Married With Benefits by FamilyLife

Shaunti Feldhahn: You're not only likely to be happier, but you're also likely to see your spouse's pattern change over time. It's the way God has wired this. This is the Beatitudes: Blessed are the meek. This is one of those things where we are trying to focus on what our spouse is not doing or what we are doing because we think trying to be fair is going to make us happier. That's the reason we're doing it. I'm just here to tell you, statistically, it's actually the reverse.

Brian Goins: All right, you're looking at the white hoodie, so you know this is the intro to this episode. Have you ever heard the phrase, "Every mule believes his load is the heaviest"? It's easy in marriage to overestimate what our contribution is or what we think our contribution is to the relationship, and to underestimate what load we think our spouse is pulling.

Highly happy couples do keep stats on their spouse, but it's not where they're falling short. As we talk to Shaunti, we're going to find out what are the stats that the pros are keeping track of in their marriage.

Shaunti, we're back. We've already done three secrets. It's been a fun season so far. With this secret, it reminded me of the first thought I had when I reread this chapter: that I went back to college. Did you have a college job, or maybe just a job?

Shaunti Feldhahn: I did. All my three summers in college, I worked out on a dude ranch in the Colorado Rockies.

Brian Goins: A dude ranch? If you had to pick 10 jobs and I had a list to pick from and dude ranch was on that list, I don't think that would have been one of my options.

Shaunti Feldhahn: It was awesome. I wasn't one of the wranglers, but we did everything. I was a waitress, technically, but it's one of those where you just exist to serve, basically. You go back to the boss and you say, "What else can I do?" And you go back, "What else can I do?" Then around midnight, you're exhausted. There wasn't a sense of, "I can just sit around, my job's done." No. It was always something at the ranch, at the dude ranch.

Brian Goins: It's fitting you say "exist to serve." The job that I had was I worked at this prestigious restaurant, a world-renowned restaurant called Applebee's. I was an Apple Buddy. That's what they called us. We were servers. I went to college at Liberty University in Virginia, and Applebee's was right down the road, so it was a perfect setting.

I remember the first couple of months, like any serving job, it takes a little while to get into the rhythm, to understand, to manage tables. I remember when I first got four tables how disorienting that was. But after about three months, I'm like, "Man, I got this." I had my four tables down. I was focused.

I remember one night in particular. It was a Friday night. Everything was bustling, and I just grabbed my water pitcher, my tea pitcher, and I went out. I looked at all four tables. They were all eating, having a good time. I refilled everything and came back. I was so efficient. I was like, "This is easy. I've got this. I'm going to nail tips tonight. It's going to be great."

I come back and my manager's looking at me. I thought, "I bet she noticed just how on top of it I am, how far I've come in six months to be this Apple Buddy of the Month." That's really what I was thinking. I bet she's about to say something about that. She catches my eye and she's tracking me all the way in.

She said, "Hey Brian, you doing all right?" I said, "Yeah, I'm doing great. Tables are going good." She's like, "I noticed. I noticed you refilled all your tables." "Yep, sure did." "Well, you also happened to walk by six other tables that all had half-empty water, half-empty tea, and you didn't pay them any mind. You just kept walking by. That's not the culture we want to have here. Here, we want all of us to be looking and seeing, not just my tables, but what about the other tables?"

Shaunti Feldhahn: What can I do to serve?

Brian Goins: What can I do to serve? I exist to serve. It was a perspective shift for me because for the longest time, all I was thinking about was what I was doing and how I was achieving and how I was going to get the tips. Then she really disoriented me to go, "No, it's really not just about you. It's about how you can actually look and help your other Apple Buddies out."

I wish I had had that perspective going into marriage because I think what this secret's really going to hint towards is that for many of us, we walk into marriage and we're thinking about what's on my plate, what's in my tables, what's on my agenda. What do I have to do to work? What do I have to do to take care of the kids? What do I have to do with the chores that I have around the house?

I can get to the end of my day and feel like I've got everything done pretty well and just thinking my scorecard's pretty full. I've done a lot. I've checked off a lot. I would bet my spouse, just like my manager, should be noticing how much I've done for this marriage, how much I've done for this family. Then when you realize that they don't, or they don't even appreciate you, you can start feeling resentful.

