Whinypaluza Wednesday - Working with your spouse

Hello everyone, happy Winey Palooza Wednesday! Ella Bella! No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday! Have some wine and join us on the Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family!

Cha-cha chicken!

Thanks, Ella Bella! Ella Bella boo, we love you! Okay, it is Wednesday night. It is time to vlog. I'm waiting for my husband. So today's topic, this week's topic is— are we close?

Are we good? We're good.

Our topic is working with your spouse.

Bum bum bum.

Before we— okay, you're trying to wake me up, which I appreciate. Before, before we talk about our topic, can we talk about— am I allowed to talk about school?

Yes, go talk about school.

Okay, so I already wrote this before I had school information, and I don't know what's going on in your school districts. I did see that around us one school district did decide to go remote recently. The numbers of COVID cases keep increasing every day, and we are currently— our governor has made us the yellow zone. I don't know if we're into the orange zone. I have to look up.

No, the orange!

You're just the comic relief back there.

Okay, so this is what you paid me for.

So, okay, so we're yellow, which is random testing. So now I don't know if anyone had a chance to watch the YouTube video from our school district, but our school district had a board meeting last night that is supposed to have explained— I totally forgot there was a board meeting, which I'm really annoyed with myself about, but they do post the meeting on YouTube, and I tried to watch it a few times tonight, and YouTube seems to be not working, or just—

or your phone, or the school channel.

I don't know. So I've tried to watch it, so I need to watch and learn what exactly this means about random testing. Do they have enough tests? Do they have people to do the tests? What do I need to tell my children so that they are prepared for something like this? When are they— they're not going— we don't know if they're going— we don't even know if they're going up their nose. So the latest thing I heard is that they're not using the long thing, they're using a short thing to— will you let me talk? So supposedly they're using a short swab to swab their nose and do a 15-minute rapid test. I don't know, I need to watch this video and find out what's going on.

Until it changes the next day.

I have a survey due tomorrow. Asking me if I am going to let my children take part in this random testing. Tell me what your thoughts are. Did you do the survey? What did you say? How do you feel about your kids getting randomly tested?

I want to see the answer key before I take the test.

I just, I just want to know your thoughts. And I did not write about this. I did not write about school because a lot of this transpired very recently, like yesterday. So I'm waiting to hear— my kids are supposed to go back to school on Monday.

Physically, but they're hybrid, they mean.

Okay, so tomorrow and Friday. Um, I said yes to testing, whatever it takes to keep them in school, right, Nicole?

Yes, we want them out of the house.

Well, it's not—

for however many days we can— in their school with their fabulous teachers in their wonderful environment.

Okay, so I want to be clear, I totally—

see, we're working with our spouse, we're going to segue, right?

I know, I totally disagree with you. I think that they need to go to school for them.

Yes.

So, um, tomorrow and Friday they're supposed to be remote all day, and then Monday and Tuesday they're supposed to go back to school if they're allowed to go back to school. I'm afraid they're not going back. Oh my God, please. Nicole has 4 kids. Nicole needs her kids to go to school. So we're gonna find out soon. I don't think our kids are gonna be allowed to go back to school. I honestly am going to be surprised if Monday I'm sending them to school. But, um, I digress. That's not even our topic this week. Yeah, so I just— I want to hear your thoughts. If you saw the board meeting last night, tell us what happened. I'm gonna try to watch this YouTube video if it would work. Um, tell us what happened in the board meeting. Tell us if you're gonna let your kids get the rapid random testing. Tell me what I missed, okay? And I will try to get on YouTube and hopefully it will work. So our topic this week is working with your spouse. Yes. And, um, so before children, Seth went to his office and I went to my office and they had nothing to do with each other. And then we would come back together at the end of the day and we would talk about our days.

Yes, those good old days.

Hey now, cut it out! Then we had children.

Yep.

And then I stayed home.

Yep.

And then I started writing.

Yep.

And then the blog started.

Yep.

And then the vlog started.

Yep.

And now the podcast has started.

And I will toss out there that the blog and the vlog were pretty seamless in our working relationship Everything to me seemed relatively good. I, I would toss out that things went a little bit— we had more challenges when you started doing the podcast. Would you agree with that?

I think we had challenges back when we were doing the book, and I think that, yes, we had challenges on the book but not the blog itself. So Seth's company, marketdominationllc.com, Seth's company Um, takes care of all the behind the scenes of the blog, the vlog, the podcast, the book. Okay.

Yes.

If you think about our conflicts, and we will tell you about the latest one that, that inspired—

we do fight.

