Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
093: How to Think Ahead for Your Wife
Have you ever asked your wife, "What can I do to help?" during chaos in the home?
There's a good chance the question increased her stress level rather than reduced it.
Our wife needs us to think, not just do.
When men don't absorb some of the mental load that comes with leading a family, resentment builds up.
Today's episode will leave you with two main actions that'll help remove pressure from your wife's plate:
1. Step into the CEO role so you can be strategic and proactive.
2. Initiate the "Fair Play" conversation so you can run the household as a team.
Tune in to take on your share of responsibilities so your wife feels supported and the house feels more peaceful.
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 93. We are sitting in our bedroom right now, me and Brenda. There is a spring break party going on downstairs, thrown by our seven-year-old, and we came up here and we're recording. Usually, brenda is helping with the outline organizing, brainstorming, helping with the outline organizing, brainstorming, ideating with me on all these podcasts that you hear. So she's always behind the scenes helping out, and this time, instead of just co-creating it, we're going to co-record it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Say hi, brenda, hello.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're doing that, because I wrote this outline and Tommy said I feel like this was a woman who wanted to come on. And what did you say?
Speaker 1:Be like. All right, I got this audience of men and I'm going to tell them how to help their wives and how to stop being lazy and step it up.
Speaker 2:That's not what I was thinking. I wasn't coming from there, but we're going to just try this and see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the topic today is a topic that a lot of couples have friction in. It's friction in a lot of marriages and we see it with our friends, I see it in coaching sessions. Brenda and I just worked on replacing our fence, or parts of our fence, this past weekend and it came up throughout that project and the friction point is that men around the household for kids stuff, for family, things that need to get done don't take much initiative. And the way one of our friends put it when we were hanging out, what'd she say?
Speaker 2:We were laughing about it. But she was like nothing infuriates me more than when he walks up in the middle of chaos and says what can I do to help out? And I was like yes, and I always say because you used to do it more than you do now. But I would always say I just need you to think, just think what needs to happen.
Speaker 1:So that question.
Speaker 2:What can I do to help out? We feel like it actually Tommy and I were talking we feel like it actually adds stress in the heat of the moment. I feel like sometimes your brain can turn off and you're just like just tell me what to do, and that is. I need your brain to stay on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think we're going to do some generalizing here, yes, men, and women generalizing.
Speaker 2:I think I're going to do some generalizing here, men and women generalizing. I think I'm actually lucky. I think you are one person who helps out more than most men, or from what I've, heard.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for saying that, and it's taken some work, some conversations from between us to, like you know me, step it up. And you know, just to highlight it, I have one client that has this issue with his wife. He does a lot of the kids planning on top of a lot of stuff and him and his wife have to communicate with her taking a little more initiative.
Speaker 1:She has a big job. So does he. But one of the clients I was just talking about, he said his wife told him the other day that she feels like she just has a massive family to-do list that just keeps growing and growing and growing. And I think that's what it is it's a family to-do list. And when we started to talk about this we were going to say, okay, let's call this episode how to take something off your wife's plate, but it's not her plate that we're taking it off of.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were saying that it's our plate. Well, actually this was you tried to take something off of our plate by ordering these swimmies that we need to go to Mexico and you ordered like a dumb set of swimmies. I was like, why did you get those? And you were like I don't know, I hate shopping on Amazon. And it was kind of clear to both of us that you kind of half-assed it a little bit and you were just like I just want to get this done. I don't know what I'm doing. Click.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so now we fly out on Wednesday and it's like, well, these are the pair we're rolling with. And you said I'm just trying to take something off of your plate. And I was like, but it's not my plate, it's our plate.
Speaker 1:Right, it was a family thing that needed to get done for our kids, and I yeah, I tried to take the initiative, and so this is. This is something else we're going to talk about in a little bit, but there also needs to be a little bit of letting go from the wife's side, right?
Speaker 2:so you, we talked about the swimmies for a few minutes we're like this is a waste of time and I was like, who cares? They're fine. And that's you're saying like let it go, these swimmies will work they'll be fine.
Speaker 1:I also understand that I bought new and improved swimmies that are probably over engineered. Okay, okay, perfect, and I hate shopping on amazon, but maybe that's a whole nother episode well, why don't you deliver the outline and then I'll chime in if it's helpful.
