My first marriage
didn’t end very well, so I was deliberate when I began dating again. My first
date with the fellow who became my second husband was pretty casual. He was
renovating a house he had recently purchased that had been neglected for 14
years. When I arrived, he climbed down from the roof, and we walked and talked
around his Mount Washington neighborhood.
I quickly
recognized that he had some impressive communication skills. I came to learn he
had acquired those skills by joining an organization called the Mankind
Project. There he was taught to recognize the feelings he was experiencing in
the moment, evaluate the origin of those feelings, and then verbally express
them to others, if desired. I told him that I wanted to have those skills too,
so I joined the sister organization, Woman Within. I attended several of their
training sessions with other frum women,
where the organization graciously made special accommodations for us. Beyond the
wonderful skills mentioned above, we also learned, as I facetiously call it,
how to “fight properly.” More on that below.
On our second
date, I brought a pen and paper to the restaurant. I asked Ed, a”h – my
husband passed away after 14 years of marriage from a brain tumor in 2019 – if
we could each write down what we thought a mature and healthy relationship
looked like, as we were both divorced. It was a wonderful exercise, and I’ve
since encouraged family members to do the same. When they have children, I
suggest asking, what does good parenting look like? Doing these exercises gets
you on the same page from the very beginning. I also recommend reviewing those
notes on every anniversary and/or child’s birthday.
* * *
After our wedding,
I came to realize that the first several years of being a married are devoted
to discovering what each other’s “rules” are. For example, what’s the “correct”
way to put the toilet paper roll: does the paper goes up and over or back and
under? Are dishes supposed to get rinsed right away and put in the dishwasher
or can they sit in the sink for a while? How about whether the lights are
supposed to be left on in an unoccupied room or immediately turned off when
exiting?
While these are
relatively minor things, the principle applies to more important matters as
well. When two people come into the marriage with different sets of “rules,”
how’s one supposed to know whose rules are right and whose are wrong? And of
course, we consider them “right” and “wrong.” Actually, arguments should never
be framed as “my way” vs. “your way” because that means that one person is a
“winner’ and the other a “loser.” And since nobody wants to be the loser – or
be married to one – it’s best to understand that I have my own book of rules,
my husband has his own book of rules, and they don’t always align. There is no
right and wrong. It’s just the way I brought up and the way he was brought up.
Both are right.
Each one of us has
a book of rules that we carry around inside our heads, whether we realize it or
not. The book’s title is, How Everyone Else in the Entire World Is Supposed
to Behave. The problem with our hidden book is that we don’t always
recognize we’re carrying it around. And certainly, there’s no way our spouse
knows what’s in it. The only way for our spouse to learn about our rules is
when he or she breaks one of them. And so, my husband and I, like many other
couples, tripped over these unspoken rules as they came up. What to do?
* * *
For the little
stuff, it’s about sharing and comparing rules, then negotiating what the
“household rule” will be. It’s also important to catch the little things as
they happen and not allow them to build up. So, I’d tell him I identified
another rule we need to review. For example, I don’t like dirty dishes to sit
in the sink for any more time than is “necessary.” So when my husband left them
in the sink overnight, I let him know about that rule of mine. He agreed to
either wash them or put them in the dishwasher before bedtime, and that worked
for me. It didn’t happen immediately, but hey, I can compromise too!
For the bigger
stuff, when my husband broke a rule that
“triggered” me, I felt a physical reaction in my body – like a sudden punch in
my heart – and it moved me immediately to either extreme anger or extreme hurt.
Thanks to my Woman Within training, when I feel that trigger, I recognize the
physical reaction and consciously force myself back into my brain and talk
myself off the ledge: “Calm down; he just broke one of your rules that he
doesn’t know you have!” Then I take a deep breath and explain my rule and
how it was broken.
I’ll give a
scenario: I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to ask for help for things I
think I should be able to handle on my own. If I do ask for help, however, my
rule is that the person I ask has to say yes, especially if it’s a family
member, even more so my husband. So, one time, I asked my husband to help me do
something where I needed an extra set of hands. He said no. He didn’t give any
explanation, just no. I was immediately very angry. I thought, doesn’t he know
that I never ask him to do things like this, and now that I asked, it must mean
I really need his help and he’s supposed to say yes?!
He clearly broke
my rule.