Shaunti Feldhahn: It's one of the common human conditions.

Brian Goins: I think with this secret especially, many of us long for our spouse to notice us, to appreciate for what we do. When we don't feel appreciated and we don't feel noticed, it's easy to start saying, "Well, I'm the one who's doing all the work around here. Why can't they see this? Why can't they notice what's on my plate?"

Last episode we unpacked a little bit about how conventional wisdom is not always right. Our typical thinking, our perceptions might need to be changed. You've heard that advice: don't go to bed mad. We found out that highly happy couples actually go to bed mad. They just wake up different than the rest of us.

I think that a lot of us have often heard the phrase in conventional wisdom, "Don't keep score." We've heard that phrase from 1 Corinthians 13, that we don't keep a record of wrongs. But I think what you found is that we can't help but keep score as a couple. I'm keeping tally of all the things that I'm doing, and Jen's keeping tally of all the things that she's doing. That's just the wrong score to keep.

Shaunti Feldhahn: One of the things that we saw so clearly—this was one of the most clear statistically of all of the secrets—is the happy couples actually, they do keep score, but they keep score of something completely different. Instead, they are keeping score of what their spouse is giving.

Brian Goins: Which really is mind-blowing, just as mind-blowing as when that manager told me it's not about your tables, it's about helping other people out. Why is it in marriage it's so easy for us just to notice and feel like what we're doing? I heard the old phrase, "Every mule believes his load to be the heaviest." That's what we think. It doesn't even matter how we divvy up responsibilities or chores. We think that what we're doing is the most hardest.

Shaunti Feldhahn: You ask why do we do that? I think it's called the Garden of Eden. I think it goes all the way back to sin, brokenness. From then on, our attention is always going to be on us. It's all about me, me, me. Listen, that's understandable. We're all human. We're not saying it doesn't matter what you do. Of course it matters. That's part of serving.

But one of the things that we found in this study that was just so eye-opening is instead of focusing on your serving and what you're doing, actually flip it and focus on what your spouse is giving. If you do that, here's what happens.

When you start going, "Oh my gosh," and I'll give you an example. I think I actually tell the story in this chapter where I came downstairs one night and Jeff is—it's late at night—he's starting a couple loads of laundry. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't know that there was laundry." We talked about how I'm always not the best at keeping things neat. He was quick to point out that my expectation was that she would actually be clean, which surprised me.

I'm the messy one, he's the neat one, but that also comes with him noticing the laundry and I just don't notice it. So here he is putting in loads of laundry at 10:00 at night and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Let me help." He's like, "No, honey, you have been on airplanes, you've been doing all the research interviews." I'm like, "Who's talking? You were doing all this legal work for whatever and you didn't get home until 10:00 at night last night because you were so busy with this other stuff." And he's like, "Yeah, but that's nothing to what you've done."

You see how that goes? We started laughing that we're arguing at 10:00 at night about who should be the one doing the laundry in the good way. Like, "No, let me." Because I was so attuned, without realizing again this was one of the secrets of the happy marriages, but I was so attuned to everything he'd been doing that week. He had just been working his tail off. So I'm like, "Okay, this is the least I can do."

Here's my suggestion for everybody. Write that down. Write down the words, "This is the least I can do." Because if you have the mindset of looking for what your spouse is giving, you're going to see it everywhere. Then you're going to start feeling this incredible gratitude and think, "Oh my gosh, what can I do? Well, the least I can do is such and such. What can I do?" It's almost like me at the ranch, going back to the boss and saying, "What's the next thing I can do?" Only instead of doing that because they were paying me to, it's coming from a place of, "Oh my gosh, at least I can do more this way because you've already done so much here."

Brian Goins: How do you get to that shift? Because that's significant. If it's natural bent of the struggling couples or even just the happy couples to be like, "But you gotta understand, I'm tired. It's at the end of the day. I'm just recounting all that I did with the kids and making sure their homework was done, and then I had to put food on the table, and then the dishes are still in the sink." Where do I get that mindset to be able to go, "Okay, now I'm going to focus on actually what my spouse has done all day"?

