No ego. It's a thing that we all have, not just men us, women too. And as soon as you come at someone with aggression and accusation, oh the god goes up. The God goes up. They want to be right, You want to be right, and it never ends well. Whereas if you come with a sprinkle of kindness, a dash of compassion, and a whole lot of love and ask the question with genuine desire to understand that person feels it, no gods go up. They're able to respond with compassion, not aggression. And that's a great recipe right there. I'm Rasi Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. So today's episode is actually based off a conversation that I had with one of my best friends and her husband. It actually started off as a joke about the little things that he does that annoys her and then turned into back and forth of the small things that each one does in the house that really triggers the other. Now, they are fully in love and they care about each other so much, and they are such a fun, lovely couple, so this actually doesn't reflect their relationship at all in a negative way. But honestly, I do not know a couple that does not go through this at some point in their relationship, if not throughout the entire relationship, especially if it's not spoken about properly or the right solutions are not put into place, And those small everyday moments they spark way more conflict than they probably should, because here's the truth, most relationship conflict does not begin with something big. It starts with the tiny little things, a tower left on the floor, a dishwasher that never got unloaded, and slowly, over time, those little moments turn into stories that we tell ourselves about our partner and about ourselves. I remember when Jaye and I got married. He would leave his shoes by the door every single day, not just one pair of shoes, two shoes, three shoes. They would never move, they would just stay there. And oh, my Lord, that used to get to me so much. In my head. He was trying to lead these shoes for me to pick up. How dare he do that? Who does he think I am to pick up his shoes every single day? How does he have such low value for me to do this over and over again because who else is going to pick it up? In his mind, it was as simple as I definitely will do it. I just don't want to think about it as soon as I walk in the door after a long day of work. I'll tidy it up at the end of the night or at some point. I never even thought of you doing it for me. I just didn't want to do it then. So when we had actually ended up unpacking everything from the shoes to you know, many other things that kept popping up, I realized that it's not the action itself, but it was the narrative that I had created in my mind. It's not the actual shoes by the door, it's what it implied or signified in my mind and what it connected to in my mind, what insecurity is It connected to the triggers that I have inside of me, and those shoes ended up representing that. So when my friend's husband then started he's also my friend, but you know, let's call them Jack and Jill. So when Jack started saying all the things that annoyed him about her or that he didn't like that was happening in the house. I realized that the biggest difference was that it did trigger him, but he didn't see it as his responsibility to fix it or as an attack towards him. They were totally two separate things. She's messy and it annoys me, versus she is messy and she expects me to do it. They were not the same. For her, it was he's messy, or he does this and he expects me to do it. For him, it's just she's messy and it annoys me. And I think in many relationships, women are more likely to interpret a partner not doing domestic tasks as a lack of care, as a lack of respect or attentiveness. But for men, the same action might feel absolutely neutral, like completely not even playing a role in how their relationship is with their partner. For a lot of women, including myself and my friend, we see as a personal attack and that is linked to us in some way, and that is where the disconnect happens, not because one person is wrong and not because the other person is right, but because we've been conditioned to assign different meanings and responsibilities to those acts. And you know what was so funny in that moment. It was him and there was three other women, me, Jill and another friend of ours, and all the women suddenly started grabbing all their little irritations out of their pockets. And the thing is, it was all the same. Every woman had the same issue with their man, and he really was, you know, he was losing before he started. With three women saying the same thing, he had no chance of winning. But you know what, for many women in my life, and definitely the three that were in the room that day, I'm still seeing this trend across generations. So many of us were subtlely or sometimes directly taught that our love, our worth, even our value in a relationship is measured by how well we are able to manage the labor of a home, whether it's emotional or physical. We're also just more attentive and attune to these things, and so we notice them so much more than a man usually would, and that may be part of our like makeup, you know, that's part of how a man is and a woman is. Look, we are different in so many ways, just like we have different personalities. Sometimes the traits that we are born with, whether it's male or female. You know those traits. There's something to it, there's something to the genetics. You know that there are these things that thread us all together, these qualities, these traits that usually are part of a woman or a man's being. And you know, men, on the other hand, have often been raised to focus on productivity outside of the home. Success is measured on output in problem solving, in providing. The domestic space hasn't traditionally been where their value has been measured. So forgetting to do the laundry doesn't carry the same emotional weight. Okay, so I'm going to share some basic examples and try to see which side you relate to, if any, while I'm sharing these. So let's start with the dishes. Her point of view. I've cooked dinner, cleaned the counters, and now I'm cleaning your dirty dishes too. It feels like I'm doing everything and you don't even notice. His point of view. I wasn't ignoring the dishes. I just figured i'd do them later. I didn't think it was urgent number two planning holidays or events. Her point of view, Why is it always on me to organize everything. I feel like the emotional planner of this relationship. Here's point of view, you're better at planning. I didn't want to mess it up or pick something you wouldn't like. Number three leaving clothes on the floor an all time favorite. Her point of view, I've asked you ten times not to leave your stuff everywhere. It feels like you do not respect my space or time. Here's point of view. I didn't even realize I did that. It's not disrespect. I just didn't think it was a big deal. And here's the thing. None of these are really about the dishes, or about the clothes, or about the calendar. They're about interpretation. They're about the meaning behind the behavior. For many many women, a messy home is