I'll tell you about the latest one that inspired the blog. Yes. Um, back when we were doing the book and all the conflicts, as you think about all the conflicts, one of the themes is a lack of— so Seth has clients who are not his wife.

Yes, you don't pay me enough.

I'm gonna throw myself under the bus with the things that I do wrong.

Me too.

But I'm gonna throw you under the bus because I am the bus. What? Because what you do, one of our patterns— yes, and I'm telling you this because I'm trying to help us and other people.

Yes.

Is that when you work with your spouse, you're not necessarily laying out like, these are the steps This is what—

I have not treated you the same way we would treat a regular stranger client.

So I think that that— I think that that's good in some respects.

Yes, you get extra VIP treatment, but it is bad. It leads to conflict in other respects because I'm just out there doing stuff and you don't know what's going on, or you don't necessarily always agree with what's going on. And because we didn't explain it, there are some other conflicts that arise.

I just don't think that sometimes I know what's going on and I don't know what my role is and what my role isn't. 100%. A perfect example is scheduling clients.

Scheduling interviews.

I— scheduling interviews, they're not clients.

Podcast interviews.

The podcast has been— the product is amazing, and I have told Seth that his team has magic going on. Yes. And I love the product that they put out. However, there's things like things that I assumed, so you can't make assumptions. You have to ask questions. But you have to ask me questions and I have to ask you questions. Yes. And we have to be more polite to each other because it's like if we would talk to each other how we would talk to a client or how we would talk to a boss, you would not want to fire them. We wouldn't feel how we feel a lot of the time. And part of it is—

so we get frustrated.

Part of it is the baggage. So Seth, yes. So Monday night, Monday.

Yes.

I pick up Lily at school. Now I'm gonna start with, I had a lovely day by myself, ruined it all getting stuff done that I needed to get done. I pick up Lily at school. Lily has a complete tired meltdown. I drop her and Ella off at theater after being drained from Lily. I take Max to the chiropractor, listening to Max moan and groan the whole way there and back.

If you are not familiar with Max's dramatic, oh my God, I'm gonna die expression of minor physical ailments, Please refer to Rebecca's blog or book sections Max's Foot Injury Part 1 and 2.

You're talking about the Winey Palooza book.

The Winey Palooza book.

In the Winey Palooza book, Seth talked about Max's foot injury and it's hysterical.

His multiple foot injuries.

It wasn't hysterical at the time.

No, writing about it in retrospect was funny. When he was screaming he was gonna die and we were new parents.

We weren't new parents, he was like—

He was 5. We were new to— Max had never done that before.

Okay. We were new to Max's drama of getting hurt.

Yes.

So Max is, Max is playing football. He's playing soccer. And although they canceled football, but that's a whole nother discussion.

Yes.

He was playing football. He was playing soccer and he has started weight training. Yes. So he's holding himself, telling me he's in pain. Well, well, he probably lifted too many weights and he probably needs to take it easy. He hurt himself somehow. So we're going to the chiropractor, he's moaning and groaning in his seat next to me. By the time I get home with him at 6 o'clock and I'm completely fried, and Seth casually says, because he doesn't know it's gonna piss me off—

I did not.

Your interview rescheduled, but don't worry, I put someone else in the exact same spot, so you're good. Okay, so from Seth's point of view—

I'm awesome.

Isn't that wonderful that he even—

I found someone to fill in the exact same spot you were already expecting to do an interview, and I found them in like less than 2 hours.

And you, and you find me great people. The interviews have been fabulous, and you're booking them for me. Yes. And it's a, it's a wonderful service, and I need to be more appreciative. Yes. And he didn't know what I had dealt with with Lily and Max.

I did not.

And so I bark at him, which you wouldn't do—

is an understatement—

you wouldn't do to someone, you wouldn't do to someone you work with. I was in wife mode, I wasn't in client mode.

And that's a good point. You need to say, honey, can you get into client mode right now?

No, because wife needs to to be nice too. And if we talk to our spouse how we talk to a client or someone we work with, then we'll have less, less issues with our spouse. That's awesome. They deserve to be treated the best.

That is great advice.

They do not deserve our baggage. They do not deserve our displacement. My displacement of Max and Lily— your anger and frustration snapped itself. Yes. And I was like, what do you mean she rescheduled again? And I was so pissed because I was excited for this one and I had worked on questions for her and I was like ready. I was all ready and all excited.

She already scheduled once before, so it was the second time she was let down by someone who was not me.

So I'm like, oh, and he's like, I quit.

Yeah, I tried to quit.

