4 Steps to Win

Are you always arguing with your mate over a messy house?
Do you think clutter control would help? Would you guys stop arguing if this problem were solved?

If you answered yes to these questions, I might be able to help! I must warn you I’m not a marriage counselor and I am on my second marriage, but I have learned some successful spatting strategies in the 45 years I’ve been married and you just might find them helpful.

My ideas will work for many kinds of fights, but to illustrate my strategies, I decided to pick a fight that’s common among couples; clutter. The underlying cause of couple’s clutter conflicts is my-stuff vs your-stuff which is the most common cause of a bout about clutter. One sees his stuff as his stuff and the other guy’s stuff as clutter and it works the other way around. It’s a blame game and couples have been playing it since Adam and Eve argued about whose leaf was whose that got left on the ground and who ate the apple and threw the core on the floor.

Common, clutter clashes ignite when stuff gets lost, stuff gets left out, stuff gets thrown out, stuff gets wrecked, stuff gets dirty and stuff gets stuffed just to get it out of the way.

You'll be shocked at how getting organized just a little will add great joy to you and your family because:

Here in the pacific northwest we have a chain of stores called Fred Meyer. (We call it Freddies around this leg of the forest.) Freddie's advertising slogan is: What's on your list today?

Northwesterners catch the phrase every time they see a huge Freddie's truck on the freeway. With most people it probably causes a thought of 'what do I need at the store today.' However for me, it serves as a wake-up call to ask me what "list" of thoughts am I focusing on right now. 

In other words it wakes me up to become consciously aware of the quality of my thought at that moment. If you think about it, you can ascribe a value to a list of thoughts running in your mind at any given moment. So imagine you and a co-worker you carpool with are in traffic on your way home from work and you're driving in the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane when a guy driving alone slips in front of you, illegally enjoying a faster ride home, and you start a list of thoughts that goes something like this:

Okay, I’m not a marriage counselor so I probably shouldn’t be going around giving advice to married couples, especially since I’m on my second marriage and so is my husband, but the idea of letting a little gin improve your marriage is really a good one at least for Terry and me and I thought I’d share with you why it is.

You probably should know that Terry is a workaholic because that’s one of the reasons I came up with this idea in the first place. He’s never without his cell phone or IPAD and he looks at weekends as catch up days to finish all the work he didn’t accomplish during the week because of overbooking. It seems when each day comes to an end, his “to do” list is longer because for every task he crosses off, he adds a couple more jobs.

Does your mouth get you into more trouble than any other hole in your body?

Thank goodness we only have one mouth! How many times have you wished that you didn’t say that, or didn’t eat or drink that?

I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason why we were made with one mouth and two ears, instead of the other way around. Maybe there’s a clue here to the ratio of use. What if, just for today, we listen more than we speak? How do you think you’ll feel tonight when you go to bed?

We’ve been blessed with the precious gift of speech, but this gift (as with every gift) can be abused and come back to bite us. Balancing speaking and listening will serve you in great ways. I’m suggesting we use our mouths half as much as we use our ears (just for today).

Here are 6 benefits to speaking less and listening more. At the end of my blog, I’ll share how I stopped nagging as a young, single mom of three children ages 4, 9 and 12.

During your day, find as many ways as you can to get housework done so that you can stop at 6:00 pm. Consider it quitting time. Of course your little Snuggle Bunnies will need your love and attention after six, but I’m talking about the household workload.

If you tend to be frazzled in the evening, these 4 tips for quitting at 6:00 and having a leisure evening can be a reality. 

towels, and the change in seasons? Do you like the time when day turns to night, night turns to day, each different day of the week, the growth in goodness of your children and grandchildren, new stuff like cars, shoes, books and such? Don't you love a change of scenery, a vacation, and even “the change of life” has its very good qualities.

During your day, find as many ways as you can to get housework done so that you can stop at 6:00 pm. Consider it quitting time. Of course your little Snuggle Bunnies will need your love and attention after six, but I’m talking about the household workload.

If you tend to be frazzled in the evening, you’ll love my 4 tips for quitting at 6:00 and having a leisure evening be a reality. 

Do you like to be on the receiving end of a surprise?

A “little” surprise is like being outside on a chilly, spring morning without a coat when the sun pops out from behind a big cloud and warms your back. Like Mother Nature executing one of her random acts of kindness. Here's a trio of daffodils getting their little backs warmed. Just getting this photo from my photographer husband was a little surprise that made me smile!

Most people don't like those big deal birthday bombshells where you walk into your house and the whole neighborhood yells “surprise,” or those horrid surprises on your credit card statement, right after Christmas. 

Ask everyone in the family, "What one thing could I do to help you be happy?"

This blog is about the times when your husband comes home from work with a single rose for you or your child surprises you by doing a chore you didn’t ask him or her to do.

If you thought to yourself, ‘Ha, Carl’d never come home with a single rose for me,’ or Jenny wouldn’t lift a finger if I didn’t ask her to, maybe you need to ask yourself when was the last time you surprised Carl or helped Jenny with a chore?

My husband, Terry and I took a road trip to the Oregon Coast for our anniversary a couple of years ago and while he was driving I suggested we play a gratitude game. 

“Is this gonna be some lady’s magazine deal?”  he asked with a sense of apprehension.

“No, I’ve been reading Deborah Norvel’s book on the power of being thankful.”

“So Deborah told you to do this?”

“Nope, I thought this game up all by myself. In fact it'd be a great family game.”

“Okay, what do I do?” 

“So, I’ll tell you something I’m grateful for about you and then it’ll be your turn and you have to tell me something you’re grateful for about me and the guy who can’t think of something loses and the other guy wins.”

“What’ll he win?”

“He’ll get taken out to dinner when we get to the beach.”

We probably traded 15 thankful comments with each other and what was very interesting to me was how much I loved hearing his comments for me and I couldn’t wait for the next one. 

I was telling Marla, the Flylady, about the game and she suggested we play it with our inner child. So I had a session with Nelly (she’s my inner child, in case you don’t know). Here’s what happened.