seen as a reflection of their identity. If someone comes over and it's messy, we often feel like we failed. That's how deep the conditioning runs. I know that conditioning runs deep for me, and it did for my mom. Oh my gosh. If someone was coming over, and even if I had one piece of clothing on my bed, even if they're not going to climb up vistairs to come to my room, just the thought of somebody coming and seeing that her daughter was messy was a reflection of her, or was a reflection of how she's raised her children. If the home was dirty, if the cupboards were unorganized, it was a reflection that she is not able to manage the home environment, that she is not doing her duty. And so I really think I took on some of those as well. I remember when we first got married, I really saw it as a reflection of me if I wasn't able to keep up with all the housework, keep up with the laundry, keep up with all the bits and pieces that I saw my mom doing. But men always don't see it the same way. Their self worth is often not wrapped up on how tidy the kitchen is, so the urgency just isn't there. Women are often socialized to notice, to anticipate, to manage not just the physical work, but the emotional work of a home too, And when that labor goes unnoticed or unshared, it feels invalidating, It feels heavy, you know. I think a lot of it is trauma. That's part of our DNA. I'm sure many of our like our moms, our grandmas, our great grandma or whatever, we carry that in us in a little way. So even if we're like deeply offended now, it may be just because it's sat in us for so long. You know, we've carrying the emotions of how many people that have come before us. And so I'm not saying that's the only reason, but I think it can feel heavier for that reason too. I think men are also talk to compartmentalize, to put their energy where it feels most needed. Right, so if something doesn't seem urgent, they may not even register it emotionally. They may not even see it, you know, when they're like, I can't find the scissors, and you're like, it's literally in the first draw, and I can't see it. I can't find it. And then you go there and you find it and it's literally where you said it was. That's pretty much how I imagine men are. When they walk past shoes, or walk past laundry on the floor, or walk past the towel that's been left somewhere, they're not even registering it. They don't see it. It does not exist unless it seems urgent, unless it is pointed out to them. But listen, these are just surface of habits, and every habit can be changed, and everyone can be taught to be better for the person that they love, and for each other and for themselves. But I think when we hold these inner narratives about each other, about what these different things mean inside of us, and they are not visible to each other and they haven't been shared with each other, that's when resentment builds. That's when it turns into you don't care, you're overreacting. Why can't you just dot dot dot fill in the blank so you know, what can we do what actually helps. I'm going to share some of the things that have helped me because listen and I don't want you to be arguing over smelly socks on the floor. We've got better things to do, like laughing and creating memories together. So let's nippit in the bud as soon as possible. Whether you've been married, whether you're in a relationship, whether you've been together for twenty five years, and you realize you've never had this conversation with each other, it is time and it's never too late. So the first thing is the domestic debrief. Okay, set aside fifteen minutes each week to check in who's been doing what, where's the load feeling heavy? What can shift? It's a team meeting, It is not a guilt session. Remember that you're not trying to make the other person feel bad for what you're doing, because if that's the case, you're obviously doing something you don't want to be doing. So make note of that too. If you're trying to get that person to feel sorry for you or feel like you're doing more work than they are, spread the load, so it's more even so that you're not resenting them for what you're doing. As soon as you're trying to guilt your partner, it's a sign that you feel you're doing more than you should be, or that what you're doing isn't being recognized or valued and the effort is being ignored. So as soon as you start to guilt your partner, take a look at what that actually means for you. Because also sometimes the other person isn't even aware of the amount of time or energy that goes into many of the tasks. Like obviously, when we were growing up, my dad handled the bills, and so when we got married, I told you, I was like, I don't really want to do that. Can you handle it? I didn't know how much time and energy taxes take or how much time and energy paying those bills took. Only when I took interest in it and I was educated on it and I understood how much effort goes into it, did I realize that, actually, me cooking dinner can be equivalent to that, Like, there is so much effort that goes into that, and there's so much effort that goes into me cooking dinner. But why was I seeing what I was doing is being more valuable than that, And so awareness and letting the other person know is really important, and actually understanding what it takes for those other tasks. I guarantee you just having an awareness of those things and how long each one takes is really useful. You could even write out a list of or your weekly task and how much time it takes each of you and compare it and see what's taking up most of your time in those areas. I remember when I was housewifeing at the beginning of manager's relationship, we moved to New York. I wasn't able to work, so I was like in full housewife mode, not necessarily by choice, but because he was going out and he was making the money. And I wasn't able to work at the time, and so I was at home and I was looking after the house and cooking and doing all those bits. He would come home and he would say, I'm doing the dishes because you've been cooking. Thank you so much for cooking. I really appreciate it. Or I know your day must have been a lot. You went to the grocery store, you clean the house. And honestly, just hearing that made such a difference to know that he just noticed or acknowledged the effort that it took. And so that takes me into my second point of acknowledging things like use these micro moments to acknowledge and validate how the person must be feeling. So that's a really useful thing and a loving thing to start doing is don't just think it in your head, say out loud, thanks for doing that. I noticed you handle this. Thank you so much. I know that the taxes take so long. Thank you so much for doing that. Oh my goodness, the house looks so clean. Wow, thank you, I really appreciate you. Being this clean makes me feel like I can have a clear mind. Whatever it is, whatever the compliment you want to throw, just make sure you're throwing them regularly and meaning it too. Sometimes well most of the time, or someone really needs is to be seen and so those little micro moments of appreciation and acknowledgement. You know, Jay really taught me that he does it all the