How to Stop Ruminating About Your Partner

Do you have a place where you rehearse how dreadful your partner is?

For me it was the kitchen sink.

I stood at that sink and this was my litany while I washed dishes. “Here I am. Alone again. Cinderella. I’m the only one who cleans this kitchen.”

We all do it, right? Poor me. My life sucks. Everyone else has it better.

And we want to blame someone for our sucky life.

If you are like me and everyone else I know, the easiest person to blame is your partner.

At my house, it sounded like this, “David never helps me. I’m all alone facing all the responsibilities. I have to do it all.”

I brought these complaints to my kitchen sink and, while I washed dishes and kept telling myself how alone I was with the dirty dishes. I chewed and stewed on my complaints. And very quickly, those complaints turned to criticism.

 

How complaints turn into criticism

Criticism is when you amp up your complaints and you find a personal flaw in the person you want to blame. For me it sounded like this, “David is a lazy slob. David is thoughtless. David is selfish.”

Yikes! I’m really embarrassed to tell you how meanly I thought about David. But it’s true. And I know that so many of you have this Kitchen Sink Voice mantra as well.

What if you could get rid of that voice? What if you could feel your feelings, but not turn those feelings into blaming your partner? Or worse, turning your complaints into personal character flaws, and then criticizing your partner.

Friends, even though I stood at the sink for years and blamed my husband for how bad I had it, and I made list after list for why it was his fault, I am now free of that critical voice.

Completely and utterly free. I didn’t even know this was possible. That Kitchen Sink Voice felt like something I’d deal with the rest of my life.

But it’s truly gone. This transformation of my critical voice to a voice of compassion is one of my proudest accomplishments.

Would you like to know how I did it?

It’s not quick. It’s not easy. But the me I became on this journey makes me really happy, and tremendously free. I underwent an internal renovation of the way I see the world, and it’s changed everything for me.

I’d love for you to have the same freedom.

 

Come to this moment

The very first thing I did was to get in touch with the present moment. I felt the soothing sensation of warm water on my hands. I noticed the silky texture of the soap. I love a good sponge, and I noticed how it felt in my hands.

This sounds like a real waste of time, or maybe a PollyAnna approach, right? But the reason I needed to wake up my senses was that, when you’re complaining or criticizing, you’re living either in the past—I’ve been washing all the dishes by myself since the dawn of time—or you’re living in the future—my husband is a lazy slob and I’ll be washing dishes by myself forevermore.

In order to make any change in life, you need to come to this moment that’s unfolding. Be here. Now. Notice what’s actually happening.

This is harder than it sounds.

Buddhist monks meditate for hours with the goal to live in the present moment. As a species, we’re tremendously tempted to hang on to past hurts, or to anticipate future pain.

This tendency to meditate on past pain or future suffering is thanks to our lizard brain. Remember when we talked about The Lizard Brain? Your Lizard Brain is trying to protect you. But it’s misguided.

When I was able to come to the moment at hand, with my hands in the warm, soapy water, I noticed how much I love my dishes. I love how colorful they are. I love that each dish is different because I picked them up at garage sales over the years.

This is a magical moment. It was the moment I noticed that I love something about my life.

 

See what you love in addition to what’s wrong

I didn’t love everything about my life. I certainly didn’t love washing all the dishes. But I loved the dishes themselves. And allowing myself to come into the present moment gave me a glimpse of the life I did love. The life I’d created for myself one garage sale at a time.

This tiny ability to notice what you love sends a signal to your Lizard Brain: I’m OK. Everything is not perfect, but I’m OK. And this tiny pause allows your Lizard Brain to take a break from its vigilance of warning! Warning! Warning!

This tiny bit of softness—noticing the warmth of the water, or the beauty of the dishes—helps. Because it stops the critical chatter of The Kitchen Sink Voice. It allows two things to be true at the same time:

1. I am tired of washing dishes alone.
2. I love my dishes, and it’s fun to touch them and look at them.

The softness of feeling two contradictory things at once allows me to wonder about the love of my dishes. This wonder is what I began to contemplate at my kitchen sink.

