This, That and The Other

[labug]

H and I had a talk yesterday about the always dangerous marital issue of porch furniture!

Seems trivial but it's these little issues that occur on a regular basis that get the resentment snowball rolling. Before you know it, it's big enough to bury you.

I wanted to make furniture out of pallets for our front porch. I like to recycle things, I'm creative, I've done similar projects in the past and this was a great opportunity (I thought).

H was hesitant, but he didn't say, "No, I'm not going for that." He hemmed and hawed. Yesterday we were on a bike ride and saw a stack of about 5 pallets. Yes! I said "You and S21 could come get those later."(I had to go to work) His response, "I'm not going to do that, it'll be a lot of work (I hadn't asked him to do anything but pick them up) and will end up looking tacky! I don't want them on my front porch."

We were through the hemming and hawing stage and went straight to p!ssed off and attacking.

I took a deep breath and thought about this as we continued to ride. I could see how we had done this our whole married lives, he not able to risk confrontation with a straight out no until he's p!ssed, me seeing that hemming and hawing as an opening to keep pushing for what I wanted. From my current perspective it's pretty easy to see how that resentment builds from these little inconsequential issues.

I would have been angry and hurt and gone on the defensive. I would have pouted, he would have shut down...You know the drill. We wouldn't have resolved anything, just added another layer to that resentment snowball.

So, what to do?

I read recently that we often say I love you but...and as we see written here often, when you say but, everything that comes before it is negated. The advice was to say I love you and...so I tried that.

When we got home I said "I love you and about the porch furniture, if you disagree with something I want to do, I'd like for you to tell me No from the get go. It's confusing when you don't and telling me how tacky it was going to look hurt. (my creativity is a big part of what makes me, me) If you say no, I can deal with that. I may not like it but it won't be the end of the world. I'll get over it."

H: I thought you would understand by what I said that I didn't want pallet furniture on the porch.

LB: It's too hard to try and figure out what you mean or to read your mind and I could come to a completely wrong conclusion. My conclusion was, you weren't closed to the idea but needed convincing.

H: OK, I get it. I don't want pallet furniture on the porch.

This isn't easy because it's not yet automatic like our old responses were but it gets much better results. It's getting easier the more we practice it. It does take slowing down, letting go of outcomes and the need to be rigth, examining motives and keeping the R first.

We have friends who just did 11 days on the Appalachian Trail and next year plan to do the whole enchilada. I see Rs much like that, some days the trail is easy, some days it might rain and be a mucky mess. One day you're on the mountaintop, the next may bring a long deep valley. The trick is to keep the overall goal in mind and just do what you need to do each moment of each day.