There are
attributes that define great bosses. One is that they hold the company as a cooperative venture, not an antagonist in a war against the competition. Exemplary leaders treat their employees as equals not inferiors. Service is the driving force, not control, and vision precludes fear. Change is held as a venue for growth not pain. Finally they haven't forgotten that fun has a place at work.
I find this fascinating. The transferability to marriage is smooth. When I creep into a Me vs John mentality, everyone loses.
"I took the trash to the street, so you better bring the cans back," is less about collaboration than earning points.
I cringe when I hear women count their husbands as one of their children, and probably any husband within earshot feels demeaned as well. Respect decreases when we put ourselves on higher ground.
The times in our marriage when I gave fear the reins, life eroded from a partnership to a brawl. We had sufficient material for anxiety when we moved from California to Pennsylvania. His job was tentative, I was unemployed, my manic mother was moving in with us and we left one nineteen year old son behind to forge his own way. But the sun rises on the east coast just as brightly as the west and we built a new normal.
While some of the portals of change that we were squeezed through left me scraped around the edges, that was not always a negative. Having twins was a wormhole I would never want to have missed.
Control is not a friend to mutuality either. I have preferences about how John spends his time, but when I try to strong arm him into it I am less of a wife than an domineering manager.
Last night we were packing up a meal to give to a family with a brand new baby. I started to sing the song we are learning for a wedding next week. He joined in. In that brief shift it became fun, even as we riffled through the tupperware cupboard.
I never heard those particular guidelines when we were dating but I can heed them now. It is not too late to improve our strategies.
