A week after we got married, I was unpacking dishes in our new home when Derek, my husband, came in with a small box and a grin. \u201cSurprise!\u201d he said. Inside was a frilly apron and an ankle-length dress. \u201cIt\u2019s your house uniform,\u201d he explained proudly, adding that his mom wore one every day to \u201ckeep things orderly.\u201d I blinked, unsure if he was serious. He was. \u201cIt\u2019ll help keep you in the homemaker mindset,\u201d he said casually, calling it \u201cjust tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew Derek was traditional, but I hadn\u2019t expected this. I smiled and told myself, Alright, let him think I\u2019m playing along.<\/em> That night, I laid the apron across the bed and began planning my response. If he wanted \u201ctradition,\u201d I had a few ideas up my sleeve too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning, I greeted him in the apron and dress\u2014plus<\/em> a stack of handwritten \u201ctraditional rules\u201d for husbands, including taking out the trash daily, washing the car every Sunday, and giving his wife weekly \u201chousehold appreciation gifts.\u201d Derek laughed nervously at first, then realized I was serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the end of the week, the \u201cuniform\u201d was quietly folded away in a drawer, never mentioned again. Derek admitted he hadn\u2019t thought it through and apologized for springing it on me. We had a real conversation about expectations and respect\u2014and thankfully, that frilly apron never made a comeback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A week after we got married, I was unpacking dishes in our new home when Derek, my husband, came in with a small box and a grin…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":690,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9606,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9604\/revisions\/9606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}