Case Study on Sharing Responsibilities in the Newlywed Couple

              Just as Ysebel and Manny thought they were past the worst of their financial troubles.  Manny got more bad news from his boss at the electronics warehouse.  Sales were not picking up yet.  Everyone was being forced to take a temporary layoff.  The projected layoff was for the next 6 months but after that everyone was promised to get their old jobs back.  Manny was tempted to be worried but he couldn’t forget what Pastor Sanchez taught him.  “Don’t worry about money, be like the sparrows and let God take care of your needs.”

              Ysebel agreed that the devil was tempting them to worry about money again but they were going to trust God this time.  But Ysebel thought to herself, “God doesn’t criticize a sparrow for looking does he?”  The next day Ysebel made a few calls and before she knew it she had a job interview.  By the end of the week she was hired full time in a veterinary clinic to help take care of the animals.  

              Suddenly, Manny and Ysebel found there roles reversed.  Ysebel was going to work in the morning and Manny was staying home to take care of the house.  Manny always believed that Ysebel had it much easier than he did having to work all day.  So he considered this to be a nice little vacation.  Ysebel on the other hand knew that Manny always took her for granted and didn’t appreciate everything she did.  “Now Manny can learn what it is like to have all the household responsibilities,” she thought to herself.   Previously, Manny had never contributed to the household chores.  In fact often he would feel put out when Ysebel would ask him to do the simplest things. 

              It wasn’t very long before Manny started to feel overwhelmed with the responsibilities he had to do.  He often wasn’t able to accomplish many of his daily tasks alone, at first his mother had to come over and show him how things needed to be done.  But she wouldn’t let him live it down either so he did everything he could imagine before he would turn to his mother for help again.  Manny didn’t know the first thing about cooking or cleaning but then to complicate things he has to baby-sit his five year old sister, Angela.  Every afternoon Angela stays with him till his parents get home.  Ysebel had been doing before she started her new Job, so now it has become Manny’s responsibility.  And up till now he had no idea how exhausting a bored five year old could be.

              As the months went by Ysebel’s work began to get more and more demanding.  The veterinarian appreciated how good she was with the animals and gave her harder responsibilities over time.  With this the changes in the home were gradual at first but they became more noticeable over time.  For example Manny started to feel more comfortable with housework.  Cleaning was becoming second nature to him, like cleaning the toilet.  At first he wore a bio-hazard mask and rubber gloves up to his elbows and eventually over time he left the protective gear in the garage.  With one hand a squirt, splish-splash, flush . . . while eating an empanada in his other hand.   Manny learned what it took to be a good caregiver to Angela, he figured out that if he spent a little time to make her happy when she first got home the rest of the afternoon would go 100% better.  Other problems were not so easy to fix.  As Ysebel came home feeling more tired and stressed he realized a significant decline in her sexual appetite was taking place.  So now on top of every thing else he had to think of special ways to arouse her interest romantically.   But by far the hardest thing Manny had to deal with was the loss of a singular identity in his wife.  She no longer belonged to him alone.  Now she belonged to him, her new job, and a bunch of other people’s pets. 

              t the end of the six months when Manny’s supervisor called him back to work, Ysebel was enjoying her job too much to quit.  So now they are both working full time.  But because of their experience with role reversal both of them learned valuable lessons that helped them share there household responsibilities equally now that they are both working full time.  Manny learned that most of the time, “What he did or didn’t do spoke so loud that Ysebel couldn’t hear what he had to say.”  It didn’t mean as much when Manny used to say “I love you.”  But now his actions express the same things as his words and they mean so much more.  Ysebel learned that when Manny is happy and feels appreciated he wants to be more helpful to her.  On the other hand when Manny feels unhappy or taken for granted the last thing in the world he wants to do was to make her life easier. 

Discussion Questions:

1.  Do you feel your spouse appreciates you?  Or do you sometimes feel like your spouse takes you for granted?

2.  What steps could you take in order to let your spouse know how much you really appreciate him/her?

3.  When it comes to serving God, how can you make your actions speak louder than your words?

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