Unfortunately, he
didn’t know about this rule. It’s very important that we always keep in mind
that our spouses usually don’t know about all of our rules (as we don’t know
theirs), and even if they experienced breaking a particular rule once before,
it doesn’t mean they’ll remember that rule each and every time it comes up. As
a result, we really need to learn how to share our rules in a constructive
manner.
I told him about
my you-have-to-say-yes rule and that he wasn’t allowed to break it. He thought
it was funny. He told me he wasn’t aware of this rule and that he could indeed
help me after he finished what he was doing. He had been distracted and didn’t
give me a full answer the first time I asked. He also told me there was a good
chance he wouldn’t remember this particular rule in the future and to please
remind him again if he breaks it.
Conflict averted.
* * *
I was tempted to
write down all my rules, but I realized I had a lot of them. That was a little
embarrassing, so I chose not to. Some people in the world have skinny little
rule books; others have volumes.
I’ll share one
more example: how we used the proper-way-to-fight format we learned from our
Mankind/Woman Within training to discuss a particularly sensitive rule that my
husband unknowingly broke.
It was a Friday
night. My boys were eight and ten at the time. It was late, and the boys were
asleep. I was utterly exhausted, and Ed was finishing cleaning up in the
kitchen. I had just crawled into bed, so happy to be horizontal after a very
long day, Ed came into the bedroom and started to get ready for bed, and then
we heard a voice from the boys’ room calling for “Momma.” I then asked my (new)
husband to please go see what my son wanted. Ed said “no.” I thought, he must
not have heard me. So I asked again. The answer was the same. At that point I was
so furious that I jumped out of bed and went to see what my son needed. He had
knocked his pillow off the bed and couldn’t reach it and asked that it be
returned to underneath his head.
When I returned to
our bedroom, I asked Ed if I could have a “clearing” with him. That’s the
language we used in our training, meaning to clear the air. He said yes. So I
followed the “format:”
·
First comes the data. My data was that I was exhausted
after a long day and happy to climb into bed. Ed had just entered the room and
hadn’t yet gotten ready for bed. We heard my son calling from the second
bedroom for Momma: please
note, that there’s little to no editorial narrative included in the data. It’s
supposed to be just the facts, an objective description of what happened.
·
Next, the person listening has to repeat each part to ensure he/she heard
it correctly. That’s super important; not only does it prevent the listener
from “scripting” their response (because the human brain can’t listen and
script a response at the same time). Most important is that the person speaking
feels “heard” when their spouse is able to repeat what was just shared. Ed
repeated what I said and agreed, “Yes, that’s what happened.” The listener is
also allowed to add any facts that may have been left out.
·
The third step is the way I interpreted the data. I said I was
very angry and hurt. I didn’t understand why Ed said no. I thought he wanted
nothing to do with my children. Ed repeated what I said; here, he’s not allowed
any editorial comment. This is my interpretation, so it’s “correct.” There is
no right and wrong. This is “my truth.”
·
Fourth is to state that, If this
were to happen again in the future, I would like you to… I said, “I would
like you to go in and see what the child/children need. It was only a dropped
pillow. You could have certainly handled that.”
·
Again, Ed repeated my request. Then
the listener is then allowed to respond.
Ed said he was afraid to go into the boys’ room to see what was wrong. As I
mentioned, we were newly married and our blended family was new. He was afraid
that my son would say, “I don’t want you! I called for my mother!”
·
I was then required to repeat his response, which I did. My
heart fully melted. Once I understood where he was coming from, I quickly
forgave his no. We promised a future discussion about the
stepparent/stepchildren relationship when we were fully rested.
* * *
I share this story
and my rule book theory to newlyweds experiencing what we went through but who
may not have had the advantage of all the training my husband and I were
fortunate to have received. I recommend becoming acquainted with both your
personal rule book and your spouse’s rule book to the best of your ability.
Recognize the physical response in your body when one of your rules is broken
(also known as being triggered or pushing your button). And learn how to share
your rules in a constructive way. Recognize that it’s your rule and not your
spouse’s.
By the way, the
rule-book concept applies to other family members, friends, and coworkers, etc.
We all carry a rule book and inadvertently break each other’s rules quite
frequently. The most important points to understand are: 1) The rules are yours,
and it’s important to “own them.” 2) All rules are negotiable. Even the ones
that don’t feel negotiable can be. And 3) Assume the person breaking your rule
did so accidentally.
I hope readers
will find the idea of the rule book helpful in their own lives.