I got curious about why we have so many dishes in my kitchen, and then the door opened wide: we have a lot of dishes because I value cooking real food to feed my children.

Suddenly the stack of dishes had nothing to do with David. I’m not washing dishes because David is a lazy slob, I’m washing dishes because I care about what my children eat.

 

The straw that broke the camel’s back

I used the word “suddenly” just now, and I want to explain what that suddenly really felt like because the truth is that it took years of practicing with my Kitchen Sink Voice to find that suddenly moment.

But it really did feel like a burst or a breakthrough of AHA! when it happened. I guess I would compare it to the pressure on a dam. The raindrops pool up one at a time. Each raindrop feels impossibly too tiny to make any difference. But then, finally, it is one more raindrop that breaks the dam.

You know the saying “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” right? Well, this was something similar.

It was all-of-a-sudden after years of effort.

 

Not sexy. Hard. But deep joy and expansive freedom.

I know that doesn’t sound very sexy. And I know that sounds hard.

It sounds like a ton or work for a ton of time without seeing change. Maybe that’s true a little bit. But what is truer is that I was on a journey—a spiritual journey—to become a better, freer, happier version of myself.

So, even though it was hard, and not very sexy in the sense of instant results, what I have today is so far, far beyond happiness. I am free—completely free—of that nagging agitation and criticism. And my hope is that I can tell the story to you in a way that seduces you to try it yourself, because I want this sort of freedom and deep joy for you as well.

In a minute, I’m going to tell you the story of the actual moment when I realized my Kitchen Sink Voice was gone. So gone that I couldn’t access a single criticism. I couldn’t access a criticism of my husband, and I couldn’t access a criticism of myself.

But before I tell you that story, I’m going to use my advantage of the rearview mirror to articulate the steps I took. And, before I give you my three steps, I want to invite you to find your Kitchen Sink Voice. Does yours live at the kitchen sink as well? Or does it live where you fold laundry? Pay bills? While you sit on hold with tech support?

Now that you can picture your own Kitchen Sink Voice, the three steps to get rid of your icky voice are: criticism > curiosity > compassion.

First thing I did was notice the criticisms I had. The second step was to get curious about whether those criticisms were actually true. Then, third, I extended compassion to myself and to my husband.

Here’s what that looked like with the dishes.

The first step, as I said, is criticism. Noticing the criticisms I had.

Let’s go back to those early days when I stood at the sink. I was the judge and jury, and I was providing evidence that David was a ____ blankety-blank. I filled in that blank with my agitation of the moment:

• David was a selfish roommate
• David was a lazy slob
• David was a leech. Surviving off my efforts.

I gathered piles of evidence to prove my claim in that courtroom of my kitchen sink. If I was proving that he was a lazy slob, I listed how he slept way more than I did. I listed how he fell asleep even though there were dishes in the sink. I rehearsed these pieces of evidence day after day. Year after year.

I used my Kitchen Sink Voice to yell at him. I called him all kinds of names while I stood at that sink. “You selfish slob.” “You leechy suckerfish.” My face would crinkle up in anger. My lips pursed and snarled. My jawbone got exhausted from clenching.

I was filled with righteous indignation. After all, I was the only one doing all this invisible labor: cooking and cleaning only to be rewarded with more cleaning and cooking.

But I didn’t want to be the bitch who yelled. I was too righteous for that. I didn’t yell. Instead, I went silent.

My silence was never peaceful though. It was righteous, virtuous, pious silence. Silence filled with accusation and blame.

 

My cold shoulder was louder than any words I could have spoken.

Here’s the strange thing about righteous indignation: it feels really, really good for about five minutes. I am so right, I don’t have to be responsible for the way I’m behaving. David is the problem here. David is the one who needs to change.