Shaunti Feldhahn: It is definitely a mindset shift. When you talk about the habits, this is an example of one that has to just be a habit. However, building the habit is not nearly as complicated as you think because right now, most of the time we're not focusing on what they're doing. We're focusing on what we're doing, thank you very much.

The minute that you start looking, you'll see it everywhere. The minute you actually let yourself literally even keep a list, the minute that you start looking, you're going to see it.

Brian Goins: That's what happened that night at Applebee's. Up until six months, I had never seen the other tables. It's not that they weren't there. I just wasn't focused on them because I was just focused on my lane. To be able when she actually pointed out to me and said, "Look at all those other glasses," from that point on, I couldn't help but when I left my table just take my eyes and go, "Oh, that person needs some water."

It wasn't that hard. That's the thing. The least I could do is actually fill up their water or their tea. I like what you talk about in the book about the canoe principle. Talk about what the canoe principle is.

Shaunti Feldhahn: One of our couples that we were interviewing, one of the highly happy couples, gave us this word picture. This is what they call it in their own marriage: the canoe principle. It's a mindset shift. Once they got that analogy, they realized how easily a canoe tips.

You have somebody in the front, somebody in the back, and if one partner leans left, well, unless the other partner leans right, you're going to tip over. Things are not going to go so well. So it's almost this, "Oh my gosh, look what they're doing. Okay, I need to do something over here."

It's not a tit-for-tat, "I owe you," because that's going to create resentment really fast. This is literally just coming out of the depths of my being because I'm so grateful for you. It's building it as a process.

Brian Goins: As opposed to if one partner's going, "Look what I'm doing all over here on the left," and the other's like, "Well, look what I'm doing over here," and if you keep saying that and you follow that out, you flip them over. Then you feel like it's really hard to flip the back over.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Speaking of flipping it back over and speaking of the things that tip the canoe, in addition to saying, "Oh look at me," which will capsize a canoe pretty quickly, it's recognizing that you're now starting this new life and this new mindset of doing these things with the right motives.

Because that's an issue. Jeff and he wouldn't mind me sharing this because he's said this from the stage in some of our marriage events—but he would be like, "If I want to make Shaunti feel bad, all I need to do is go load a load of laundry, or do the dishes, really loud, slamming the door." Making a point. Candidly, that is one of those things that's not only going to tip over the canoe, that's going to actually keep you down there for a bit. It's hard to get back from that.

We were talking with Bruce, our producer, about this a little bit. Bruce, you were saying this is something that you deal with a little bit in your marriage, right?

Bruce: Yeah, I can turn anything into a sin, even doing a good work, even serving my wife, but I'm doing it to talk about keeping score. I'm saying, "Look, there's another point for me," even though I'm doing the dishes for her, quote-unquote. There's another notch on my side of the ledger.

Brian Goins: The whole thing about keeping score is I want to win over my spouse. Well, then you're married to a loser. You'll constantly see them as a loser.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Which is the problem. That is the reason why this is so crucial and was so statistically valid in terms of the difference it made in the happy marriages. We should probably talk about someone who is going, "But what if I am giving more?"

I've spoken at marriage conferences and there are inevitably people that come up and go, "But you don't understand, I'm the only one pulling my weight around here. I'm married to somebody and they're not doing anything." Sometimes that is absolutely true, and that is hard. We need to talk about that here.

The next point we always have to be so careful with. Many of the times, I'm not a counselor, but if I'm standing there at the book table and there's some extra time, I'll ask. They pour out their heart. Sometimes those are really significant issues. Sometimes I see, you know what, yeah, there may be an issue there, but I think a lot of this is your perspective.

I can still remember—this actually was not that long ago—it was at a women's retreat. A woman was talking; she had several little kids, and she was talking about the fact that her husband just didn't help with the kids and he never made dinner. When I started getting into it, he was working 50 or 60 hours a week. He would get home every night at 8:00. Well, of course he's not going to make dinner.

It's totally understandable for her to want help with the kids. Well, that's a discussion that you two need to have. Maybe he needs a different job in order to meet those desires and those expectations. But he is pulling his weight in a different way than what she was looking for. It was just a perspective shift.

