Late Sunday night Ashley and I returned from our honeymoon and unsurprisingly, there was a significant amount of laundry to be done. Ashley tends to wash clothes on warm/hot while I wash on cold. When I threw in my load of laundry, it was set to hot. I suggested to Ashley that cold would suffice and she pushed back that she would be happy to take care of it. I then reminded her that she had had a few laundry “issues” recently with the loss being a few sets of sheets. (stupid move, Nan) I suggested that I would happily wash my own laundry for the rest of our lives with no issues, after all, I had a list a mile long on why cold water washes were better for my clothes. Ashley became upset. I had blown it.
For me this conversation was no big deal and I was wrong. By pushing hard on this I was forcing her out of the role that she has been dying to play her whole life – being the wife, caregiver and person in charge of making our house a home. In this situation, I had made an error in leadership. I was failing to delegate, trapping me into doing something that I didn’t need to be doing and taking a special feeling away from my wife. Hopefully, these lessons will become easier everytime. This particular one spoke to me and it is shaping me to be a better leader overall.
photo by mudpig