Keeping Score in Your Relationships

The same seven things happen each morning in our house.

1. Everyone gets up
2. Coffee gets made
3. Breakfast gets made & eaten
4. Breakfast gets cleaned up
5. Lunch gets made
6. Everyone gets dressed
7. School drop-off

EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING.

We don’t work in offices or have typical 9–5 schedules, so there is no need to get out of the house and be somewhere by 8:30 am. Our non-typical work situations create a lot of freedom but require constant communication and coordination since schedules can change daily.

Once our son is at school, our days are ours. Most days, we are busy with our businesses, clients, and general to-do’s, and, every so often, we take advantage and play 18 holes of golf or grab lunch together. The freedom is tremendous, but mid-day on a Tuesday, my partner can get called away on a trip, or one of my clients is having an emergency, and, like that, we are switching, adjusting, and re-planning.

On a typical day, I’m up early. My “scrolling” through news, emails, my calendar and social media typically happens long before the house is awake. I do not handle ambiguity well, making ever-changing schedules a challenge. In order to create balance, I like to get a jump-start on the day as a way to mentally prepare for whatever changes may come our way. By the time everyone is up, I’m reasonably up-to-date.

The morning routine is one of the only consistently repeated patterns in our house.

***

Not long ago, I began to notice something unusual in the morning routine. My partner would make their way into the kitchen, pour their coffee, sit on the couch and start scrolling or going through email. Every once in a while, they would ask if I needed help, but, for the most part, they were engrossed in whatever they were reading.

I’d continue to go about our morning routine. The typical morning mayhem with a toddler is happening all around us, breakfast is ready to be eaten, phones are buzzing with emails or news, and the TV is going in the background. Some of this would catch my partner’s attention, but not much.

Why hadn’t I noticed them doing this before?

I know I’m feeling triggered, so in my head, I’m telling myself all the beautiful things he does for our family and me, so the feeling ruminating deep down will go away. I’m ticking off the flowers he bought me, laundry he washed and folded, the dinner dishes he did. Tick, tick, tick.

But it’s not working to quell my rising emotions.

Photo by One Shot from Pexels

***

Keeping score is reflexive for me. I don’t even know I’m doing it until I’m already in deep. The imaginary scoreboard in my head is ticking off — 1, 2, 3, 15, 20. I feel the joy of winning mixed with irritation that “winning” means I’m losing. I’m playing a losing game with myself, my attitude is awful, and all I’m doing is waiting for the right moment to pounce with my high score.

Suppose I am having a stellar morning, and keeping score is not enough for me. In that case, I will add a downward thought spiral of gender-role expectations, their views about my work, them not caring or genuinely wanting to participate in this family, or, worst of all, they don’t give a shit about me.

I know what outsiders might say.

• Don’t get upset. Just ask.
• You get upset because you want it done YOUR way and in YOUR time.
• You probably criticize how they do things even when they do help.
• Don’t make them breakfast. I’m sure they’d begin to notice.
• Create a monthly schedule of who’s doing what.
• They probably do a lot of other stuff that I’m not taking into consideration.

Those are all pieces of insight and advice that I have probably used at some time or another. At that moment, standing in the kitchen, I needed communication and resolution to get out of my headspace.

***

I didn’t announce my high score to my partner; instead, I dug deep.

Why is this triggering for me?

What are the underlying issues?

What is actually going on?

Two things came up:

1. I have an issue when my partner asks if they can “help.” In my mind, help implies what is happening at that moment is my job, and they are “helping” me with my job.
   When schedules change, it’s typically me left to pick up the brunt of household duties.
2. Standing in the kitchen, keeping a mental score, and getting ready to declare my high score was an “I win, you lose” perspective. Even worse, what I was doing, was “lose-lose.”

A thought came to my mind.

I can’t expect change through anger and criticism. The only way to create change with my partner is to approach them with a win-win attitude.

I realized three things:

1. I am doing this reflexively because of wounding from when I was a child.
2. I am carrying forward unhealthy patterns from previous unhealthy relationships.
3. I am not communicating in a way that is solution-oriented with my partner.

I needed to change the pattern and my approach.

But how do you approach your partner with a solution-oriented mindset when all you want to do is throw scrambled eggs at them?

I took a few moments (actually hours) and said this.

“I want us both to win in the morning. I want you to be able to sit and enjoy your coffee and do your thing, and I want that same thing. What do you suggest we do so we can both win?”

Silence. He never responded to me.

The next day we were doing the morning routine together, and we were both able to sit down and enjoy a few moments of sipping our coffee before school drop-off.

I have noticed a difference in other areas of our relationship as well. We approach each other differently when it comes to our communication about all aspects of our house and individual needs. We are proactive, stay solution-oriented and keep our minds open to all possibilities.

***

In preparation for this article, I wanted to do informal research about people keeping score in their relationships.

I posted polls on Instagram and Twitter.

My question: In your relationships (past or present), have you ever found yourself keeping score of all you do vs. all they do? Yes or No

No one answered, although hundreds of people “viewed” the poll.

This left me with two thoughts:

1. I’m the only person on the planet who has ever done this.
2. No one wants to admit that they do it or have done it.

The fact that no one even responded “no” tells me that #2 is probably the correct answer.

***

Here’s your opportunity with your partner:

1. Approach conversations with a win-win attitude. If you are not in a mental space to do this authentically, take some time to find the right space.
2. Pick the most critical area that needs attention, not everything.
3. Let them determine a solution. When something is our idea, we are more motivated to keep it up.

If this approach works for you and your partner, you hopefully won’t need to repeat the conversation.

Good Luck!

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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