Now, I'm not in their house. So maybe he's a slob and makes a lot of extra work for her. That absolutely could be the case. But a lot of the times, it is actually a perspective shift. I don't want to say let's just assume it's always that they're correct that their spouse doesn't do that.

Brian Goins: But like we said, one of the foundational secrets is this is a part where you can believe the best. What if I choose to actually believe the best and maybe move into their world and ask a question like, "What was the hardest part of your day today?" or "What are you most stressed about?" Those are super important questions because our goal here is that if you're feeling that way and if you're feeling like your spouse is the deadbeat, taking advantage of you, etc.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Stop living in that darkness of that dark perception. That's not where we want to stay. It could be that you might realize, do we like the season we're in? Because we made the choice to work in the job we work in, the choice to stay at home with the kids. You can change your choices.

Brian Goins: Do we need to renegotiate our life? Because I'm finding myself resentful and I would love to be working a little bit and maybe you can cut back. You just don't know until you actually have the conversation. But here's the key: the conversation is never going to go well if you're both pulling on the same side of the canoe and you're on the verge of tipping over. If you're coming into that conversation with the lead foot of resentment. Paul says to put away malice and anger and all bitterness. So if I'm leading with bitterness, that conversation's not going to go well.

Shaunti Feldhahn: But if you lead with—and this truly is radically helpful, I can tell you this personally—if you lead with, "I'm going to notice what they're giving. I'm going to notice what they're doing. I'm going to notice what burdens they're carrying," and even asking questions about it, and then you start seeing it everywhere, then you go into that conversation much more peacefully. It's not resentful, it's not defensive because then it truly is a creative problem-solving: what do we do?

Brian Goins: Is there a moment where you might need to get an objective party if you really feel that resentment so deeply?

Shaunti Feldhahn: Yes. But here's the thing: just keep in mind, if you're getting help from a professional, mental health professional maybe, or a pastor, counselor, whatever, be aware that what you're going to be getting help for is things like, "Okay, how do I deal with the resentment?" as opposed to what you probably want, which I totally get, of, "Okay, I need an objective party to tell my spouse what they're not doing."

It's interesting. I worked on a book called The Secrets of Sex and Marriage with Dr. Michael Sytsma. Writing that book with him over the course of three years was fascinating. One of the things that he said over and over and over in our every Wednesday meeting was the goal of any counselor is to not be the negotiator. Try to find out what the true situation is, try to find out who's actually giving more, try to find out who should be doing the dishes. Which spouse do I pick to validate? Exactly. The goal of getting the help has got to be getting you to communicate, and communicating well and in a healthy way. So just be aware you may want to go into the asking for help in order to get validation for your point of view, and a good counselor is not going to do that.

Brian Goins: Going back to this whole idea, highly happy couples, the secret is they actually keep score, but they're keeping score on a much different ledger. They're actually looking at what their spouse is doing and keeping score of all the good things that they're giving to the marriage.

It reminds me of Romans 12:10 where Paul says that we are to outdo one another in showing honor. We're not to outdo one another in scoring points. We're not to outdo one another in just "I'm doing far more than you." No, it's how do I honor this person?

I like one of the quotes that you have in your book where it says, "If you focus on what you can do to serve your spouse during their busy times," and this is the key, "without worrying if they do the same." You don't do that just to prove something or to show something or, "Okay, they're going to come back and give me mine." Without worrying if they'll do the same, you're not only likely to be happier, but you're also likely to see your spouse's pattern change over time. Talk about why you actually see a change in the very thing that you want.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Well, it's the way God has wired this. This is the Beatitudes: Blessed are the meek. This is one of those things where we are trying to focus on what our spouse is not doing or what we are doing because we think trying to be fair is going to make us happier. That's the reason we're doing it.

I'm just here to tell you, statistically, it's actually the reverse. Like statistically, you are going to be far happier. This is not just my research, by the way. There is a lot of research, starting with the Harvard Center for Human Flourishing on to many, many other studies that has found that if you actually switch that mindset and focus on what they're doing that you can appreciate, and you can actually give them more because now you feel like, "Wow, like I really need to do something more," you are far more likely.

