Bette: Today’s question is from Carol. Carol says… My husband is constantly asking me to find things for him. He’ll say; “Where are my keys?”
Michael: Or “Where’s my wallet?”
Bette: I feel like I’m expected to drop everything and help him. What gives?
Well, Carol, you’re not alone. And you would be amazed at how many women experience this with men. The funny thing is that we know, we know where his wallet is. We know where his keys are, and HE KNOWS that we know. So, I don’t know, what do you think, Michael? Why is that?
Michael: Okay. So, the first thing is, we’ve probably grown up in a house where our Mom’s knew where everything was. She kind of trained us. The fact is, that when I put something down, I kind of forget about it. Unless it has something to do with what I’m working on at the moment, I forget where stuff is. We know that we left it somewhere. The other part of it is, we know that our Wives know where they are. It’s something that we go into in our workshop. It has to do with our differences in vision, and the differences in the way our memories are functioning. The fact is, if he needs you to find something, first of all, he needs it right now. Because everything to us is; “I need it RIGHT NOW!”
Bette: It’s critical!
Michael: I need it now! The other thing is, he knows that you know so he’s going to come to you first instead of looking throughout the whole house.
Bette: Yeah. Really, the right response would be compassion. And you don’t need to stop what you’re doing. You can say; “You know, I want to help you but I need five minutes to finish up what I’m doing and then I will help you with that.”
Carol, I hope that helps.
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