I had a client,
She came to me and what happened in her relationship is she said to me,
Anna,
We are not connected.
We don't talk,
We don't talk about our feelings,
About our desires,
About what we want.
We have no quality time together.
What we do is fight all the time.
And what happens because they didn't have the emotional intimacy,
The emotional connection,
She resented him because of all the fights that they had because of the household chores.
And that means whenever he came close,
She withdrew.
She didn't want him to hug.
She didn't want him to kiss her.
So that was the situation when she came to me.
So we talked about it.
Of course,
We go deep into what is the reason for that?
What do you think is the reason that is the catalyst to create this disconnect?
And it turned out it was the household chores.
And what I mean by that is when she explained it to me,
She said,
I'm doing everything and he doesn't do anything.
So I'm the one cleaning after him.
I'm cleaning after myself.
I'm doing the dishes,
The washing,
The hoovering,
And he doesn't do anything.
And whenever we talk about it,
Whenever I talk about it,
We end up fighting.
And what she did is she got to a point where she said,
I don't want this anymore.
I don't want these fights anymore.
For her in her mind,
She thought she needed the buy-in from her partner to change,
To change the dynamics of the relationship.
So she said to him,
Let's do some couples counseling.
And what do you think he said to that?
Well,
He said,
I'm not wasting my money to do any household chores.
Forget it.
So he didn't buy into that idea.
Then she found me,
Came and talked to me and I said,
No worries.
You can create the change.
You don't need your partner to buy in because it starts with yourself.
It starts with the way you think,
The way you behave.
And only with that,
We can start creating different dynamics,
Healthier relationship dynamics.
So coming back to the household chores,
He had this particular habit.
He came home and he got a glass,
Put some Coke in it and drank it and just left the glass anywhere,
Wherever he was,
Wherever he emptied it,
That's where the glass would go.
And that's where it would stay.
The next morning,
She got annoyed and cleaned after him.
And that annoyed her a lot.
And whenever they talked,
Whenever she tried to talk to him about it,
He said,
Come on,
Chill out.
And she said,
I don't feel understood.
I don't feel like you're taking this seriously.
It's taking a toll on me emotionally and physically.
So we went through that process,
What's happened so far.
And I explained to her,
You see,
What you actually did is you trained him to leave everything wherever he wants,
Because the next morning you take it away,
You clean it,
You put it in the dishwasher.
So it's done.
So why should he do that?
Why should he change his behavior when the next morning you do it anyway?
You trained him.
And that is the first step to realize that your behavior is part of your partner's behavior,
That you play a role,
You take responsibility now for,
Oh,
Yes.
So she took the responsibility and said,
Oh,
Yes,
I do.
I do that.
I do clean after him because it annoys me so much.
So I clean and I get annoyed that he doesn't.
I said,
OK,
So what can we do?
What we came up with and what she did was said,
OK,
Don't clean up.
Just don't do it anymore.
But I get annoyed.
I said,
Yes,
That's the challenge,
Because what we actually do is we set boundaries.
It's very easy to set a boundary.
The more difficult part is to reinforce the boundary.
So for her,
That meant whenever he used a glass and whenever he leaves it,
Wherever he leaves it,
She doesn't clean up after him.
She doesn't take it away the next morning.
She doesn't put it in the dishwasher.
So that went on for a couple of days.
After a week,
There were no more clean glasses in the cupboard.
And he was like,
What's going on?
What do you mean?
Why didn't you wash the glasses?
I didn't.
You used them.
I didn't.
So I didn't clean them up.
And what happened is,
And this happens a lot when you set a boundary and reinforce it,
That her partner got mad at,
You don't support me.
Why do you do this to me?
Why are you this mean to me?
Because what you need to understand is for them,
How you trained them,
That was working brilliantly.
But now you change.
You change that pattern that they were used to.
And they don't know what to do with it at first.
And they get mad because change is something we don't like often.
Because we don't know what happens next.
We think the catastrophe,
Armageddon is coming upon us when there is this change.
So of course,
He was taken aback.
He was angry.
He was starting to fight.
But she said,
No,
Not doing it.
Keep calm.
Just stay cool.
And she did.
It was very,
Very hard for her,
Very difficult to not clean,
To not put the glasses away.
But she stayed strong.
So what he then did after there were no glasses and she didn't move to do anything,
He took one glass,
Washed it up,
Used it,
Left it.
And she left it as well.
The next day,
Same scenario.
He got mad again,
Said,
There are the glasses.
Use them.
He did the same again.
On the third day,
While he was taking that one glass on the way to wash it,
He took another glass and put it in the dishwasher.
She stayed calm and she didn't say anything.
Because when you now say,
You see,
It's very easy,
You mock them.
It feels like now you're taking the piss.
And that's not a nice feeling.
And we don't want to do that to our partner.
Instead,
We just keep quiet.
We are happy that this is happening.
And that's it.
There is no vicious,
Oh my God,
I changed him or whatever.
Don't do that.
That's evil talking.
We don't need that.
And we don't want that.
After a couple more days,
More and more glasses,
Put them in the dishwasher.
After two weeks,
All of the glasses that were standing around were washed and back in the cupboard.
And she didn't say a word.
She didn't engage in any fights,
In any arguments.
And she didn't say,
Oh my God,
You did this so brilliantly,
Amazing.
You are so amazing.
Nothing.
And he just changed his behavior.
He accepted the change.
He accepted the boundary.
And that's it.
That's how simple depending on what viewpoint you want to take.
It can be.
You can be the change as soon as you accept that you are responsible for your behavior.