Our numbers, for example, and actually Brad Wilcox actually at University of Virginia actually did a data run for us on this as well because we were so fascinated by what we were seeing, and he had done this massive study as well. He found in his data run that the highly happy couples, 79% of them are constantly doing these little things out of gratitude for their spouse.

Brian Goins: Like what? What would the little things be?

Shaunti Feldhahn: Little things like, "Oh, you know, here, honey, let me, you know what, I'll go to the grocery store for you. You just sit for 10 minutes and I'll go to the grocery store." Like that's just a little something. Or little acts of generosity like, "You know what, I know you've had a really hard day, and it was supposed to be my turn for dinner. You chill for a minute. I'll do it. Let me text you during the day and just tell you how much I appreciate you."

It could be anything. These little actions of generosity, these highly happy couples, 79% of them did those things on a regular basis. This was the habit. Well, guess what: amongst the so-so and struggling couples, it's only 23%. What we were finding is it's because of where their minds are. If we can be constantly looking at the other person and going, "Oh my gosh, they really are, they're working 50 hours a week," or "They're doing this or they're doing that," then it's just the least I can do.

Brian Goins: Bruce actually had a great point on this. I'm going to bring him back in. You kind of did this moment of generosity where you decided, "I want to make sure that my wife gets some time at the women's retreat," which meant you got her typical job of watching the kids. What did you discover in that process?

Bruce: Well, first of all, let me be very noble here and say it wasn't an act of generosity. This is baseline. It's both of our jobs to watch the kids. So this is not extraordinary or anything like that. But it's a wake-up call when I have the kids for a morning and an afternoon combined—it doesn't even need to be that long. Yeah, what I get done is the kids stay alive. That's my accomplishment. That is the baseline.

But what I expect from her if I'm out and she has the kids for a day is laundry, she homeschools, do that, can you also clean, and this and that. It's like how that is so unreasonable, but I don't realize that until I have to be put in that position.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Well, and you know, it's interesting that Bruce mentioned this because we should also talk about the flip version of this. One of the things that we heard from a lot of stay-at-home husbands—because we talked to a lot of people of all sorts of different patterns—and there were plenty of women who were like, she's the doctor, and so all the kids are young, he's going to be more likely to be with the kids.

It was interesting listening to some of these men process where they had been working and thinking the kids are whatever, and then they actually start this process and it's like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize how much time it took to fill out all the school forms, for example, or every time there's a field trip, this three-page thing that you gotta sign and scan and get notarized."

Those kinds of things are often for the, for example, if you then when you have the husband who has the stay-at-home mom wife and he's thinking, "I am the one working all these hours and what are you doing?" Well, there's a lot, like Bruce said, there is a lot that goes on with that. All those forms, the doctor's visits, all the things that you don't even think about.

Brian Goins: And typically it's like we come whenever we meet back together, it's interesting how if your mindset's in the category of not being generous, you'll start to look through the lens of whatever value you value most. If that thing is not done, whether it's cleanliness, whether it's making sure the kids are okay or that they've done certain activities, whatever it might be, that's what you judge on without ever even asking, "I wonder what else filled their day?" Because it's probably because they've been focused on a different value than you had.

Too often it's like, again, I'm just looking at my tables. Those are the things, those are the values that I hold on to. It's such a different mind-shift, perspective shift, and it's exactly what the Bible talks about. Jesus said, "Give and it will be given unto you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together will be poured over into your lap."

If you want to have a marriage of great generosity, I've actually got to give first. I've got to actually measure the health of my relationship. Jonathan Pokluda said this in our Art of Marriage series where he said, "What if the health of your marriage was based on what you're giving, not what you're getting and not what you think your spouse should be doing for you?"

He shares a story about how he was going to bed one night and right as his head's hitting the pillow, right as he's gotten all warm and toasty, he hears his wife go, "Babe, I'm thirsty." And his first reaction is, "That's interesting, because I'm ready to go to sleep." It's in that moment, it's like, "Okay, am I going to choose to be generous?" Something small, and yes, it will be a momentary inconvenience to get back up, get out of your routine, and maybe fall back asleep again. But when couples actually model that, you're 79% of couples that are being generous, looking out for the best.