It did not go well. And I'm sorry, but like I understood his frustration and right in that moment When your husband or wife does something wrong, you have the choice. Am I going to make the situation better or am I going to make the situation worse? Yes, we both made it worse. Now mind you, I should not have snapped at him. I was mad at myself for doing that. He was being nice and helpful. I thought I was. But he says, "I quit," and makes the situation worse, and I see red.

Yes.

And I, you know, like, you just, you can't say that. So then of course I'm off to the races in my mind and I'm like you quit? I quit! This sucks! I'm not working with you why did I think that I could work with you ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba and I'm like screw this I'm not doing this anymore and it's caused too many marital conflicts and our marriage is more important and my head is racing in a negative way yes okay then my mind starts to regroup It took some time. I don't know what time my mind started to regroup, but I—

it took some time. It started 30 seconds.

I started to think about how much I'm enjoying talking to these women, how much I'm getting positive feedback.

We got over 100 5-star reviews in like a couple weeks. It's amazing.

I started— awesome. Thank you, honey. I, um, did an interview with a lady just recently and she was like, oh my God, I just loved talking to you. This was so wonderful. I'm getting— I know that it's a good thing. I know that Seth and I are magical together. I know that he is— The devil. What?

Who said that? What?

No, you're magical. We're magical together and we have great skills that combine into something wonderful.

Yes.

If we can figure out—

get the marriage out of the way.

Well, no, no, because in our marriage we have learned how to raise children together, how to run a house together.

I don't run that.

Babe, we have figured out how to be successful.

Yes, yes.

So now we have to take our skills.

Yes.

And we have to transfer them to our working relationship. Yes. And we have to figure out what we're going to do differently so that we don't fight about work because it's definitely, it definitely has happened too many times.

It has.

And I think that the root of it is that I have to, first of all, I have to show more appreciation.

I will never argue with that.

Okay, so you're doing a heck of a lot for me and I appreciate it. Okay, thank you. I think we have to talk to each other so much nicer.

Yes.

You get— I get snappy.

I get abrasive.

And you have no patience for me.

I do not.

And the issue is that he thinks I'm so smart, okay, that he doesn't have the patience to teach me things that I don't know. So for example, um, well, why are you booking my, my interviews? Shouldn't I be booking my interviews? Like, it was an innocent question, and he's like, oh, That impression, that's very accurate. So my point is, I'll never do that again.

That was not an impression.

So my point is, I'll work on that. I understand. Okay, so when I'm asking you a question, I need to make sure I'm asking it in a non-judgmental tone.

Yes.

And yes, the Five Love Languages.

We were not speaking the same love languages. She forgot to give me her secret decoder ring.

So he doesn't know that I quit was gonna make me go off my rocker.

I did not. She did on the list of phrases when we got married that she said never say these things. I quit your podcast was not on that list cuz 16 years ago she didn't know what a podcast was and neither, and it didn't exist.

Oh my gosh. So, so we dress, makes your butt look really small by the way.

See, that's on the list of good things you should always tell your wife.

Oh my God, stop. I'm gonna turn bright red now. Okay, let's talk about what we're doing wrong and what we're we're gonna fix.

Yes.

Okay, so you go first. I started.

Uh, what I'm doing wrong: I'm gonna be more patient with you. I'm going to explain things better. I am going to ask you questions and not assume you know things. I am going to tell you what I'm doing as opposed to just dumping it and seeing where you're on the same page, as opposed to jumping in and doing it for you because you're my wife. We will do a better job of keeping you in the loop of what's going on and asking you questions first instead of assuming things. Because I just assume stuff and that has gotten me into trouble several times. Well, and I think that I'm going to throw myself on the bus because it's you. I don't assume anything usually with other clients, but because you're my wife, I have assumed some things that were inaccurate, right?

But how about just taking me through the same steps that you take other people through?

So that is wonderful, but that is a great idea, and your project manager should be doing that. I technically should not be your account rep. The only reason I've jumped in and done stuff is because you're my wife. Normally I'm not a part of this process, and my team would patiently be explaining every step to you.

I'm thinking—

so you're getting extra work from me that other people wouldn't get because I'm married to you, and part of that is causing conflict because I'm doing stuff that— can I do it? Did I invent the process?

Yes.

Should Should I be doing it? Absolutely not.

Okay. I totally disagree.

I've tried to fire myself from this part of the service.

Okay. So we will work this out. Yeah.

This is that code for you're gonna tell me what to do and I'm gonna try and do it.

No, I appreciate your honesty. See, part of, see, this is a perfect example is I'm breaking our own process because I'm involved. I don't know this stuff.

Stuff.

