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Before today’s post – I want to suggest you read my wife’s new effort, Doing Marriage Well, which starts today. Each week she will focus on one idea, stepping you through thinking and doing. The blog is for both husbands and wives and it would be great to do it as a couple. Having read the first week I am impressed. The link goes to the first day of kindness. You can sign up to get it by email in the “Let’s Do This” box.
I remember when “quality time” became a big deal in parenting a couple of decades ago. I always thought it was trying to make parents who were too busy for their children feel better. The problem with quality time and children is you can’t schedule it. Quality time happens spontaneously when you spend plenty of time with them. The more time you spend, the more likely some of it will be quality.
This is less true for adults, but it’s still a factor. A bigger issue with adults is that high quality doesn’t make up for a lack of quantity. You can’t live on one fantastic meal a week, and your car won’t do well with one quart of the best oil money can buy. In both cases, things are actually better with a greater quantity of something with a much lower quality. The same analogy could be made for sex and many other things. Quality is nice but without a minimum amount, it will never be enough.
With that as my foundation, let’s talk about quality time in your marriage. If your wife’s love language is quality time, then she needs a good quantity of quality time. A bit here and there isn’t going to satisfy her any more than a bit of sex here and there would satisfy you.
As for what makes it quality, that varies a great deal, and what qualifies for one woman won’t qualify for another. Many women won’t see binge-watching Netflix as quality time, but some will. Of course, how you do it matters too. Just watching hours of shows isn’t the same as talking about what you watch between shows.
Next time you hear “quality time” please rethink it as quantity of quality time. The reality is you have to do both for it to matter.
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I heard a podcast recently that tweaked my understanding of this in a good way. We don’t really want time, we want/need attention. 4 hours alone watching a movie is less than a 30 minute conversation with full attention. This greatly clears up the quality /quantity time issue. I think attention is more valuable today due to the attention hopping created by our gadgets and lifestyle
@Roy Zesch – Excellent point.