Shaunti Feldhahn: One of the things that we found—this is a totally different research topic—but when we were doing the 30-Day Kindness Challenge, it is absolutely fascinating to see in the numbers that this is a one-sided thing. You are doing this for somebody. They often don't even know you're doing it, and it's 30 days and you're keeping track of, "Am I not being negative? Am I saying the positive? Am I doing little things of generosity?" And it's all one-sided 100% of the time.

What we found that was fascinating: not only did 89% of relationships improve, which maybe isn't as surprising, it's that 66% of the people who actually did it, they felt more loved and appreciated.

Brian Goins: Even though they were the ones doing all the work.

Shaunti Feldhahn: They were the ones doing all the work. The other person often didn't even know they were doing it. And yet 66% said they felt more loved and appreciated.

Brian Goins: All because they were challenged to actually initiate kindness, to stop keeping score of what their spouse was doing or not doing. Once they made that mindset shift, then their relationship changed.

Even as we think about this, how do I apply this secret? We want to talk about what are the easy things. I love about this whole series that a lot of what we're going to talk about is really surprisingly simple to do. They're easy to do. So what are the little steps that we can do to go in the same direction? It's going to be all about changing your mindset, so it's going to be stopping a certain mindset or thought or pattern and starting something else.

We've got four of them. The first one is we gotta stop the mindset of, "He or she should notice what I'm doing." Just even that is a big thing to just stop. I need to stop expecting them to see all the work that I'm doing.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Let's point out that there's nothing inherently wrong with, for example, wishing that your spouse would notice. That is a human thing. There's nothing biblically wrong with that. Don't hear us saying that. The key is we're trying to help you build a new mindset, and here are four ways that you can get there.

Brian Goins: And you'll end up actually probably getting more noticed. That's the thing. Because if both of you are listening to this and you're talking about this, you're like, "Yep, we don't do that naturally."

So let's stop first that mindset of, "I'm expecting them to see what I'm doing, all the work that I'm doing," and start with this mindset of dying to self, of what Jesus said, "Give first. Be the first mover. Be the first to be generous."

Shaunti Feldhahn: Make the decision that you are just going to do this whether or not your spouse does anything. Like all these other secrets, all but one of them work if just one person does it and creates a happier marriage.

Brian Goins: The stats don't lie, Scripture doesn't lie. So let's stop that mindset of expecting to be noticed. Start the mindset of, "I'm going to choose to die to self. I'm going to choose to be the first mover. I'm going to choose to serve them regardless of what they do back for me."

Secondly, stop keeping score of what you're doing. This is hard, because I want somebody to notice so badly. If they knew all the stuff that I did. Now I'm going to actually start keeping score of what my spouse is giving to me.

Shaunti Feldhahn: This is the basic premise of the whole thing, but it is building a sense of gratitude, which all of us know is important. But here's the problem: in order to have that sense of gratitude, you actually have to notice. It's not going to just come up out of nowhere.

Brian Goins: There's a reason why we have to teach our kids and train our kids to say thank you. You know, the early church fathers would speak of gratitude as a discipline. Thinking about that, it's a discipline. It's something that I don't naturally do that I've got to train myself to do.

We have to train our kids to say thank you. We don't have to train them to be selfish or to say the word "mine." That comes so naturally. But I have to actually train my kids to be gracious, to be grateful, to actually notice the things. Otherwise, we train entitled kids. I think we have a lot of entitled spouses that we have stopped training ourselves to notice what our spouse is giving to us and just saying thank you.

That could be as simple as at night, at the end of the day, force yourself—because a discipline is forcing myself—to write down maybe five things that your spouse did right. Or maybe you do it the next morning and then send them a thing: "I noticed this that you did this for me today. Thanks so much."

With Jen, I'm stingy with my praise and trying to be able to remind myself. Because she loves to cook, I'm not the cook. If it was up to me, we'd be having frozen pizzas every night. That's my spiritual gift, is turning on an oven or microwave. That's how good I am in the kitchen. But often I just kind of take that for granted.

Shaunti Feldhahn: "Oh, it's easy for her. That's what she likes to do."