Yes. And I assume that he's just going to tell me everything because I live with him. Speaking of that, boundaries. We have no boundaries. We're with each other and we talk about work, and I ask him questions. And it was 10:40 at night. I looked at the clock and I had a work question.

Yes.

And I said to myself, you are not asking him a work question at 10:40 at night because he's going to go do it.

And yeah, some of us, some, some of us were trying to go to sleep at that point. And then now I gotta go downstairs and grab my laptop.

Yeah, but I didn't ask. I didn't ask. I stopped myself. There has to be— we have to establish some boundaries. You expect me to drop everything if you have something that has to do with work. It's the same. It goes both ways. We have to have some boundaries.

I agree that we have some boundaries. I don't expect you to— I mean, I don't ask— most of the work questions I ask you are significant. There's— I'm not saying you're not, but they're like, it might be a serious HR— it might be an HR issue. It isn't, what color do you think our website should be? Okay, does that make any sense? Am I saying it wrong? Am I pissing you off?

No, you're not pissing me off. I'm on to technology. I was thinking of my next point. We talked about boundaries, we talked about tone, we talked about the fact that there's not clear steps. There's not. I don't even know.

There is.

You just don't know. I don't even know the roles.

There are very clear stats.

I don't know the roles. I don't know the team. I don't know his team and what everyone's role is. Like, that's not entirely true. I know, I know a little bit, but not enough. So let's talk about technology.

Okay, fabulous. Your favorite topic.

Okay, so I do not like technology.

That's part of the problem.

And I, I'm— I've embraced it a lot. I've had to, right?

Well, if you actually felt that way, it might like you act better.

So teachers have the same issue that I have. They've had to embrace technology, and we're all doing things that we weren't doing before. It's a whole new world. And fantastic point of view. And you have tried to teach me how to do the podcast at home by myself and set it up, and I was nervous. And I think that I did it by myself today. You did do it by yourself today. So now I can— now you can schedule When I'm not home. When, when you're not around, and hopefully not when the kids are around if they go to school. Um, and now I can do stuff by myself at home in my quiet house, hopefully with nobody home, and I can set up the podcast by myself for as long as nobody's home. Okay, so what did I forget, Seth? We talked about technology, our tone, roles, expectations, boundaries, displacement, assumptions. Clear and calm communication.

Yeah, we need some more of that.

So the bottom line for me is to appreciate you and not snap at you.

Yes.

And a lot of, if you look at the theme of why you get pissed at me, a lot of what I get pissed at has nothing to do with you. And you're like, you're like, it's not my fault that someone rescheduled again. Like, I have nothing to do with that, right? So I'm— we're learning. This, this is a whole new process for us, and our marriage is learning new ways of growing as we work together.

Yep.

And I know— and I won't make him want to quit again.

I hope not.

And I won't make myself want to quit again.

I'll try not to say those words.

Oh boy, we're learning.

Yes.

And I am happy to be doing this stuff. I think it's good stuff. And I want to tell you all how much I appreciate everyone who has checked out the new podcast.

iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, or TuneIn, or YouTube.

I was gonna ask you to subscribe. I was gonna ask you to listen. There's a new one every Friday. Um, I interviewed the Peace and Parent—

Peace— oh, Peace and Parenting podcast.

Thank you. Sometimes I get tongue-tied. Peace and Parenting Lady Today podcast host. Yes, but she has more than a podcast.

I know, but the name of it, it's Peace and Parenting.

So yes, it was—

she's not the Peace and Parenting Lady. It was a wonderful—

it was, it was a wonderful conversation.

Are you the lady? I am.

Yes, you're—

yeah, I guess you are.

Yes, I'm the whiny paloozie.

Righty paloozie.

I need to go to bed.

How much wine did you have?

None yet. That's the problem. Okay, so Tell us your topic requests. Listen to the podcast.

Yes.

And, um, tell me your thoughts about school. Are they going on Monday? Are they going to be allowed to go?

Should we take a poll? Should we make a bet?

What do you think, Seth?

I mean, I— Max and I and Elba had a poll. I originally had the over-under on it was going to end before Thanksgiving, so I might win. I, I mean, Max said Christmas, but but we'll see.

Um, I was way too pessimistic. I thought October 1st we would be done, so I'm glad that I was wrong.

Yes, I'll remember that.

Eller, Lily, we need you! Hurry up, close us out, baby!

Do you work with your spouse? How's that going? Give us some pointers.

Thank you for watching. You can't do it off camera. Thank you for watching Winey Foods Wednesday with the Green Family. Ciao ciao, chicken!

I think she's calling that one in there, folks.

Thank you so much, see you next week!