He Said / She Said - Keeping Score

The idea of keeping score in any relationship is not going to end well.  At one time I kept score on many things. I am talking about keeping score on the extreme.  In a relationship keeping score can be whose doing the laundry the most, who is bringing in the most income, things like that. It is an accounting of who did what. 

When a person keeps score it creates conflict. In a game this can be fun.  On the other hand in a relationship it can be destructive.  Feelings get involved, we are emotional beings.  We usually filter our experiences through our feelings which then bring out emotions. Feelings create energy in motion, e-motion.

In the beginning of our relationship there were specific roles that each of us played.  I did the work inside and he did the work outside.  In this aspect alone there was score keeping because if one of us wasn't keeping up with our duties around the house / yard then there was an expectation for the person to pull his / her own weight and do what was necessary.  And the score keeping begins.  When we would fight, these things would come up and feelings would get hurt.  Back then we both held grudges and that was so unhealthy.  There came a point where Rob couldn't do anything right.  I was keeping score and holding him accountable for all he didn't do.   This was so bad I was not able to see the good in him and why I fell in love with him in the first place.  

When Rob and I decided to get back together one thing that we talked about was not keeping score.  We had to appreciate each other for where we were in each moment.  To not keep score we needed to talk regularly and in our talks we began to see where the other person was and how they were feeling.  Empathy became part of our way of life.  It is hard to keep score when you can empathize with the other person.  I often tried to put myself in his shoes so to speak to be able to see where he was coming from or what he was feeling.  

Now there is no score keeping against each other.  We have expectations of generally how things are to go between us and on our domain.  We talk all the time to see where each person is at and we are constantly making adjustments to our plan (if we even have one).  When there is an expectation that is unreasonable or misunderstood we discuss how the expectation manifested, that way we can adjust so that it is more reasonable.  One phrase that is constantly being said in our home is "To manage my expectations...."  Managing expectations helps the score keeping to be at a minimal. 

The actual score that is kept now is how we are doing as a couple against what we did in the past.  We use the past as a reminder on how we want our current relationship to be. 

If you what to ask us questions or have a topic you want to hear about we can write about it next week.

https://steemit.com/reconcilingrelationships/@wwf/he-said-she-said-week-5-keeping-score

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