Speaker 2:Otherwise I'm going to kind of stay quiet.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think we're on to something, though. All right. So this area of tension in a lot of relationships. This is what you are going to do to start tackling it and coming together onto the same team. The first thing that you're going to do, as a man, is to take on a co-CEO role in the household.
Speaker 1:So a CEO is strategic, a CEO thinks ahead, a CEO leads, and what normally happens in a relationship is that there is a family running and all the things that have to get done whether it's getting ready for vacations or it's getting ready for the spring lineup of sports that you need to sign up for and get ahead of and plan driving all the things that happen in a family. Typically, what happens what we see is that the man acts more like an employee than a CEO, kind of waits around to take orders, and when he takes orders, he usually can go and execute the task, but he's not thinking ahead, he's not strategizing, and that's what puts a lot more stress on the wife having to think ahead. So, becoming the CEO, you're going to get a little more strategic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll add so one thing that I used to say all the time when we were like, running around, things are, things feel busy, and you would say what can I do to help? And I would say, imagine that you're a single dad. What would you be doing right now? And then you would, it felt like then you would start to look around and make some decisions on your own, instead of me having to think for both of us, like if I weren't even in the picture, how would you handle this situation? Yeah, and yeah, you seem to step up after. I would say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think after you said it a few times and we talked out of the heat of the moment, like if it was in the middle of the moment, and you said, imagine that you were a single dad. Like what? Said imagine that you were a single dad, Like what would you do if you were a single dad? I probably would take offense to that at first, Like oh, I came over here asking how I could help, like arms open, ready to go, and she makes a crack at me and a jab at me like that.
Speaker 1:I'm curious. So why does that feel like a crack at you? Well, I think it feels like a jab, because, hey, I'm coming here, I'm trying to help, and then what I want to hear from you is oh awesome, can you do this, this and this? And then I get to go and I get to be a help. That was my expectation. Coming into saying how can I help, and getting fired back with you can do something else. How you can help is think about being a single dad. And now, all of a sudden, I have to think strategically and my brain doesn't go to how helpful that question or perspective might be. It goes to oh, she doesn't think I'm doing a good enough job, I'm not helping enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were looking for like a thank you, like a grateful, like thank you, and you can do this and this and this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, I can't believe you're such an amazing husband to come ask how you can help me right now that would be like, uh, you know this, the slime mess that just happened downstairs.
Speaker 2:You're cleaning all of it up and I'm just working or something on my computer and I come and say, hey, how can I help? Well, I could see how. I mean, it's clear. See, that's the problem. I wouldn't say what can I do to help. I would just pitch in and do something helpful, because it's not your, that slime mess isn't your problem and it's not my problem, it's our problem, and so I don't. It doesn't feel like something that I need to say thank you for helping. It feels like yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm. You can make any analogy, find an analogy. You don't have to explain to me that me taking offense to you asking me to think like a single dad is wrong. I understand that I shouldn't be taking offense to that, that we're in this together and you're like you're just trying to get me to think strategically with you. It's. This is a problem that a lot of guys have.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I was just talking to a buddy a couple of weeks ago and we haven't talked in a while and we got into it and him and his wife have been through some stuff in their marriage and I was like, well, how'd you guys like start working through it, cause their marriage is at a really good place right now? And he said the first thing I kind of noticed when I started working with the coach was that I'm very self-absorbed. We think everything is about us, but it's all these things going on in the household. I ask you how I can help. And as soon as you say to give look at a different perspective, I take it personally. It's that self-absorption that gets in the way of communication.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so back to CEO.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that's the gist of it. Think about yourself. I know, in businesses you don't want a shared CEO role. That's not such a good idea. But in families businesses you don't want a shared CEO role. That's not such a good idea. But in families, that's pretty much what's going on, unless you guys have a prior agreement that this is her show and this is your show, and it's super clear. But a lot of relationships don't have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where you want to get. To that tasks are super clear, which we'll get there. To that tasks are super clear, which we'll get there. You pulled up this quote from the book Fair Play that a lot of relationship parenting coaches talk about, and it's a pretty popular book by Eve Rodsky, and one of the quotes was almost every man interviewed in connection with this project said nagging is what they hate most about being married. But they also admit that they wait for their wives to tell them what to do at home.
Speaker 2:So all the guys that were involved in the project admitted that what drives them the most crazy is all the nagging. The same guys admitted that they yeah, I wait for my wife to tell me what to do. Which is so interesting.