For five minutes I felt pious. And RIGHT. And better.

And then I felt horrid. And wrong. And icky. Because piety sucks. It’s lonely. I was stuck in an ivory tower I had built. All that righteous indignation I cultivated with my Kitchen Sink Voice lacked compassion and connection and humanity.

It’s true that David didn’t do many dishes in those years he was in graduate school studying his eyeballs out. But he was lonely in that cubicle in the library, overwhelmed by stacks and stacks of books he didn’t understand. When I let myself notice this truth (in addition to my overwhelm with the dishes), I was embarrassed I’d been so hard on him.

I was the pinball in an arcade game, bouncing between blame and shame. Getting bonked about between my righteous indignation and my desire for true connection with my husband.

It sounded like this inside my head:

I’m RIGHT!
I’m being so unkind!
He deserves my cold shoulder if he can’t see why I’m overwhelmed.
What is wrong with me? Why am I so mean to the man I love?

Round and round I’d go bouncing between blame and shame. Until eventually I got tired of the pendulum swings on the emotional rollercoaster and I began to get curious about David. Then I got curious about myself.

 

The single most important habit for your marriage

Friends, I began to stay in my own business. Instead of saying, “David should…___” I began to wonder what was happening with Rebecca. With me.

I got deeply curious about what I was feeling. What did I need? What was I making all of this mean? In short I began to ask myself, “How am I contributing to this dynamic of shame and blame?”

That curiosity—genuine and at times fairly desperate curiosity—did something magical.

Curiosity instead of criticism gave me somewhere to go. Criticism was keeping me stuck.

Criticism and blame kept my eyes glued on how David should change. Condemnation and shame had me flogging myself over and over.

Curiosity just allowed me to wonder about what was happening. It allowed me to sit with the truth of my life without trying to fix it. Without attacking David. Without attacking myself.

And sitting there, accepting life, opened the door to compassion.

 

I saw the progression I was forever trapped in:

• Complaint: I’m sick of washing all these dishes. Which turned into a …
• Criticism: It’s David’s fault. Which ignited my …
• Righteous silence: I’ll make him feel the consequences which showered me in…
• Shame: I’m a terrible person

But then I interrupted the pattern with

• Curiosity: Hang on a minute. What’s happening here? Which allowed me to
• Pause and feel: Oh. I’m overwhelmed. I’m tired. Which flooded my body with…
• Compassion: I’m expecting so much of myself. I’m expecting so much of David. More than either of us can humanly accomplish. And that realization allowed me room to create a
• Clean ask: what do I need right now? What would help with my overwhelm? How can I find rest?

That Clean Ask, born from criticism > turned into curiosity > which cultivated compassion changed who I was in the world.

Not all at once.

But it offered me a practice. A spiritual path of transformation from a cycle of blame and shame to the day when I realized I couldn’t access a critical voice. My Kitchen Sink Voice was gone.

 

How to practice curiosity

I’m going to tell you about the patch of grass that let me realize I was free of my Kitchen Sink Voice, but first let me show you how I practiced because I’d love it if you could be as kind to yourself as I have learned to be.

One of my Kitchen Sink Mantras was David never talks to me. That’s a complaint, right? It becomes a criticism when I get self-righteous about it, David is a self-centered poophead and he doesn’t care about my feelings.

You know you’ve moved from complaint to criticism when you attack someone’s character.

I was certain that David is a self-centered poophead was true. My Kitchen Sink Voice is utterly convincing. But, Friends, if you met my husband, even once, you would know that he couldn’t possibly be a self-centered poophead. Like all of us, he has moments of self-involvement, but he is never, ever a poophead.

So why was I so convinced that he was? Because I was under the spell of my Kitchen Sink Voice. The stories we tell ourselves become our truth. We get mired in their drama and we can’t find our way out.

Until we get curious.

The magic question to wake up your curiosity is, “Is that true?” This is the question you can use to break the spell of the lies your Kitchen Sink Voice is telling you.

