What if you could purchase an insurance policy against fights in your relationship?
Are there activities or items that always lead to arguments? Are there certain things that need to be done in the course of life that bring out the worst in you or your partner?
For me, loading up bikes to go on a family outing is one of those things. No matter what the mood of our relationship is like heading into it, this brings out the worst in me. Something inevitably goes wrong, I forget to use positive words, and I get grumpy and critical. This completely shuts down my Words-centric spouse and immediately starts a fight that can last all day.
I’ve provided several other tips (“Its a trap!”) to try to cope with these situations in other posts. Today I want to suggest an alternative that I discovered this weekend that I’ll share in hopes it will work for you.
For over 10 years, every time I have to load up bikes on the car to go on a family outing, it starts a fight. I realized this weekend that part of the challenge is simply that I lack the proper equipment to do the job at hand. Partly because I’m a cheapskate and partly because it just slowly snuck up on me, the rack I use to hold 4 bikes for our family was just a fight waiting to happen.
This weekend, I purchased fight insurance against an argument the next time we want to go on a family bike outing. It wasn’t the way I would have preferred to spend the money (but neither is health insurance, car insurance, etc. ). When you frame it in that context, the money I spent on a new bike rack is money well spent.
Now I look forward to our next family bike outing to see if this insurance policy pays off. I know my spouse is already excited by the prospect of not having this recurring argument.
Where can you add a little fight insurance to your life to improve your interactions with your Words of Affirmation (WoA) spouse?