Wednesday, January 11, 2012

When you assume...

I think you probably know how the rest of the saying goes.

We all make assumptions throughout our day.  We assume that our brakes are going to work when we press the pedal.  We assume that the red light is eventually going to change to green.  We assume that our favorite restaurant didn't close over night.

The problem with assumptions is that when we assume, we do more than make a fool out of ourselves; we end up hurting other people.  Often we do this by making an assumption about how our family and friends feel about a given situation, decision or just life in general.  This is a tough one because no one can ever really know what another person is feeling.  We can only know what they show us or tell us.

One thing that seems to work for my family is the idea of an emotional gas tank (or emotional bank account if you prefer).  The basic idea is that each of us knows where we stand in terms of our current emotional, physical and spiritual state, but we often keep that inside and leave our family and friends wondering.  Using the idea of the emotional gas tank, we can use a number to describe how we feel to it makes it easier to share.

There are a few critical rules to follow to make this work:
  1. Be honest about your number.  If you aren't going to be honest, you don't care much about making your relationship better and you might as well stop reading now.
  2. It's fair to ask your spouse for their number at any time.
  3. It's fair game to tell your spouse your number at any time.
  4. Never question the other person's number.  They are the only one that knows the truth.
  5. Don't be defensive if your spouse's number is low. Instead, see it as an opportunity to grow and do something about it (if you're ever read this book, you'll know exactly what to do!)
I'm sure this method isn't for everyone, but it definitely works for us... or at least I assume it does.