Discovering the Dream

Since I’m not married (yet) I’ve decided to apply the principles I’m learning from Dr. John Gottman’s book, “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,” to the other relationships in my life.  This week’s principle (#6) covered by Dr. Gottman, “Overcome Gridlock,” made me think of my mom and an old argument we keep having.

Whenever I’m at my mom’s house in her kitchen I get really frustrated.  She has too many dishes.  Right now it’s her and the two youngest, but soon it will be just her.  Yet she still has enough plates, bowls, cups, and silverware to feed all 10 of her kids, for a week a few days, without washing any dishes.  I may only be slightly exaggerating this, but not much.  Principle 6 in Gottman’s book really made me think of this argument. I start by telling her she has too many dishes and asking her why she needs so many.  She replies, “In case we want to have a nicer family dinner and use nicer dishes.”  My rebuttal?  “Nobody is going to want to wash all those dishes.”  Keep in mind, she has 10 kids, 7 of whom are married, all with children.  I’ve tried negotiating with her, I’ve tried telling her over and over she doesn’t need that many dishes, but we still end up in the same place, GRIDLOCKED.

After reading the 6th principle I started to think that I’d like to apply some of the techniques that Gottman teaches, with my mom.  Gottman says, “The goal is to be able to acknowledge and discuss the issue without hurting each other.”  So my plan is to sit my mom down and ask her what her “dream” is.  I want to take the opportunity to really listen to her and get her to really listen to me.  Does she really want to hold onto those dishes for a family dinner, or is there another underlying reason for holding on so tight.  I want to talk to my mom about what my dreams are, for her to have less stuff, thus lessening the clutter in her home and making it more manageable when she’s living alone.

Incidentally I keep having this same argument about her books.  But I’ll take it one step at a time and work on her dishes first.