time, every single day, day in, day out, and this is a beautiful practice. He does it to me, he does it to other people, he does it to his work colleagues, he does it to friends, and it's so appreciated. No one ever doesn't appreciate being seen or being acknowledged for the things that they're doing. The next thing is assigning your roles consciously. So instead of defaulting to what you've always done, or what you've seen your parents do, or what society has said, each one of you should be doing what actually feels natural to each of you. What could you swap or share or rotate. You know, you don't have to be doing the same thing every single time or every single month. Maybe you guys, switch it up, change it up, try to do different roles at different times of the year. In many of my friends relationships or marriages, their husband does the cooking. Now it's obviously so common because maybe my girlfriend doesn't want to, and maybe he actually loves to cook. And in my relationship, Jay absolutely hates cooking. It's really not his happy place. The kitchen is not somewhere he has fun. Would he make me a cheese sandwich if I was ill? Sure, of course he would. Does he want to cook me a three course meal daily? No, he absolutely doesn't. But he is happy to wash the dishes, He is happy to clean the floor, He is happy to handle all other aspects of the house that, to be honest, I don't want to do or handle because I don't enjoy them, just like he doesn't enjoy being in the kitchen. Luckily, I do love being in the kitchen, but that's been a choice, not given or an expectation from him at all. And you know, one time we actually decided for a YouTube video, we decided to swop rolls. This was years ago. We decided to swap rolls for a day and even though it was meant to be fun, it actually turned out to be so useful and insightful into understanding and seeing each other's input and recognizing the importance of what the other person does. So, you know, do a little roll swap, try out the other person's doing for a day or even for a week. Take on those tasks so you can learn how to do them, just in case you need to know, because we will need to know everything, but also to be able to have a deeper appreciation for what they're doing. Now, the next time you get into a trigger state, right, something's happened and you've seen those clothes on the floor. Whatever it is, state the emotion, not just the task. So swap why didn't you take out the trash with When I say the trash piling up, I feel like I'm carrying this home alone and it really upsets me. That shift can change everything. Then it helps you to the person to understand the meaning that you feel behind the action, and they can clarify rather than it being about the task. So it's not fine, I'll just take bit out myself because you obviously don't want to. It's oh, and you don't take out the bin. It makes me think that you don't see all the other things that I have to do, and you don't value the fact that you're taking this one Doing this one thing for me makes me think that you care great Now I know now this little task that I thought was just to me taking the bin out on a daily basis, I can attach to your feelings and emotions and I don't want to upset you, which brings me on to assuming positive intent. Do not jump to the negative before you give benefit of doubt. We will want to be the victim, don't we. We will want the other person to be wrong. But ask yourself what might their intention have been? This one mindset shift can dissolve conflicts before it even gets started. It can soften the energy in the room. It creates space for conversation instead of accusation, and over time it trains both people to respond with curiosity rather than criticism. And Lord, does the world not need more curiosity than it needs criticism right now? It absolutely does, And especially between two people who love each other. You know, there's enough criticism that happens online between strangers, between people who don't know each other. But then to choose criticism over curiosity within a loving partnership, no, we don't want to do that. So it's not by lowering your standards or accepting. It's about choosing to understand before you judge. And I think between people who love you each other, that should be the basic let me understand you before I judge you, and if anything, let me try not to judge you at all if I possibly can. But if I do judge you, let me try and understand you before I do that. Because if you are in a generally healthy relationship and you feel that person deep down nubs you and other parts of their life reflect that they care for you, then they don't want to upset you. They're not trying to annoy you, and they do not want you to be unhappy. And so remembering all of that, the next time you see those dirty hour socks on the floor's going to be really useful for you to say, Hey, babe, why did you choose to leave these socks here? Would you mind just picking them up? Because it's actually really getting to me because I've seen it like three days in a row and I just don't understand why you're not seeing it, but it really does irritate me. So do you mind just hopping over and grab that? Maybe don't say it like that sounds a bit rude, you know, ego it's a thing that we all have, not just men us, women too. And as soon as you come at someone with aggression and accusation. Ooh, the god goes up. The god goes up. They want to be right, You want to be right, and it never ends well. Whereas if you come with a sprinkle of kindness, a dash of compassion, and a whole lot of love and ask the question with genuine desire to understand that person feels it, no gods go up. They're able to respond with compassion, not aggression. And that's a great recipe right there. Okay, you're welcome. You know something I had to come to terms with eventually, as you know, maybe sometimes it's me. Maybe sometimes I am also the problem. I know, it's really difficult to believe, and it's really difficult to stomach, and it's really hard to swallow that and really, you know, believe it. But yeah, sometimes we are the problem. Sometimes the roll stick because we make them stick. We take over so much that the other person gets used to not stepping in. That's called learn helplessness. And I remember my mom was like a boss. Like she worked full time. She came home, she cooked dinner, She made sure we had our fresh breakfast every morning. She would make sure we had packed lunches. She would then cook dinner when she came home, she was a beast. However, I felt like it caused my dad to have learned helplessness, where you know, he was never given the responsibility, and so if it did come to doing it, he got really scared about it and didn't want to disappoint her or didn't want to do it wrong, and so it didn't allow him the space to actually do it or gave him them responsibility to do that. So if it did come to it, my mom being all like, why can't you just make dinner? Once you know, they're very sweet with each other, but as couples argue, they argue, too, can you make dinner. I've been out and I've been doing all this and you didn't cook dinner. And he'd be like, I didn't know what to make. I didn't know what