A recent discussion on generosity and mutual satisfaction in the bedroom made me think. There's an old post that came to mind, and something else.

I was doing laundry the other day. Now, I genuinely love doing laundry, it's my favorite chore. Two things I hate about it though: matching socks and ironing shirts. I own ten identical pairs of white socks and a single plaid shirt that has quite the rustic charm when a bit wrinkled (or so I choose to believe).

Enter my husband. The man lives in a dress shirt and has at least two dozens pairs of silly socks all different from each other. When we got married, I actually told him "you should know, I don't iron and I don't match socks."

And I didn't, for a while. Unless I had a lot of spare time, I left his shirts on hangers and his socks unmatched in a hamper. I huffed a bit when I saw he left his clean clothes laying around and his socks in the hamper (it's not that important if he doesn't even do it himself! So who cares?). It wasn't something he ever resented or ever expected me to do. I would have done it for him had he asked, but I think he didn't want to ask, because it was such a small thing he could do for himself and ease my load.

Then we visited family for a while, and one day his grandmother did our laundry. She hung two perfectly ironed shirts at his door and left a nice, neat pile of matched and folded socks on his chair. The care and love were obvious. Such a small thing spoke of the joy she took in our presence there with her. She did something he was perfectly capable of doing himself, just because she wanted to. And he, while obviously not expecting it from her, was grateful and appreciative.

I stared at that neat pile of socks and thought... do I care so little?

I don't do things for him for him because he can't do them himself, or to repay of all he does for me, or to get him to do something for me. But... he does do so much to make me happy, and it fills me with desire to make him happy in return, and so on. Seeing the things I do for him doesn't just make him happy for what I did in itself, but for the spirit behind it. It's not a transaction. An exchange, maybe - but of love first and foremost, not services. An entitled expectation would kill the joy of freely giving. That freely given gift is a double joy, for him and for me.

I thought back to that day as I was doing laundry as I do now - ironing his million dress shirts. Folding his billion socks just the way he likes. Putting his clothes away according to his own system that's totally different from mine, and somehow knowing which black t-shirt goes into the "for home" pile and which almost identical black t-shirt goes into the "for going out" pile. Smoothing the last wrinkles with my hand and muttering to myself about the absurd organization of his closet.

And I was happy.