Monday, March 1, 2010

My housekeeping skills are just fine, Thank You Very Much!!

Ever been offended by something your husband has done? Most of you will have experienced this, I am sure.
I'm now learning that the best way to solve the offense, is for me to chill out and put my rose coloured glasses right back on! The ones I wore when we were dating - if you know what I mean. The days when we excused them almost anything :o)

For months, maybe even years and I've just not thought about it till now... I've been driven nutty (note I'm not saying he's driven me nutty, please), by hubby asking 'when is the last time the towels were washed?'
My internal dialogue... "who cares when, just trust that I'm doing my job, they're clean and you're not going to catch anything!" (btw, I know some wash towels daily, here it's a weekly-ish thing... and that's quite normal among people I know). My external dialogue was rather grumpy too... you know how it sounds when we assume we're being criticised (eek)

I was taking his straight forward, simple question as an inference that I wasn't washing them often enough.

Can you see how ego centric this was of me? Nuts I tell you, NUTS!

Then one day last week, the light bulb went off.... hubby was not criticising my work. It was a genuine question, based on me doing my job 'too well', if you will. He just wanted his towel to be clean.
Most of our towels are the same colour. So if I wash, dry, fold and return it to his to towel rail - is it going to look like I've cleaned it??? *NO*!!!!

I've solved the problem.

I've changed my thinking, and my approach.

I decided I could just lovingly answer his question when asked, or I could remove his need to ask.

I did the latter.

Now, I wash his towel, and replace it with one of a different colour. Instead of hanging on his towel rail, I place the fresh towel, folded on his side of the bed.

What about you? Anything come to mind? Pray that God will show you any innocent situations where you need a new attitude so you can get those rose coloured glasses back on and instead work on you... he's really not out to annoy you!

2 comments:

  1. Good solutions Mrs B!
    For many years each memeber of our household has had a different colour alloted eg. Hubby has maroon towels, toothbrush etc and this would flow over into cups and other items with the kids.
    My hubby doesn't worry about his being washed and I have to chase it up to wash all the time. He is a bit fussy about some other things, just not that one.
    I think you're on the right track! Either answer calmly and don't guess at the reaon or do the thing first. Got to save a lot of friction.

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  2. Absolutely right; we can solve a whole lot of problems by simply changing our OWN attitude! I know this, but don't always apply it. :(

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