you would want. I was worried that you wouldn't like what I made, And so he really would have wanted to, but my mom kind of took that power away from him to be able to do it at the beginning. I also think sometimes, you know, we can be a little bit of control freaks. It runs in my family, and so we like things in this specific way, and so it scares them for doing it wrong, so then they don't do it at all. And that's the hypocritical loop that people can get into. I've seen it with my mum and the cooking situation. Even with myself. I'd be like, can you go get this? And then it's like get the organic cucumbers. But then they get the wrong cucumbers and I'm like, oh my god, now I have to go back and get it. Myself might as well not have done it at all, And then it's like, okay, you have to allow for mistakes. Training and teaching people things takes time and you have to allow for mistakes for them to feel comfortable in that role, and so, you know, give them some grace. And this stuff really goes deep. It's shape by how we were raised, how we saw our caregivers divide roles, how we saw our parents do things, what we were praised for, what we learned to fear in our family dynamics. It really shaped our beliefs about gender roles and what love looked like. You know, think about this was your mum always doing everything and never asking for help. You know, we talk about this a lot in Indian families, and I'm sure, it goes across cultures and traditions, but they do the most, do everything, and then it's like, oh, but you never do anything. But it's just tell me what to do and I'll do it. But it's like, no, you should know. And the problem is a lot of the time we just expect the person to know. We except the person to know how our mind works. We expect the person to know what needs to be done, but if they're not in the habit of doing it, they do have to be taught. They have to be told, they have to be asked, and once you've done that a couple of times, and if they still don't do it, you can get your whip out. But you have to teach people how to take on the roles and responsibilities, especially if you've been doing them for a long time. Did your dad get praised for just helping ones? Was that part of your like family dynamic that just because someone does something once they get more credit. I remember when my dad would pick me up from school and be like, oh my god, my dad's coming to get me from school, And when my mom did it, there wasn't like, oh my god, my mom's coming to get me from school because she did it every day, and so that does happen sometimes. You know, back in the day, my uncles wouldn't really get up to clean after we'd eat. It was just not part of the culture. And then one day he decided to get up and wash the dishes, like a good few years ago, and everyone was like, what is happening. Oh my gosh, please, you don't have to do that. Then we realize, no, he should be doing it, and it's so wonderful that he's getting up, and the traditions saying that my granddad used to help my grandma cook all the time, and so my mom grew up seeing that, and so she was like, listen, husband, my dad should be like, you better get in here and do the chopping. So now my dad does all the chopping and goes to do the shopping and my mom does the cooking. And once they divided that up, it made them both feel like they were both equally contributing to that one action. So really think about how those early observations when you were younger shaped what you expect or what you resent now. Are your resentments based on what your mom resented about your dad or your dad resented about your mom or have you actually created them for yourself. Are you getting irritated because it used to irritate her, or is it something that actually irritates you. What unspoken scripts about relationships? Did you inherit without actually realizing it. I remember when I when I first started dating J I was like, or when we got married, my dad always did the handyman work in the house. I'd be like, can you put up a frame? Or you know, can you glue this back together? And he wasn't taught that by his dad. His mom did all the handyman work in the house. And I realized, I don't need him to do it because I can do it. My dad taught me how to do it, and so I can put up a frame, I can put things back together. Why did I expect him to have to do it? So we'll carry these triggers and patterns, And at first I was like, why are you not able to do this? Why are you not looking after this in the house? But I realized that I actually really enjoy doing it, So why am I letting that trigger me when that's not a pattern that I even care about. So we carry the power to actually rewrite these patterns, all these triggers that we have. When I first got married, it was a real shock to my system because I don't know, I guess I feel like most of them probably go through this. You're doing, you know, you know our culture, you expected to do the cooking, and so I remember I was trying to work, trying to cook, trying to do all these things. And I saw my mom doing everything growing up, and when I wasn't able to keep up with everything, the laundry, the cooking, the traveling, or whatever I was trying to do at that time, I really did feel like I was failing, not being able to The thing is he had no expectation. He was like, how can I make your life easier? Should we get meal delivery services? Should we? How many days a week do you want to eat out? Like? I don't want you to feel stressed out and I don't want you to feel like I have an expectation of you to cook for me because I don't. But for me, I was carrying the guilt of it based on what I see my mum doing and thinking that is the ideal version of what I should be and why am I not able to live up to it? So I really had to work through that in myself to not feel bad about myself for not keeping up with the same stuff that she did, because I also had other things going on in my life. So all that to say, if you are in a relationship and you've been fighting about the same three things on repeat, maybe it's time to zoom out. Maybe it's not about the dishes. Maybe it's about feeling seen, heard, or considered or respected. The healthiest relationships are not built on harmony. They're built on the willingness to just keep learning each other and understanding on another. And as Jay always annoyingly reminds me, whenever I get ratchet or whenever I get you know, on him, it's like, it's me and you against the issue. I'm not arguing with you, I'm not against you. I want to solve this with you. And I'm like, oh god, I just want to throw this shoe at you. But you know, we all have different ways of dealing with things. But it really is true, if you really care about one another, it's both of you together, not against each other. And I think that's really important to remember when you're about to throw that shoe. It's really useful actually at that time, so I hope it's helped if it prevents an argument in the future. Please do let me know you're welcome, and I really do to hope that this is useful. Send me in your stories. I would love to hear them. Send you so much love and have a wonderful, wonderful week. Faith

