out.

For me, being a good wife means sup­port­ing my spouse in the sunny times as well as those days when storm clouds move in. To be the per­son that holds the umbrella over his head ensur­ing he doesn’t get drenched in what-ever life is pour­ing down on him…and me.

For my friend, if that means cook­ing din­ner on a night when she described her self as feel­ing “TIRED”,  who am I to judge?

Cor­re­lat­ing cook­ing for my hus­band with being a good wife, is just some­thing I wouldn’t do. Does this make her less of a woman or wife? Absolutely not. I just wished we as women could move past this idea of the stereo­typ­i­cal “good wife”. You know the one whose homes are spot­less, her chil­dren per­fectly behaved, and whose hus­band always comes home to a won­der­fully delec­table home cooked meal.

My hus­band works two jobs, his Air Force job and then a sec­ond job. He leaves our home at about five in the morn­ing and doesn’t return until well after eleven o’clock in the evening, some times well past Mid­night. He never eats din­ner at home on week­nights, I pre­pare din­ner mainly for the kids and I, mak­ing things that I know they’d enjoy. Would he love to come home to a din­ner he’d enjoy (which would be his lunch the next day) every night sure…he even teases me some­times about how I avoid the stove. This works for us.…and in the end, when it comes to mar­riage that is what’s important.

Later this month my hus­band and I will be cel­e­brat­ing our ninth year, and I can say with absolute cer­tainty that although I’m sure he’d love a few more home made lunches, he would never in a mil­lion years think me a bad wife.

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