When I asked myself, “Is it true that David is a poophead?” I laughed. (Laughter is always magical when it comes to unknotting criticism and turning it into compassion.) No, I admitted to myself. David is not a poophead.

The minute I am able to let go of my certainty that my husband is a poophead, my curiosity increases, then why do I feel so badly?

This is a magical moment, friends. When you can let go of blaming someone and let go of shaming yourself for thinking your husband is a poophead and just get really curious about how you’re feeling.

Here’s an example:

There was a reason I felt alone at the sink: I really was the only one who cleaned our kitchen. But what I wasn’t thinking about was, “What is it like to be my husband?”

When I asked myself that question, at first I was petty. “Well, it’s pretty damn great! He wakes up when he wants. He leaves when he wants. He goes to the gym. He has amazing amounts of time to be quiet with his own thoughts.”

This is how our Kitchen Sink Voice frames things. We are the one who is put upon. Your partner is The Lucky One.

What’s fascinating about this, however, is that, when I really checked in with my husband and wondered what it was like to be him, he sounded like the put upon one. I sounded like The Lucky One.

Here’s how it might sound from him, “I sleep just enough so that I can make it through another terrifying day. I have to leave all the people I love and with whom I feel safe and head off to study with people ten times smarter than me. I struggle all day to keep up. Because I’m constantly falling asleep, I go to the gym to wake up my body. Then I head back into that stale library to read more books I don’t understand.”

Isn’t it fascinating?

Name what you are feeling

I was feeling lonely.

My husband was so overwhelmed by his graduate studies and so daunted by demands to talk to people all day long as a medical student that he came home empty of words. Empty of energy.

I was empty too. I was empty and lonely.

And, you know what? We couldn’t fix that. We all want to blame because we want there to be an answer. We want things to change. But sometimes life is just hard. And unfair. And empty. And lonely.

When I was able to have compassion for my emptiness and his emptiness I stopped blaming. I just felt lonely.

Lonely isn’t a fun way to feel, but when I let myself feel lonely and even say to David, “I’m just so lonely,” he immediately stood up from the table and came over to me. He hugged me. We were together in our empty, lonely overwhelm.

That’s not fun. But it’s way better than the alienation my Kitchen Sink Voice provided by telling me David was a poophead and I should give him the cold shoulder. That’s loneliness that doesn’t invite a hug.

That was my pattern: I’d identify a complaint like the piles of dishes or the quiet husband and I’d notice how I wanted to turn it into a criticism. I’d get curious about that criticism which helped me find my truer feelings. Once I could access my feelings, I found compassion.

 

Compassion invites connection.

Connection lets you and your partner be part of the same team.

Over and over and over I practiced this pattern until one day I was looking at the full trash can in our kitchen. I was tired of taking out the trash. I heard a whisper of my Kitchen Sink Voice that wanted me to believe David was a lazy slob because he never took out the trash. But by this point, I’d questioned that Kitchen Sink Voice so many times that I didn’t trust it much anymore.

Instead, I just got curious out loud, “David, I feel like I take out the trash almost all the time. Do you feel like you take out the trash a lot?”

There was no accusation in my voice. I wasn’t even high up in my ivory tower of righteous indignation. I was just honestly curious if he had a different experience about the trash.

Do you know what he said? He said, “Oh. I thought my job was the recycling and your job was the trash.” Mic Drop.

Think how much time and energy I could have wasted telling myself stories about the trash and how put upon I was that I always dealt with it. I might have even had a cold shoulder evening with David if I’d found my way to my self-righteous ivy tower.

I accumulated so many examples of times that I felt a complaint knocking at the door of my Kitchen Sink Voice, but I was curious first and compassion followed quickly.

A different pattern began to emerge. A pattern where, instead of blame and shame, I noticed how I was feeling. I noticed when I was tired. Or hungry. I noticed when I was lonely. Or bored.