No ego. It's a thing that we all have, not just men us, women too. And as soon as you come at someone with aggression and accusation, oh the god goes up. The God goes up. They want to be right, You want to be right, and it never ends well. Whereas if you come with a sprinkle of kindness, a dash of compassion, and a whole lot of love and ask the question with genuine desire to understand that person feels it, no gods go up. They're able to respond with compassion, not aggression. And that's a great recipe right there. I'm Rasi Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfiltered conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry. So today's episode is actually based off a conversation that I had with one of my best friends and her husband. It actually started off as a joke about the little things that he does that annoys her and then turned into back and forth of the small things that each one does in the house that really triggers the other. Now, they are fully in love and they care about each other so much, and they are such a fun, lovely couple, so this actually doesn't reflect their relationship at all in a negative way. But honestly, I do not know a couple that does not go through this at some point in their relationship, if not throughout the entire relationship, especially if it's not spoken about properly or the right solutions are not put into place, And those small everyday moments they spark way more conflict than they probably should, because here's the truth, most relationship conflict does not begin with something big. It starts with the tiny little things, a tower left on the floor, a dishwasher that never got unloaded, and slowly, over time, those little moments turn into stories that we tell ourselves about our partner and about ourselves. I remember when Jaye and I got married. He would leave his shoes by the door every single day, not just one pair of shoes, two shoes, three shoes. They would never move, they would just stay there. And oh, my Lord, that used to get to me so much. In my head. He was trying to lead these shoes for me to pick up. How dare he do that? Who does he think I am to pick up his shoes every single day? How does he have such low value for me to do this over and over again because who else is going to pick it up? In his mind, it was as simple as I definitely will do it. I just don't want to think about it as soon as I walk in the door after a long day of work. I'll tidy it up at the end of the night or at some point. I never even thought of you doing it for me. I just didn't want to do it then. So when we had actually ended up unpacking everything from the shoes to you know, many other things that kept popping up, I realized that it's not the action itself, but it was the narrative that I had created in my mind. It's not the actual shoes by the door, it's what it implied or signified in my mind and what it connected to in my mind, what insecurity is It connected to the triggers that I have inside of me, and those shoes ended up representing that. So when my friend's husband then started he's also my friend, but you know, let's call them Jack and Jill. So when Jack started saying all the things that annoyed him about her or that he didn't like that was happening in the house. I realized that the biggest difference was that it did trigger him, but he didn't see it as his responsibility to fix it or as an attack towards him. They were totally two separate things. She's messy and it annoys me, versus she is messy and she expects me to do it. They were not the same. For her, it was he's messy, or he does this and he expects me to do it. For him, it's just she's messy and it annoys me. And I think in many relationships, women are more likely to interpret a partner not doing domestic tasks as a lack of care, as a lack of respect or attentiveness. But for men, the same action might feel absolutely neutral, like completely not even playing a role in how their relationship is with their partner. For a lot of women, including myself and my friend, we see as a personal attack and that is linked to us in some way, and that is where the disconnect happens, not because one person is wrong and not because the other person is right, but because we've been conditioned to assign different meanings and responsibilities to those acts. And you know what was so funny in that moment. It was him and there was three other women, me, Jill and another friend of ours, and all the women suddenly started grabbing all their little irritations out of their pockets. And the thing is, it was all the same. Every woman had the same issue with their man, and he really was, you know, he was losing before he started. With three women saying the same thing, he had no chance of winning. But you know what, for many women in my life, and definitely the three that were in the room that day, I'm still seeing this trend across generations. So many of us were subtlely or sometimes directly taught that our love, our worth, even our value in a relationship is measured by how well we are able to manage the labor of a home, whether it's emotional or physical. We're also just more attentive and attune to these things, and so we notice them so much more than a man usually would, and that may be part of our like makeup, you know, that's part of how a man is and a woman is. Look, we are different in so many ways, just like we have different personalities. Sometimes the traits that we are born with, whether it's male or female. You know those traits. There's something to it, there's something to the genetics. You know that there are these things that thread us all together, these qualities, these traits that usually are part of a woman or a man's being. And you know, men, on the other hand, have often been raised to focus on productivity outside of the home. Success is measured on output in problem solving, in providing. The domestic space hasn't traditionally been where their value has been measured. So forgetting to do the laundry doesn't carry the same emotional weight. Okay, so I'm going to share some basic examples and try to see which side you relate to, if any, while I'm sharing these. So let's start with the dishes. Her point of view. I've cooked dinner, cleaned the counters, and now I'm cleaning your dirty dishes too. It feels like I'm doing everything and you don't even notice. His point of view. I wasn't ignoring the dishes. I just figured i'd do them later. I didn't think it was urgent number two planning holidays or events. Her point of view, Why is it always on me to organize everything. I feel like the emotional planner of this relationship. Here's point of view, you're better at planning. I didn't want to mess it up or pick something you wouldn't like. Number three leaving clothes on the floor an all time favorite. Her point of view, I've asked you ten times not to leave your stuff everywhere. It feels like you do not respect my space or time. Here's point of view. I didn't even realize I did that. It's not disrespect. I just didn't think it was a big deal. And here's the thing. None of these are really about the dishes, or about the clothes, or about the calendar. They're about interpretation. They're about the meaning behind the behavior. For