Somethings you wear what you want to drink . . . or at least that’s what I was beginning to think when I recently got a new coffee tumbler. My old one was suffering from random drips so I opted for a new one that was made a bit differently. The old one allowed you to drink with the tumbler in any direction . . . a full 360 degree experience. The new one had only two holes, each about 90 degrees of open, but no visual cues as to where they were at any particular time. Without a handle or any other reference point I was guaranteed to pick the mug up and inadvertently pour it down my cheek as I tried to drink. Perhaps I am just inept, but the lack of a clue where the openings were was a major problem. I grabbed a Sharpie marker and fixed that by giving myself a little visual clue in the lid top. So far it has held up against the ravages of the dishwasher.
The misguided cup incident came to mind as I realized an issue my wife and I had a few weeks ago in communication. She had some issues with a late bus that caused her to be out the door late from work. Then as she picked up our daughter from her mom’s house she got stuck in traffic and delayed further. She called me and informed me of her woes, and asked me to relay that information to our daughter should she call and wonder where she was. I made mental note of that and proceeded to finish up my work day as well. Later my wife and I had a great amount of discussion about her feeling of being swamped in tasks.
We later were talking about this and I realized some things we missed, just like I had with my cup. When my wife thought she was communicating a need, I thought it was just a statement. My mind didn’t read that as a clue to offer to pick up our daughter, and she was sure that she had communicated that clearly by her actions and statements. I totally missed the alignment marks, and she missed mine as well. Together we were just spilling facts and information over each other but without aligning ourselves and realizing what we both actually meant. What have you recently implied or said that has went totally off the mark with your spouse? Perhaps you both need to sit down and get your own alignment marks to avoid spilling over on the other.