Speaker 1:No, it's really interesting because if a lot of guys are saying that their wife nags and and is barking orders all the time, you got to take a look in the mirror and see if you're actually being proactive and helping with things boom, and I think that's the role of a ceo.
Speaker 2:A ceo is proactive. An employee well, not all employees, but you know, a good employee even is proactive, and then you know the the feeling of a reactive employee, where you just want that person to just think so. I think that's the message.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of women will say I don't need another kid in the house, I need someone that's going to help and be another adult, and so proactive is definitely the word here. I think a lot of guys will say okay, but if I take a task on, I'm not going to do it to the way she would do it in her standards, and then she has to go and do it anyway or comments on how I do it. So that's one reason why I don't take on tasks. And there's one other thing that guys will say because someone just said it to me yesterday in a coaching session was if I'm not excited about the task, I kind of ignore it and put it off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I want to get back to that first one, but that's a really good note, because the big thing is nobody's excited about these tasks. Like every CEO has shit parts of their job that they have to do. And you were like I hate shopping on Amazon. And I was like I hate shopping on Amazon, nobody likes it.
Speaker 1:It just has to get done. Yeah, and I was thinking about that mindset shift. It's almost like, just catch yourself, if you're saying I have to, if you're like this is a grueling task, if you catch yourself saying I need to do this, I have to do this, then you're not making it exciting for yourself and it doesn't have to be exciting.
Speaker 2:It's more like I want to. I want my kid to learn how to swim, so I'm going to take the steps and get her into swimming lessons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, if you catch yourself thinking I need to, I have to, you're going to have more of a dread. Yeah, okay, so that's. That's, I think, how you take on that second point of I ignore things I'm not interested in.
Speaker 2:But the first one about the wife. Like we're generalizing here that of course sometimes roles are switched. Sometimes the man is the one who's running everything and the wife isn't stepping up around home, but oftentimes we're finding in relationships it's the wife is running the show and could use a little more thought from the husband, and a big part of that is that the wife needs to like, let it go, not not care, but understand that that task is off of her plate beginning to end. And one important thing with that is that she can trust that the guy is not, like I said earlier, not going to half-ass it. He's got it. He's going to take as good of care of this job as I would if I were doing it.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean that it's going to be the same result. Exactly so, as good of a job for one person isn't the same as as good of a job for another person. But if you are going to take a responsibility for the family off of your wife's plate, you want to have all intentions to try your best.
Speaker 2:Not try your best? Own it Like this is yours.
Speaker 1:I tried to own the swimmy thing and it didn't work out. You're shaking your head like I didn't try to own it.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like you tried to own it. I feel like you went into it like I'm not good at this. That is not how a CEO operates. A CEO is like all right, what's the best way? This one looks really comfortable.
Speaker 1:This one looks like she's going to hate it. I'm going to keep whining about this. I hate Amazon, and whether it's me shopping for me or the kids or whatever, I screw up Amazon all the time, and I'm just saying that as like a side note.
Speaker 2:We don't have to get into the swimmies anymore, so another good example that we ran into with a couple was the husband took on the laundry and it was a. It was a an exercise in letting go for the wife because the husband had no system. The laundry he would kind of just like do it whenever he felt like it and then laundry would just pile up in the laundry room and then he would do it all and people were kind of running low on things all the time. But it she eventually was like all right, I'm, I'm going to let this go. The laundry gets done and it doesn't get done the way she would do it. But if you're going to let him own it, you have to let him own it all the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, and if you're not letting him own it all the way, then it's still on your mind and you're still stressing about it, right, and?
Speaker 2:you're annoyed. And then he gets annoyed because he's like I'm trying, I'm doing this and you're not letting me do this.
Speaker 2:It's actually the truth with our kids too. I mean, that guy, that Kirk parenting guy, taught me this that you ask your kid to do a task, they're not going to do it the way you want it. You ask him to sweep, he was like you ask him to sweep the floor. They're going to put the broom between their legs and do it backwards and it's going to drive you freaking crazy and just let them do it their way.
Speaker 1:All right. So how do you do this right?
Speaker 2:Well, it's like the wife has to let it go, but the listeners are guys and so that's trying to control their wife, it's more. What action can guys take is to initiate the conversation.
