My wife is amazing.

She keeps our house running. She motivates me. She’ll sit down on a Sunday night and time block my week so that I can get a decent amount of work time in, and then she’ll handle the kids all week without complaint.

But she’s not perfect.

She has a pile, an ever-growing pile, of clothes on her side of the bed. She’s got a pile of “stuff” on the filing cabinet, which is also on her side of the bed.

There are more of these piles of stuff in random places in the house.

Yes, they drive me bonkers. I see them and feel annoyed. I hate them, and yet I ignore them almost all the time.

No matter how well-intended, relationships preoccupied with weakness never end well. – First Break All The Rules

I could rail against them. I could get angry or toss the piles all in a big garbage bag and proudly tell her that I cleaned up and she needs to deal with the bag.

But I don’t. I don’t because focusing on the things she doesn’t do well is a sure fire way to break our relationship.

I’m sure I have things that drive her nuts as well. Possibly my amazing ability to forget any conversation we’ve had. She’ll tell me we already talked about something and made a decision and I can’t recall the conversation at all.

I just trust what she says and move on, forgetting about it a second time.

Focusing on where our spouses don’t meet our “requirements” is so easy. We see them all the time. We easily forget about all the awesome things they do in the face of the things that bother us.

We easily take a bit of a short tone with them and then deny it because the words we used were ‘pleasant’.

Those are all ways to break your relationship, and I’m sure that’s not your goal.

This week, focus on what your spouse does well. What are they amazing at? Tell them “thank you”. Appreciate it.

Heck, take 5-minutes right now and write down what they’re awesome at. Your week will go better for it.

Have an awesome day!

Curtis

photo credit: markraymonduk cc