many many women, a messy home is seen as a reflection of their identity. If someone comes over and it's messy, we often feel like we failed. That's how deep the conditioning runs. I know that conditioning runs deep for me, and it did for my mom. Oh my gosh. If someone was coming over, and even if I had one piece of clothing on my bed, even if they're not going to climb up vistairs to come to my room, just the thought of somebody coming and seeing that her daughter was messy was a reflection of her, or was a reflection of how she's raised her children. If the home was dirty, if the cupboards were unorganized, it was a reflection that she is not able to manage the home environment, that she is not doing her duty. And so I really think I took on some of those as well. I remember when we first got married, I really saw it as a reflection of me if I wasn't able to keep up with all the housework, keep up with the laundry, keep up with all the bits and pieces that I saw my mom doing. But men always don't see it the same way. Their self worth is often not wrapped up on how tidy the kitchen is, so the urgency just isn't there. Women are often socialized to notice, to anticipate, to manage not just the physical work, but the emotional work of a home too, And when that labor goes unnoticed or unshared, it feels invalidating, It feels heavy, you know. I think a lot of it is trauma. That's part of our DNA. I'm sure many of our like our moms, our grandmas, our great grandma or whatever, we carry that in us in a little way. So even if we're like deeply offended now, it may be just because it's sat in us for so long. You know, we've carrying the emotions of how many people that have come before us. And so I'm not saying that's the only reason, but I think it can feel heavier for that reason too. I think men are also talk to compartmentalize, to put their energy where it feels most needed. Right, so if something doesn't seem urgent, they may not even register it emotionally. They may not even see it, you know, when they're like, I can't find the scissors, and you're like, it's literally in the first draw, and I can't see it. I can't find it. And then you go there and you find it and it's literally where you said it was. That's pretty much how I imagine men are. When they walk past shoes, or walk past laundry on the floor, or walk past the towel that's been left somewhere, they're not even registering it. They don't see it. It does not exist unless it seems urgent, unless it is pointed out to them. But listen, these are just surface of habits, and every habit can be changed, and everyone can be taught to be better for the person that they love, and for each other and for themselves. But I think when we hold these inner narratives about each other, about what these different things mean inside of us, and they are not visible to each other and they haven't been shared with each other, that's when resentment builds. That's when it turns into you don't care, you're overreacting. Why can't you just dot dot dot fill in the blank so you know, what can we do what actually helps. I'm going to share some of the things that have helped me because listen and I don't want you to be arguing over smelly socks on the floor. We've got better things to do, like laughing and creating memories together. So let's nippit in the bud as soon as possible. Whether you've been married, whether you're in a relationship, whether you've been together for twenty five years, and you realize you've never had this conversation with each other, it is time and it's never too late. So the first thing is the domestic debrief. Okay, set aside fifteen minutes each week to check in who's been doing what, where's the load feeling heavy? What can shift? It's a team meeting, It is not a guilt session. Remember that you're not trying to make the other person feel bad for what you're doing, because if that's the case, you're obviously doing something you don't want to be doing. So make note of that too. If you're trying to get that person to feel sorry for you or feel like you're doing more work than they are, spread the load, so it's more even so that you're not resenting them for what you're doing. As soon as you're trying to guilt your partner, it's a sign that you feel you're doing more than you should be, or that what you're doing isn't being recognized or valued and the effort is being ignored. So as soon as you start to guilt your partner, take a look at what that actually means for you. Because also sometimes the other person isn't even aware of the amount of time or energy that goes into many of the tasks. Like obviously, when we were growing up, my dad handled the bills, and so when we got married, I told you, I was like, I don't really want to do that. Can you handle it? I didn't know how much time and energy taxes take or how much time and energy paying those bills took. Only when I took interest in it and I was educated on it and I understood how much effort goes into it, did I realize that, actually, me cooking dinner can be equivalent to that, Like, there is so much effort that goes into that, and there's so much effort that goes into me cooking dinner. But why was I seeing what I was doing is being more valuable than that, And so awareness and letting the other person know is really important, and actually understanding what it takes for those other tasks. I guarantee you just having an awareness of those things and how long each one takes is really useful. You could even write out a list of or your weekly task and how much time it takes each of you and compare it and see what's taking up most of your time in those areas. I remember when I was housewifeing at the beginning of manager's relationship, we moved to New York. I wasn't able to work, so I was like in full housewife mode, not necessarily by choice, but because he was going out and he was making the money. And I wasn't able to work at the time, and so I was at home and I was looking after the house and cooking and doing all those bits. He would come home and he would say, I'm doing the dishes because you've been cooking. Thank you so much for cooking. I really appreciate it. Or I know your day must have been a lot. You went to the grocery store, you clean the house. And honestly, just hearing that made such a difference to know that he just noticed or acknowledged the effort that it took. And so that takes me into my second point of acknowledging things like use these micro moments to acknowledge and validate how the person must be feeling. So that's a really useful thing and a loving thing to start doing is don't just think it in your head, say out loud, thanks for doing that. I noticed you handle this. Thank you so much. I know that the taxes take so long. Thank you so much for doing that. Oh my goodness, the house looks so clean. Wow, thank you, I really appreciate you. Being this clean makes me feel like I can have a clear mind. Whatever it is, whatever the compliment you want to throw, just make sure you're throwing them regularly and meaning it too. Sometimes well most of the time, or someone really needs is to be seen and so those little micro moments of appreciation and acknowledgement. You know, Jay really