Brian Goins: "That's just natural. I'm sure she loves being in the kitchen for an hour." But what comes easy for somebody doesn't mean that it's not still a labor of love. We also don't know what impacted that whole day before that moment of cooking.

Whatever that might be, whether it's your spouse going to work every day, you don't see them out of sight, out of mind. Maybe think, "Thanks so much for working hard today for us to pay the bills, enduring the office politics." Just taking a moment and keeping score of what your spouse is giving to the relationship.

This third one I think is really big for a mindset shift. Stop keeping score of what they're doing wrong. Because that's really what we do. Instead of being grateful, I gripe. I gripe about what they're doing wrong. That reminds me of a story that you were just referencing not too long ago.

Shaunti Feldhahn: I read this years and years ago in Christianity Today or something. It was essentially a woman who was in a really distressing time in her marriage, basically. It had been all the things, everything we've been talking about, and noticing all the things that he wasn't doing, selfish, blah, blah, blah. I'm sure there were real issues there.

But she finally spoke to her mother or an aunt and basically said, "I just want to leave." And the aunt said, "Okay, come on over to the house and let's talk about it." So she comes over and she is steaming mad. She gets there and the aunt hands her a legal-sized piece of paper and draws a line vertically down the middle of it and says, "On the left-hand side of the paper, let's start by going ahead, write all those things that you're mad about. All the things that he doesn't do."

Her pen could not move fast enough. She actually said, "Okay, there's this vertical line. What's going to be on the right-hand side? I'm sure that the right-hand side is going to be what is it that you do wrong." So the whole list, she was trying to make his as long as she possibly could.

Then the aunt says, "Okay, next to the other side of the line, all the things he does wrong in your mind, write how you respond."

Brian Goins: Oh.

Shaunti Feldhahn: That's where she went, "Oh dang." That was not what she was expecting. Then she had to list it: "How do I respond? I roll my eyes. How do I respond? I go huffiness. How do I respond? I nag at him."

Then a new piece of paper: "Okay, those are real things, right? But you have yours too, obviously. You have your stuff. So now, write what are the things that you can be grateful for. What are the things that you notice that he can do well? He was a great dad."

It is so easy for us to get stuck on just that left-hand side of the page and never notice how we respond and never notice all the good things.

Brian Goins: It's so simple in marriage just to notice the wrong and miss out on all the right that our spouse is doing. Boy, that's good. When we talk about this mindset shift and about how we can start keeping track of the right score, we gotta stop that mindset of, "They should notice me," start the mindset of dying to self. We gotta stop keeping score of what we're doing. We need to start keeping score what our spouse is giving.

If we stop keeping score of what they're doing wrong, what do we do instead? What's the start?

Shaunti Feldhahn: I think what we start keeping score of is what they are overlooking in us. There's things that we do wrong all the time. Like Jen would say, "Absolutely, Brian leaves the bubbles in the sink after washing dishes." And I tend to not really clean up the whole kitchen the way that she would. There are times where she just overlooks that.

There's times where she actually needs to, I need to stop making my spouse a constant overlooker and hear from them going, "What could I do to be a better job of that?" But they're overlooking stuff all day.

Brian Goins: And the key is to be mindful of that. We're not perfect. We have our quirks. There are things that they are being very generous with us about that we do not give them any credit for. Start keeping score of what they're being gracious about with us.

This last one I think is really crucial for a mindset shift. Stop obsessing about the burdens that are on your plate. When I wake up in the morning, that's the first thought on my mind. Lately, especially, I feel like I've been waking up at 4:30. My anxieties are ahead of my alarm clock.

The subconscious is working and it's the things you're carrying, the stuff that's on your shoulders. They are burdens. There's a reason why God says, "Let me carry your burdens," because he knows that we're often not able to carry them well. We're not diminishing these. They are burdens, but all too often, I'm obsessing only about those, my burdens.

How can I start actually looking out for the burdens of my spouse? Because your spouse has it—maybe completely different ones—but they've got just as many. They're another human living in a broken world. They've got all those things too. I may not have even thought about asking them about that. What are they carrying right now?

