Earlier this week I was speaking with some colleagues about the overwhelming need for more support for married couples in our community. Speaking specifically of couples with young children my friend said, “Yeah, in that season, you’re just trying to survive. You end up stuffing a lot down.” She was so right. That is the reality for many couples, both in what I’ve observed in working with them and even in my own marriage.
Our kids are mostly into their teen years so the landscape has changed a bit, but we still contend with that sense of just getting through the day. “Just need to make it to Friday,” “Whew, summer can’t get here fast enough,” and so on. The non-stop pace and trying to keep up with everyone and everything makes it difficult to stay mindful and present, let alone leave space for working through conflict or trying to connect. A byproduct of this and something my wife and I have discovered is we can wind up in a sort of “Busyness Olympics.” Both exhausted, bleary-eyed, getting kids off to school with the realization neither are likely to see anything resembling a bed for another 14-15 hours, we can start to feel we’re competing with one another. Often starting the day from a deficit, unhelpful and even toxic questions start to creep in..
“Does he/she realize how stressed I am?”
“Does he/she realize how much I have to do?”
We start keeping score and racking up resentments.
When I was enrolled in a full-time graduate counseling program on top of working full-time, I remember one particularly bitter argument where my wife turned to me with a mix of anger and desperation.. “I don’t think you have any idea what I do!”
“……”
It stung. A lot. The truth is, I did know what and how much she did. It wasn’t a knowledge problem. It was a matter of validation, appreciation, and “I can’t trust you’re in this with me.” That seems easy enough to address, right? “Oh, Honey, I’m so sorry. You’re completely right—I just missed it. Can we start over? I….” and so on until the fracture is set. But, that’s not what happened. I thought we were competing and what actually happened next, embarrassingly, was the bubbling up of fears and insecurities about my adequacy and competence as a husband and a father. “Does she have any idea whatsoever how much I’m doing? How hard it is to work and be in this really demanding program?” I was so blinded by that, she didn’t stand a chance to be heard, let alone understood and validated. Ego, bitterness, insecurity.. It was one of my lowest moments, I have to say.
I thought we were jockeying for 1st place for who’s doing more. But, my wife wasn’t competing with me. She just needed to know I recognized how much she was doing to care for our family, particularly in my absence. She needed to know I was in it with her, that she could count on me, that I would be there for her when she just needed to vent for a second about how tired she was. That’s all. Instead, I heard, “You’re not holding up your end. Here’s another way you’re not good enough.” How do those messages get mixed up so easily and quickly?
(There is a happy ending to this story, and I can talk more about how and why those messages get tangled up, but that’s for another post.)
The point of this post is relational competition is not only silly; it’s damaging.
How to avoid competing with your partner
1. Reflect on what you’re feeling. In those moments where you feel frustration, envy, or “why can’t he / she freaking just offer to pick up dinner?” Take a second, breath, and be honest with yourself. “Ok. Actually, I’m just overwhelmed and I feel like he’s not there for me right now. It makes me anxious that he never will be.”
2. Talk to your partner about what you’re going through. Starting with ‘I’ and ‘me’ and your felt experience is much more likely to impact your partner in a helpful way. It’s not a silver bullet, but it certainly reduces the chances your partner is going to feel criticized or blamed while increasing the chances you will be heard.
3. Start with vulnerability. This is related to #2, but vulnerability can be a powerful invitation.. “Will you join me where I am and go through this with me?” is the message of vulnerability.
4. Foster goodwill. Benefit of the doubt is good for both of you. If you’re stuck in a negative cycle or have been for a while, it can be hard to trust your partner’s intentions. However, reaching back to a time when that wasn’t the case and you were both much more likely to say something like, “Oh, I’m sure she just forgot because she’s so busy with work,” can help reset the frame. And, the benefit is mutual. Not only does it help us re-center ourselves without the fearful or even paranoid assumptions about our partner, it communicates to our partner, “I know you are there for me and I can trust you.”
5. Express gratitude. Gratitude can be a remarkably powerful force in your life for many reasons. I won’t list them all here, but cultivating a sense of gratitude in your life, in general, gives us greater perspective and expressing gratitude to or about your partner widens the lens, so to speak. We see more. Often, when my wife and I are in the thick of it, we’ll say, “We’re going to miss this season someday.” It’s hard to feel competitive when you’re feeling grateful.
6. Affirm one another. Dr. John Gottman, psychologist and marriage researcher demonstrated that ‘Masters’ of marriage—couples who experience greater levels of happiness and satisfaction in their marriages—tend to have a 5 to 1 ratio of positive interactions to negative ones. That may seem formulaic, and I suppose it is, but what the research shows is negativity ‘sticks’ to us in a way positivity does not. (Chances are if you think through the last several days, it’s much easier to remember the criticisms or critiques rather than the compliments or verbal affirmations.) Thinking the best of and about each other and expressing it, builds the relationship and helps guard against all the stuff you don’t want.
7. Give each other permission. Sometimes, we really need someone to say, “You’ve been working really hard, can you take the next couple of hours to rest?” My wife actually said to me the other day—when she had an unexpected opportunity to rest, “I feel like I’m going to get in trouble.” It’s amazing how many of us will continue to labor under guilt believing we’re only as good as how much we’re accomplishing.
A bonus.. An obvious one, but nonetheless.. Try to get as much quality sleep as you can.
I have a friend from Tennessee who says, “Hardly, nuthin’ makes you feel better than a stack of ‘Z’s.” More and more, everyday we’re learning how much restorative work is going on in our brains and bodies while we sleep. In terms of mood regulation, sleep plays a critical role. It’s been observed that sleep deprivation actually increases cortisol levels (the stress hormone.) If your life is already full of normal day-to-day stressors, good quality sleep is imperative. An informal poll.. Are you more or less likely to be loving and kind if you’re running on a sleep deficit? We all know because we know what it feels like to be running on empty. Our tempers are shorter and our ability to emotionally tolerate life’s curveballs is significantly impaired.
No one wins in a marriage of competition over who’s doing more or who’s more stressed out. Your marriage doesn’t have to be that way.
I seem to end all of my posts with some version of the same message, but if you’re reading this and thinking “Yeah, I would love to not compete with my spouse” or “I wish I could muster some gratitude for my partner but you have no earthly idea what we’re going through,” I get it. These are suggestions for couples who have the capacity to apply them, but I realize that might not be where you are. In that case, I would recommend finding a someone to walk alongside you to get back to that point. I would love to help.
