After a long day apart, do you and your spouse immediately get into the tough day competition? How can you turn it around to something good?
I know an amazing stay at home dad whom I met recently. His wife calls him a stay at home superman and with good reason. He gave up a good career to stay home with their physically and mentally challenged child. I only mention this fact about the boy to give you a bit of an understanding about how their typical day is filled with contests. A quick visit to the park may actually include several trips back and forth from park to home to address his child’s physical and emotional needs. “Screaming is a way of life,” he told me with a smile. “I actually encourage it sometime, because at least it is vocalization.”
At the end of the day, his wife comes home from a long day at the office. She works in a high profile position and is faced with a multitude of decisions to make, personalities to deal with, etc. The company is in the middle of a restructuring project. When she comes home in the evening, before the spouses even say hello, the conversation tends to turn into a tough day competition.
This is something that I think all of us can relate to. How many times do we greet our spouse with “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. Ten minutes before the end of the day, I had to pull together an unexpected presentation to a hostile room.” And what is the usual response? “Oh yeah, well, little Tommy decided to color all over Sarah’s wall. Then she got so upset she threw up all over the rug.”
The problem with the tough day competition is that most of the time neither spouse gets listened to or supported. Both spouses are looking for a sense of that and relief at the end of a tough day. Instead, they are each greeted with a competitive spouse.
There are two ways that I know of to turn the competition around. First, you can agree to let each of you have a change to vent. Maybe one person gets to talk right away and the other after dinner. The second, is to turn the competition into fun with a sense of humor. This way you can help each other put things in perspective. You can employ one or both of these strategies to change the nature of the tough day competition.