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Hi Reader,

A client of mine has a wife who’s “organizationally challenged.” (She would agree.) He, on the other hand, leans toward OCD when it comes to keeping their home clean and picked up.

A few days ago, he organized his daughter’s bedroom from top to bottom. The next morning he noticed her washed and folded laundry sitting on the dresser. His wife had placed it there instead of sorting it into the drawers.

He emailed me:

“She totally disregards the work I do around here! She could care less that I spent over an hour cleaning our daughter’s bedroom last night. She’s determined to keep us living in squalor! How will we ever dig ourselves out of this hole when she keeps digging a deeper one?!”

Obviously, this has been an ongoing issue.

I asked him:

“When Lisa ‘messes up’ the bedroom you just cleaned and you feel irritated and bothered, what’s the story you’re telling yourself?”

Think about it ...

The sight of clothes on a dresser doesn’t have the power to irritate us, but the meaning we attach to it does. The story we tell ourselves does.

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A Better Story

According to Mindset Coach, David Bayer, we live in either one of two states. He labels them:

1. POWERFUL = Generous, joyful, loving, forgiving, creative, calm, etc.
2. PRIMAL = Reactive, accusatory, frustrated, bored, angry, afraid, etc.

Here’s the simple outline he created that we began using to identify — and address — the real source of my client’s frustration and anger.

1. Recognize when you’ve moved from a powerful state to a primal state. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Just recognize it.
2. Know that the only thing that’s caused you to move into that emotional state is your own thinking. The story you’re telling yourself.
3. Take a closer look at the story you’re telling yourself. What is it?
4. Be open to the idea that it may not be true.
5. If it’s not true, some form of the opposite must be true. What is it and what evidence do you have?

Let’s apply this outline to my client and his angry outburst. Here’s the same clothes-stacked-on-dresser scenario but with some primal-to-powerful self-talk:

1. I’m frustrated and feel my blood beginning to boil.
2. Something triggered me and it’s not the clothes on the dresser. It’s the story I’m telling myself about the clothes on the dresser.
3. The story I’m telling myself is Lisa doesn’t appreciate me or the work I do around here. She takes me for granted. Not putting our daughter’s clothes away after I had organized her entire bedroom was intentionally disrespectful.
4. That may not be true.
5. The truth is Lisa has her hands full with three small children, and sometimes a perfectly clean and organized home has to take a back seat to caring for our kids. She does a load or two of laundry every. single. day. That’s amazing! I doubt she meant to be disrespectful by stacking laundry on our daughter’s dresser. Knowing Lisa, she was balancing a massive pile of folded laundry as she made the rounds and dropped off clean clothes and towels in every bedroom and bathroom in our home. I’ve watched her do that before. The truth is she’s a great mom and we make a great team.

That will change your marriage.

That will change you.

Nothing has meaning except the meaning we attach to it.

Shakespeare said it this way:

It’s not the stack of laundry. It’s the story you tell yourself about the stack of laundry.

It’s not the text your wife forgot to send. It’s the story you tell yourself about the text she forgot to send.

It’s not the money she spent on new shoes or the way she smiled at the Papa John’s cashier. It’s the story you tell yourself about those things.
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Ask for Help

Sometimes, moving from a reactive or primal state back to a powerful state requires your spouse’s assistance. Here’s how you ask your partner to help you re-frame the story you’re telling yourself:

1. List the Facts – “This is what happened. I had this experience.”
2. Share Your Story – “The story I’m telling myself about this experience is that you don’t care about me or my feelings.”
3. Ask Your Wife – “Is that true? If it’s not true, can you help me change my story?”

Start small. Practice it in everyday situations and over time it will become your new operating system.

This is how we move from victim to leader. 💪🏼
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Pro Tips

1. “I feel like I can’t trust you” isn’t a feeling! It’s a criticism. Instead try, “I’m angry about what happened. The story I’m telling myself is that I can’t trust you. Is that true?”
2. Take 100% ownership for the story you’re telling yourself. No blaming or finger-pointing.
3. Lean toward generosity. Lean toward giving your spouse the benefit of the doubt. Lean toward the kind of love that ”always looks for the best” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Treat her the way you’d want her to treat you. Speak to her the way you’d want her to speak to you.

This is how you turn a potential pitfall in your marriage into a trust-building and intimacy-building moment for both of you!
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Your Coach,