Husband Tip #1

My grandfather, who died before I got a real opportunity to get to know him, apparently really had a grasp on philosophies for life.

The story goes like this: My mom was just dating my dad way back when and Dad was doing something or other with his car and requested my mom’s help. My grandfather advised her against helping him with this, but wouldn’t elaborate more than to say “you won’t like it.”

Well, she didn’t like it. My dad got frustrated with the lack of help he was getting and yelling commenced and my mom scurried away in tears.

It wasn’t that Dad was abusive or anything, either. There’s just something about doing a project with a family member that should generally be avoided. It should be avoided ALL the time. The only times I could see good collaboration happening is in raising a kid, or doing things side by side, not together if that makes sense.

OK, imagine you’re building a model plane. You don’t want help building your own model, right? That’s just going to slow you down! They’ll have to find the piece after you take the time to request it, and then what? They’ll be bored while you’re gluing the piece on, right? They’ll be looking at you – staring at you – and you’ll get frustrated. And what if they don’t understand the piece you’re asking for?

It’s just easier to build it yourself.

It’s even more fun to work side by side though. The model plane: you’re building yours while they’re building theirs. That is fun stuff right there. I used to do that with friends all the time. It makes for good times.

So, my husband tip for you (or wife tip if you happen to be of the female persuasion) is to try and not get into anything that could possibly be frustrating just because you THINK you might need some help. You don’t. Trust me. Tack another hour to the project time and call it good. Because there’s nothing worse than getting into a fight over something ridiculously stupid like fixing a car, or building a kid’s pretend dining room.