Speaker 1:Yes, become the co-CEO, initiate the conversation. And I think what you just said about not being able to control your wife is huge, because that quote from Fair Play about nagging and about barking orders all the time we can't from Fair Play about nagging and about barking orders all the time. We can't tell our wife to just stop barking orders and stop nagging. But that second part of waiting for our wife to give us a task is the part that we can control as a man. So you don't even have to decide what tasks you're going to start doing or how you're going to start planning and helping out. The next thing you do as a CEO is set up a meeting with your wife, set up the conversation, let her know that, hey, I want to help more. I don't want to just walk up in the middle of something and say, how can I help? I want to take more initiative and wondering if we can figure out what that looks like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll give an example of another couple. They decided to go to dinner and she brought a pen and paper and she wrote down everything that she does. And they said after this they felt like they had more appreciation for each other because they had a better understanding of who does what. He was feeling like she was grumpy all the time and she was feeling like he didn't do anything around the house, like he had this lazy bone in him and it was building up resentment.
Speaker 1:And while what they said was, as they had the conversation, she started to realize things that he was doing, that she didn't know, and he understood why she was always grumpy and stressed all the time. So you have this conversation not in the heat of the moment, not when you're at the house and kids are running and you only have a couple minutes. You set up a time where you're out of the moment. I think it's helpful for me because I get to kind of drop my defense a little bit. Back to that, taking things personally, me versus you, it's more of a we're in this together. Yeah, let's figure this out. Let's figure out how to run the household more smoothly, more effectively.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it's like step into a CEO role, initiate a conversation with your wife, and that's really the main points we wanted to mention.
Speaker 1:Using systems yeah, using systems, using lists. One of the things that I do a lot are Siri reminders. Hey, siri remind me. Monday I got to sign Nell up for the YMCA classes, or YMCA session.
Speaker 2:I mean people kind of know this, but if you don't use your calendar to its fullest, your reminders to their fullest, or, like we run in the mornings, we run off of this list because for a while there in the mornings we run off of this list because for a while there in the mornings mornings before school, tommy was chipping in but then checking out.
Speaker 1:I would get breakfast ready. I'd make lunches and kind of not wipe my hands clean of it, but check out a little bit you'd slip into your office and I'd be like Tommy, where are you? Right.
Speaker 2:And morning after morning, and then like we were forgetting things and we were rushing every morning, and so I was like, okay, what needs to happen every single morning without fail? Marlo needs socks, marlo needs a clean diaper, nell needs her hairbrush.
Speaker 1:We've got to make sure that both of them take a pee, whatever it is. There's more than just putting food in their stomach and having food ready for lunch. That needs to happen to get them out the door. And Brenda made a list and she typed it up, printed it out, put it on the fridge and the first morning I saw it I was taken back for a second, like felt like a little childish, like she was telling me what to do and then drop my guard Right. This is.
Speaker 1:She did this not to call Tommy out. She did it as like a way to help us as a family and make our mornings run more smoothly. And it helps. I mean, just the other day I got some stuff done and I was like, all right, what do I have to do next? Wanting to just go chill. But looked at the list and there were a few more things to knock out. So that list is helpful. I bet there's a lot of other tools. We use Google, keep we've mentioned on the podcast a few times and share lists that way. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be really clean. It's out of your head on paper, electronic note, whatever to stay organized.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:This is a point of tension that we see in a lot of couples, because I coach men, Brenda coaches women. We coach couples together and this comes up and then it comes up in conversations with friends. We coach couples together and this comes up and then it comes up in conversations with friends. Nate Bregatsky has jokes about it and his standup comedy, the one joke where the school calls him because his daughter needs to be picked up early.
Speaker 2:He's like why'd you call me? You could have called anyone else. And finally he's like all right, fine, what school does she go to?
Speaker 1:Right, the dad has no idea about this kind of stuff, and it's funny.
Speaker 2:It's funny, the dynamic is funny and it's an opportunity to make your relationship better.
Speaker 1:It is a point of tension and laugh at it. That would. Bringing humor into that conversation you're going to have is never a bad idea. So your actions decide. You're going to be a co-CEO of the family. You're going to start being strategic, you're going to start thinking ahead and you're in it together. It's not taking stuff off your wife's plate. It's taking stuff that's on the family plate and owning some of it. And the way that you're going to do that is have a conversation with your wife, Initiate the conversation. Boom, all right, that's what we got for you guys today. Have an awesome week and we'll catch you next time.
