What makes a decision good or bad is how it helps us progress towards our goals. If we’re not clear about our goals, it’s easy to make a bunch of bad decisions. Eating a plate full of cakes, cookies, and donuts might seem like a bad decision, but if your objective is to indulge on a cheat day from your diet, then it’s a good decision.
The purpose of this post is to introduce the concept of friction.
Friction is not a fight, but it could turn into one. Friction is the little moments that aren’t really anything, but that can slowly grind on you. It’s relationship plaque; a little bit is easily scraped off but it can build and harden over time.
What’s the cost of letting the call go to voicemail? Of ignoring the PING or vibration of your phone? Of putting your device on ‘Do Not Disturb’?
Let’s talk about money.
Money can be tricky to manage on your own. Add your significant other to the mix and it becomes significantly more complicated (get it? I’m so punny!).
I’m going to share how my husband, Steve, and I manage our finances. I’m going to get into the nitty-gritty details. In this post (Part 1), I’ll share:
– where we learned about money,
– the difference between good debt and bad debt, and
– how we mopped up my credit card debt in the early days of our relationship.
When arguing with your significant other, do it with the confidence of knowing you’ll find a resolution.
If you’re working from the same set of facts, then you’ll arrive at the same conclusion. Arguing is one way couples share facts.
Dad: “If that kid is going to be there, then I’m not coming to your wedding.”
The “kid” to whom he was so rudely referring was my half-brother.
Me: “Fine. Don’t come.”
I had a hard time with this one, folks.
I’ve always fancied myself an expert apologizer. I have LOTS of opinions on how and when we should apologize and I’ve been working on creating my own apology framework for couples.
As I was researching apologies, I discovered the nine essential ingredients of a true apology by apology expert, Dr. Harriet Lerner (@HarrietLerner). Harriet is a trained clinical psychologist who’s written several New York Times bestselling books, her most recent one being Why Won’t You Apologize?
Her framework has given me a lot to think about. Some of her ingredients overlap with my own (which makes me feel super smart), and others raise a lot of questions for me which almost made me scrap this post altogether and write about something else – something easier.
I’m the primary laundry doer in my house. I wash, fold, and put away. It’s a time consuming and never ending chore. It’s not like cleaning the gutters, which is done once per year. It’s every week (or 2 weeks, if we let it pile up).
After a while, I began resenting the fact that my husband never said “thank you” or even seemed to notice that his underwear drawer was replenished on the exact day he would have otherwise run out.
Happiness experts say that we can’t make anyone else happy (like our partners), but we can make ourselves happy. Our moods are contagious, so by making ourselves happy, our partner’s will (as a side effect) become happier. This is definitely true in my relationship. When I’m happy, my husband’s happy, but when I’m miserable, he’s miserable too. Maybe that’s where happy wife, happy life comes from.
I want to share something I learned this week that I’m super excited to try.
I was watching a masterclass* called Chris Voss Teaches The Art of Negotiation (Chris Voss @VossNegotiation is a former FBI lead hostage negotiator and bestselling author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It). In it, he teaches the concept of “labeling”. He talks about labels in the context of negotiations (during hostage negotiations and business negotiations), but I think it’s a brilliant tool that can be used on our significant others!
So today, I’m going to teach you what I learned from Chris Voss’s masterclass about labels: what they are, how they work, and the right and wrong way to label emotions.