taught me that he does it all the time, every single day, day in, day out, and this is a beautiful practice. He does it to me, he does it to other people, he does it to his work colleagues, he does it to friends, and it's so appreciated. No one ever doesn't appreciate being seen or being acknowledged for the things that they're doing. The next thing is assigning your roles consciously. So instead of defaulting to what you've always done, or what you've seen your parents do, or what society has said, each one of you should be doing what actually feels natural to each of you. What could you swap or share or rotate. You know, you don't have to be doing the same thing every single time or every single month. Maybe you guys, switch it up, change it up, try to do different roles at different times of the year. In many of my friends relationships or marriages, their husband does the cooking. Now it's obviously so common because maybe my girlfriend doesn't want to, and maybe he actually loves to cook. And in my relationship, Jay absolutely hates cooking. It's really not his happy place. The kitchen is not somewhere he has fun. Would he make me a cheese sandwich if I was ill? Sure, of course he would. Does he want to cook me a three course meal daily? No, he absolutely doesn't. But he is happy to wash the dishes, He is happy to clean the floor, He is happy to handle all other aspects of the house that, to be honest, I don't want to do or handle because I don't enjoy them, just like he doesn't enjoy being in the kitchen. Luckily, I do love being in the kitchen, but that's been a choice, not given or an expectation from him at all. And you know, one time we actually decided for a YouTube video, we decided to swop rolls. This was years ago. We decided to swap rolls for a day and even though it was meant to be fun, it actually turned out to be so useful and insightful into understanding and seeing each other's input and recognizing the importance of what the other person does. So, you know, do a little roll swap, try out the other person's doing for a day or even for a week. Take on those tasks so you can learn how to do them, just in case you need to know, because we will need to know everything, but also to be able to have a deeper appreciation for what they're doing. Now, the next time you get into a trigger state, right, something's happened and you've seen those clothes on the floor. Whatever it is, state the emotion, not just the task. So swap why didn't you take out the trash with When I say the trash piling up, I feel like I'm carrying this home alone and it really upsets me. That shift can change everything. Then it helps you to the person to understand the meaning that you feel behind the action, and they can clarify rather than it being about the task. So it's not fine, I'll just take bit out myself because you obviously don't want to. It's oh, and you don't take out the bin. It makes me think that you don't see all the other things that I have to do, and you don't value the fact that you're taking this one Doing this one thing for me makes me think that you care great Now I know now this little task that I thought was just to me taking the bin out on a daily basis, I can attach to your feelings and emotions and I don't want to upset you, which brings me on to assuming positive intent. Do not jump to the negative before you give benefit of doubt. We will want to be the victim, don't we. We will want the other person to be wrong. But ask yourself what might their intention have been? This one mindset shift can dissolve conflicts before it even gets started. It can soften the energy in the room. It creates space for conversation instead of accusation, and over time it trains both people to respond with curiosity rather than criticism. And Lord, does the world not need more curiosity than it needs criticism right now? It absolutely does, And especially between two people who love each other. You know, there's enough criticism that happens online between strangers, between people who don't know each other. But then to choose criticism over curiosity within a loving partnership, no, we don't want to do that. So it's not by lowering your standards or accepting. It's about choosing to understand before you judge. And I think between people who love you each other, that should be the basic let me understand you before I judge you, and if anything, let me try not to judge you at all if I possibly can. But if I do judge you, let me try and understand you before I do that. Because if you are in a generally healthy relationship and you feel that person deep down nubs you and other parts of their life reflect that they care for you, then they don't want to upset you. They're not trying to annoy you, and they do not want you to be unhappy. And so remembering all of that, the next time you see those dirty hour socks on the floor's going to be really useful for you to say, Hey, babe, why did you choose to leave these socks here? Would you mind just picking them up? Because it's actually really getting to me because I've seen it like three days in a row and I just don't understand why you're not seeing it, but it really does irritate me. So do you mind just hopping over and grab that? Maybe don't say it like that sounds a bit rude, you know, ego it's a thing that we all have, not just men us, women too. And as soon as you come at someone with aggression and accusation. Ooh, the god goes up. The god goes up. They want to be right, You want to be right, and it never ends well. Whereas if you come with a sprinkle of kindness, a dash of compassion, and a whole lot of love and ask the question with genuine desire to understand that person feels it, no gods go up. They're able to respond with compassion, not aggression. And that's a great recipe right there. Okay, you're welcome. You know something I had to come to terms with eventually, as you know, maybe sometimes it's me. Maybe sometimes I am also the problem. I know, it's really difficult to believe, and it's really difficult to stomach, and it's really hard to swallow that and really, you know, believe it. But yeah, sometimes we are the problem. Sometimes the roll stick because we make them stick. We take over so much that the other person gets used to not stepping in. That's called learn helplessness. And I remember my mom was like a boss. Like she worked full time. She came home, she cooked dinner, She made sure we had our fresh breakfast every morning. She would make sure we had packed lunches. She would then cook dinner when she came home, she was a beast. However, I felt like it caused my dad to have learned helplessness, where you know, he was never given the responsibility, and so if it did come to doing it, he got really scared about it and didn't want to disappoint her or didn't want to do it wrong, and so it didn't allow him the space to actually do it or gave him them responsibility to do that. So if it did come to it, my mom being all like, why can't you just make dinner? Once you know, they're very sweet with each other, but as couples argue, they argue, too, can you make dinner. I've been out and I've been doing all this and you didn't cook dinner. And he'd be like, I didn't know