When I saw that this week’s topic was about not coming home frazzled, my immediate reaction was to think that this topic didn’t apply to me. After all, I’m a stay at home mom. I never really come home, I’m just there all day. On further reflection, though, I think that this strategy should be retitled. I think it should be called, “Let go of the day’s stress before approaching your partner.”
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Being at home with a baby all day can be stressful, and I dump that stress on my husband when he gets home more often than I would like. Just yesterday, I decided that the way to end a rough day would be to have a serious discussion with my husband right after he returned home. Specifically, I wanted to talk to him about how I wanted him to do more around the house. Unfortunately, I decided to have this conversation with him before I released my stress from the day, and without giving him time to let go his. As you might expect, the discussion quickly turn into an argument.
Fortunately, our daughter woke up from her nap and we had to take a break from the conversation to take care of her. We ate, relaxed, and spend some time together talking about nothing of any importance. When we came back to the conversation later that evening, it was still not an easy conversation, but it was much easier than it had been when we were both still stressed from the frustrations of the day.
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Having the conversation go badly was a good reminder to me of how important it is to relax before having difficult discussions and to allow my partner to relax as well. I wish we could have skipped the fight and gone straight to the insight, but that’s not always possible, even in strong relationships. Hopefully, next time I’ll know better.
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