When I was able to notice those things, I rested. Or I ate something. I asked David to sit down and have a coffee with me and tell me things. Or I invited friends over for dinner or planned a day of fun on the river.

To be free of blame (and shame) had other wonderful side effects. I felt lighter. I felt happier. I was a kinder version of myself and I looked for reasons that my husband might be out of sorts rather than being frustrated I didn’t have his help.

Compassion, understanding, and a willingness to assume the best was becoming my go-to way of being.

And then our grass got brown.

This is the story I’ve been waiting the whole episode to tell you about.

 

The Brown Grass Voice

I’m the person who typically deals with our yard. I run the sprinklers. I pull the weeds. I plant the flowers.

But our grass was getting really brown in this spot that the sprinklers just couldn’t reach. David said to me, “This grass is getting brown.” I agreed, but I didn’t say anything else.

A different day he said to me, “What do you think we should do about the brown grass?” and I told him I didn’t know.

Then we got in the car to drive to The Tetons for a vacation. We had eight hours in the car with nothing to stop us from talking. We’d had a tiff the night before. I can’t remember what it was about but I was frustrated and didn’t say much.

My quiet triggered an old pattern in our relationship. David felt like I was giving him the cold shoulder. I haven’t talked much about his side of the equation in our conflict and that’s on purpose. David’s story is his to tell, and he’s not a writer and he doesn’t host a podcast.

There were certainly times that David’s response to my cold shoulder over the years made things worse. And, because my quiet evening triggered those old wounds in our marriage, he pulled away and we had some repair work to do.

While we drove he asked me about why I was upset. “I think I was grumpy last night because I was tired, and we needed to pack, and I just wanted to stay home instead of going camping.” But I realized that, now that I was in the car, I was happy for the trip, even if I was in a bit of a sour mood. “I just think I’m still a little grumpy,” I confessed to my husband. “I’m sorry about that.”

David said, “It’s the brown grass, isn’t it?”

“What?” I said.

“You’re upset with me because you think I should solve the brown grass problem, right?”

“What made you think that?” I asked.

“Because every time I mention the dead grass you have nothing to say. You think I should figure it out. You think I should solve the brown grass on my own.”

I had never once thought that about the brown grass. I told him so. I could tell he didn’t believe me. That’s when I heard myself find my Brown Grass Voice. This is what my Brown Grass Voice said to my husband:

It’s true. I agree that the grass is dead. I agree there’s a problem. But I never thought you should solve it. I’ll admit it would be nice if you want to solve it, but I’ve never thought you SHOULD solve it.

I’m getting tired, David. I no longer want to do all the jobs I used to want to do in our home. So I just stopped doing them. When you commented about the brown grass, I did agree. I don’t love it. I wish it were different. But that was the end of it.

I didn’t think it was your job to tend to the brown grass.

But I realized something important. Right then in that moment in the car as my husband and I drove across the expansive western prairie, I realized my Kitchen Sink Voice never berated me and said, “Rebecca, you should get busy carrying those hoses and get that patch of grass watered.” My Kitchen Sink Voice never criticized David saying, “David should get watering that patch of grass,” or “David is a lazy slob who doesn’t water the grass.”

Nothing. My Kitchen Sink Voice was completely quiet on the subject of the brown grass.

It would be nice if we could get that patch of grass watered. Yes. Agreed.

But I didn’t have energy to do it. And not having energy was enough of a reason (finally!) to not water the patch of grass. To not water. To not think I should water. To not think David should water. Not having energy was enough to quiet my Kitchen Sink Voice.

I had followed my 3-C-step formula of: criticism > curiosity > compassion so many times that my Kitchen Sink Voice didn’t have anything to say.

I realized I was tired and overwhelmed. And that was enough to stop asking more of myself. When I realized how I felt, I let myself off the hook. In short, I was kind to myself. And kindness to myself led to kindness I could extend to everyone else.

Want more?

• The single most important habit for your marriage

Links I mention:

• The Lizard Brain