When reading that question you may think, “I don’t have any unspoken rules,” and perhaps you don’t – now. But my suspicion is that you probably have a few, and when you were first married you had a ton of them. You see “unspoken rules” are those ways that we have of doing things that we naively assume everybody has.
For example, when dinner is over – who does this dishes? If you were raised in a household where “mom always did the dishes,” or “whoever didn’t cook did the dishes,” or “we just let them pile up in the sink until it was full before we did the dishes,” then you have experienced what became “unspoken rules.” We all have them. And this is not necessarily a problem – until you are in a significant relationship.
We all bring to the table our assumptions about how life ought to work. And while we might not tell our partner that our way of doing things is best, we probably secretly think that it is. Unfortunately, this attitude is usually made evident by our sighs, eye-rolls, or our snarky responses. Then the trouble starts.
While my wife was raised doing things a certain way and I grew up (some might take issue with that) performing tasks in a different manner – what matters now is – how do my wife and I want to conduct things in our household with our family. It is important that we set aside “what has been” as we together determine “what will be.”
My tip for today is that we approach our ways of doing things with an attitude of understanding and compromise and that we clearly communicate our thoughts and desires. It is a whole lot easier than trying to guess who does the dishes tonight.