what to make. I didn't know what you would want. I was worried that you wouldn't like what I made, And so he really would have wanted to, but my mom kind of took that power away from him to be able to do it at the beginning. I also think sometimes, you know, we can be a little bit of control freaks. It runs in my family, and so we like things in this specific way, and so it scares them for doing it wrong, so then they don't do it at all. And that's the hypocritical loop that people can get into. I've seen it with my mum and the cooking situation. Even with myself. I'd be like, can you go get this? And then it's like get the organic cucumbers. But then they get the wrong cucumbers and I'm like, oh my god, now I have to go back and get it. Myself might as well not have done it at all, And then it's like, okay, you have to allow for mistakes. Training and teaching people things takes time and you have to allow for mistakes for them to feel comfortable in that role, and so, you know, give them some grace. And this stuff really goes deep. It's shape by how we were raised, how we saw our caregivers divide roles, how we saw our parents do things, what we were praised for, what we learned to fear in our family dynamics. It really shaped our beliefs about gender roles and what love looked like. You know, think about this was your mum always doing everything and never asking for help. You know, we talk about this a lot in Indian families, and I'm sure, it goes across cultures and traditions, but they do the most, do everything, and then it's like, oh, but you never do anything. But it's just tell me what to do and I'll do it. But it's like, no, you should know. And the problem is a lot of the time we just expect the person to know. We except the person to know how our mind works. We expect the person to know what needs to be done, but if they're not in the habit of doing it, they do have to be taught. They have to be told, they have to be asked, and once you've done that a couple of times, and if they still don't do it, you can get your whip out. But you have to teach people how to take on the roles and responsibilities, especially if you've been doing them for a long time. Did your dad get praised for just helping ones? Was that part of your like family dynamic that just because someone does something once they get more credit. I remember when my dad would pick me up from school and be like, oh my god, my dad's coming to get me from school, And when my mom did it, there wasn't like, oh my god, my mom's coming to get me from school because she did it every day, and so that does happen sometimes. You know, back in the day, my uncles wouldn't really get up to clean after we'd eat. It was just not part of the culture. And then one day he decided to get up and wash the dishes, like a good few years ago, and everyone was like, what is happening. Oh my gosh, please, you don't have to do that. Then we realize, no, he should be doing it, and it's so wonderful that he's getting up, and the traditions saying that my granddad used to help my grandma cook all the time, and so my mom grew up seeing that, and so she was like, listen, husband, my dad should be like, you better get in here and do the chopping. So now my dad does all the chopping and goes to do the shopping and my mom does the cooking. And once they divided that up, it made them both feel like they were both equally contributing to that one action. So really think about how those early observations when you were younger shaped what you expect or what you resent now. Are your resentments based on what your mom resented about your dad or your dad resented about your mom or have you actually created them for yourself. Are you getting irritated because it used to irritate her, or is it something that actually irritates you. What unspoken scripts about relationships? Did you inherit without actually realizing it. I remember when I when I first started dating J I was like, or when we got married, my dad always did the handyman work in the house. I'd be like, can you put up a frame? Or you know, can you glue this back together? And he wasn't taught that by his dad. His mom did all the handyman work in the house. And I realized, I don't need him to do it because I can do it. My dad taught me how to do it, and so I can put up a frame, I can put things back together. Why did I expect him to have to do it? So we'll carry these triggers and patterns, And at first I was like, why are you not able to do this? Why are you not looking after this in the house? But I realized that I actually really enjoy doing it, So why am I letting that trigger me when that's not a pattern that I even care about. So we carry the power to actually rewrite these patterns, all these triggers that we have. When I first got married, it was a real shock to my system because I don't know, I guess I feel like most of them probably go through this. You're doing, you know, you know our culture, you expected to do the cooking, and so I remember I was trying to work, trying to cook, trying to do all these things. And I saw my mom doing everything growing up, and when I wasn't able to keep up with everything, the laundry, the cooking, the traveling, or whatever I was trying to do at that time, I really did feel like I was failing, not being able to The thing is he had no expectation. He was like, how can I make your life easier? Should we get meal delivery services? Should we? How many days a week do you want to eat out? Like? I don't want you to feel stressed out and I don't want you to feel like I have an expectation of you to cook for me because I don't. But for me, I was carrying the guilt of it based on what I see my mum doing and thinking that is the ideal version of what I should be and why am I not able to live up to it? So I really had to work through that in myself to not feel bad about myself for not keeping up with the same stuff that she did, because I also had other things going on in my life. So all that to say, if you are in a relationship and you've been fighting about the same three things on repeat, maybe it's time to zoom out. Maybe it's not about the dishes. Maybe it's about feeling seen, heard, or considered or respected. The healthiest relationships are not built on harmony. They're built on the willingness to just keep learning each other and understanding on another. And as Jay always annoyingly reminds me, whenever I get ratchet or whenever I get you know, on him, it's like, it's me and you against the issue. I'm not arguing with you, I'm not against you. I want to solve this with you. And I'm like, oh god, I just want to throw this shoe at you. But you know, we all have different ways of dealing with things. But it really is true, if you really care about one another, it's both of you together, not against each other. And I think that's really important to remember when you're about to throw that shoe. It's really useful actually at that time, so I hope it's helped if it prevents an argument in the future. Please do let me know you're welcome, and I really do to hope that this is useful. Send me in your stories. I would love to hear them. Send you so much love and have a wonderful, wonderful week. Faith