What's interesting is that the burdens they carry, I realize, "Gosh, I'm pretty selfish." My wife tends to carry burdens that relate to our kids and about what they're going through, that she's worried about Gibson and the fact that he hasn't gotten his grades up. I haven't thought about my kids' grades in a long time. Am I being a good dad? It just reminds me that I don't have total line of sight on everything. There's a reason why they call them blind spots.

So often when we actually ask and seek out what the burdens that our spouse is carrying, we realize that, "I'm glad we're married because I couldn't do this alone." Bear one another's burdens.

Shaunti Feldhahn: Absolutely. I remember when we were early in marriage and I was working at this internship. It was a pretty prestigious internship, and I'd go to work every day. We had one car and I would usually drive it. I would leave Jen at home. We had a year-and-a-half-old daughter at the time.

Rough time. It was an apartment, a small apartment. And I would go out to eat every day and I'd come back from work. I gained like 20 pounds that year, I remember. Going out to eat every time, meeting new people. We met the governor of the state; we were talking to all these leaders. You're having an amazing time.

And I would come back and I would just gush about everything that was going on. I noticed that Jen wasn't as excited about these things that I was. Probably a few months goes by and she's less excited as time goes on because she's recounting the PB and J that she cut up and she ate half of that sandwich that Brantley didn't eat. I got to sit in because it was raining and so I couldn't go anywhere because I didn't have a car.

Here I am thinking she probably had an easy day. What did she have to worry about? She had one baby; there's a lot of moms that have three, and what's the big deal? And the baby's not even going to school, takes naps. She probably had a great day.

I was so short-sighted of the fact that it was a struggle for her, that loneliness, isolation, all the things about, "Am I doing right by this child?" So to be able to step back and go, "Brian, it's not again, it's not about your tables." How do I step into her world and see where she really needs to feel some burdens lifted and actually to bear them with her?

I can promise you something for anyone who's listening to this and hasn't really done it yet. If you go to your spouse on a, maybe not an everyday basis, but regular basis, with curiosity and basically ask the question out loud at some point, "So what do you have going on today? What are you carrying right now?"

First of all, if a husband asks his wife that, her jaw's going to hit the floor. "Who is this? Who kidnapped my husband?" You may get an earful, and you got to be okay with that. This is something that will show how much you care.

All of us inherently want to be noticed and to be appreciated for what we do. I can't do that unless I'm actually trying to see what you're going through and try to understand what you're carrying.

There was a guy that I met at a conference and I just overheard him. His phone rang and he saw it was from his wife. His first comment was, "How can I help you, babe?" I just loved that. How can I help you, babe? Is that just a joke or are you really saying that?

My buddy found out from him that no, that's how he starts most of his conversations. He made it a discipline to go, "How can I help you? How can I serve you?" Jen used to ask me the question a lot. She doesn't ask me as much, but she still has this attitude. I think it's become part of her life: "Is there anything I can do to serve you today?" And a lot of times I wouldn't say anything, but she was actually really asking. Or you might need to follow that up with—because most spouses will be like, "Ah, no, it's no big deal"—no, really. Is there anything I can do to serve you today?

I love this secret, Shaunti. It's super simple to talk about, that we shift from keeping score of everything we feel like our spouse isn't doing or what we're doing to how can I keep score of what they're giving and start becoming more of a grateful person. When that happens, when you make that shift, all of a sudden that canoe in your marriage isn't tipping over.

You know that this is working in your marriage by what you physically do. If you're just a mindset and you don't actually do things to help them as a result because you're so grateful, then it hasn't come full circle yet. You are going to be tipping the canoe the other direction. You're going to do something.

Brian Goins: Thanks for joining us for this episode. If you enjoyed this podcast, please hit like or subscribe. And please leave a review or a comment. It just helps get the word out to more couples so that they could find hope for their own marriage.

If you haven't picked up Shaunti's book that we're talking about all this season long, The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, you're going to want to get that and maybe grab one to give away. Because that's really what we're about here at FamilyLife. We want to help you experience oneness so that you could impact your corner of the world.

We've got a lot more help and hope for your marriage and family at familylife.com. You can find other articles, podcasts, small group resources. You'll want to check that out at familylife.com.