“It’s not that your requests are unreasonable. I just don’t like how they feel.”

That was Chris’s brave comment to me last night after I gave my oldest daughter a long list of chores for the week. He actually tried to secretly help her with one of them. “WTH!? Why are you doing the dishes?! She’s 18! She needs responsibility! She has way more time than I do! I am so far behind. We are having a party next week! She’s just sitting around watching TV?!” (Okay, so maybe she had already cleaned the kitchen earlier in the day and made dinner, but still…)

Hearing Yourself

As I listened to myself rant, I realized Chris was right. I was trying to “stick it” to my daughter. The energy behind the requests was not the kind of energy I want to bring into the world, and especially not into this house. The requests came from fear and resentment. Fear that if she has too much free time, she will make no progress in life and will get depressed. Resentment that I had so much work to do, yet she was relaxing on the couch watching TV. That kind of victim and combative energy destroys connection, and that’s what Chris was feeling.

When I heard my daughter wake up this morning, I immediately went upstairs to talked to her. I owned my fear and passive aggression, and I apologized. I told her I still wanted a few hours of her help with chores, but I gave her the choice about which ones she would be responsible for doing. She was actually excited to pick a task I had been avoiding for weeks (spray painting a big pile of old frames for her grad party), and she did a beautiful job.

It was the same request (a few hours of her help) delivered with much different energy. Connection restored. I love having a husband who is not afraid to speak hard truths to me.