Did you have a doll house as a child with a view inside to its rooms that you could fill with miniature everything from teacups in saucers, to pots and pans, furniture for bedrooms, living rooms and even bathrooms? Did you play set-up with boys as well as girls?
I hope so, because sharing that experience will come in handy later in life when you are sharing space with a partner you love.
My ‘significant equal’ and husband of 25 years must have played house as a child or learned early how to contribute to house decorating and clean-up from either his mother or those two marriages that preceded ours. When it came to picking furniture we did it together. Yesterday I came home to our new residence of six months, and this sweet man told me he’d imitated Maria. She was the wonderful housekeeper we’d hired every two weeks to clean the stove, the oven, the coffee pot, dust the shelves, wash the floor and scrub the tiles in the bathroom. Omg how fantastic. When I’d first been able to afford a cleaning lady and came home on Friday nights to scrubbed counters and dust-free shelves, especially the glass ones, I told friends the feeling was almost as good as sex!
Blessed be. Play house with children and grandchildren of both sexes early and often. Model the ways you’d like it to be later in life when you both are ‘retired’ and sharing smaller and smaller spaces. Pass on playing house so house arranging and cleaning will become effortless and joyful instead of a drag or a duty.