What Small Stuff?

Best advice I could give a young couple is this: don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t ignore it either.

John has a tendency to leave the dishes in the sink after he eats. Once in a while he’ll get as far as putting the dishes in the dishwasher (right under the sink) but often when Leah comes into the kitchen there are a few dishes lying in wait for her arrival. It drives her crazy, but she doesn’t say anything. She just clenches her teeth and swallows her frustration, puts on a smile, and thinks, “it’s not a big deal,” and puts the dishes in the dishwasher.

Leah doesn’t realize it, but her silence can harm her relationship with John. Avoiding the conversation, grinning and bearing these little frustrations only serve to compound them. Instead of settling the issue by talking it out, Leah thinks to herself, “he knows this drives me crazy” and then tries to make it less aggravating by just trying to let it go herself. The problem? She isn’t actually letting things go. She continues to remember, to see every instance as another instance of John showing a lack of consideration.

John, on the other hand, is quietly sitting on the computer working on a big project that’s got his mind going in five different directions. Before they were together, John had the habit of doing all the dishes at once, later in the day, and doesn’t see the problem letting the dishes collect in the sink until he gets to them later. When Leah gets home, he thinks she is stressing herself out trying to keep everything tidy the second she comes home. He watches her put the dish in the dishwasher, sighs and thinks, “Damn, I’ve done it again.” He sees her smile and he smiles back. Nothing is said, and nothing changes.

Pretty soon Leah starts thinking of herself as John’s personal maid and John thinks that it’s not a big deal, until they start bickering. She starts banging things in the kitchen thinking she will get him to see how upset she is, and he starts mumbling under his breath that she’s making something out of nothing. Fine. It’s all fine. Except it’s not.

We often overlook things that we think are insignificant, glossing over the little faults that really bother us, and then all of a sudden, the smallest thing can be the final straw which starts a fight that never needed to happen.

This could have been avoided if they took this simple advice, “Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t ignore it either.” If they could both see that the dishes, the simple household chores, the little things that in the run of the day events are really quite small, they might have said something and changed the whole dynamic. When you realize that it isn’t a big deal, can talk about the little things like they are small matters (which they are in the beginning) then you can change, become more attentive, and learn to negotiate for the things that are bigger and more important later on.

If a couple can’t talk about the small stuff, they won’t be able to talk about the big stuff. Resentment, frustration, anger, passive-aggressive comments, all serve to make communication more difficult, and when these emotions are built on the small things like household chores, the couple will never be able to work out the things that really test your commitment to each other.

One more point: give yourself a time to talk about the little things.  Some couples have “meetings” where they discuss things of import. While it might seem a little formal, and overdone, it isn’t a bad idea. Sometimes when we set time aside to talk about something, it carries more weight than a passing comment between tasks. Don’t dwell, don’t make everything like it’s a make it or break it moment, but don’t gloss over these little “corrections” either

Don’t sweat the small stuff, but don’t ignore it either.