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"A frequent commenter, Emmy, brought up a good point in my last post about what it means to surrender in a healthy marriage. She wrote: &amp;quot;Early in our marriage, I would ask him for help with folding laundry, and then tell him how I wanted it done. After a while, he got frustrated and stomped away. Who could blame him? I was being a petty tyrant! Who cares how the towels are folded, as long as it gets done? I&amp;#039;ve applied that example to many other situations in our 6.5 year marriage, and by not keeping a strangle-hold over the &amp;quot;how&amp;quot; (surrendering to his way of doing things, in other words), I have more time to work on other things. And I know that at the end of the day, he&amp;#039;s going to do his best because he wants me to be happy, and I know that it&amp;#039;s getting done. Win-win situation.&amp;quot;  This is a great example of what I meant by &amp;quot;surrender&amp;quot;. I&amp;#039;m not suggesting one cater to their spouses&amp;#039; every need like a mindless robot, but I am suggesting compromise and a healthy look at what is, and what is not, important to let go. Along these same lines, one of the biggest things that would drive me crazy when Rex and I first married was his hen pecking. Without fail, he&amp;#039;d walk in the door from work and immediately point out something amiss. If I had just cleaned the floors, he&amp;#039;d quip, &amp;quot;Man, it stinks of bleach in here!&amp;quot;  If I left a coffee cup on the porch, he&amp;#039;d remind me about rings forming on our new patio set.  If it were trash day on Tuesday, he&amp;#039;d remind me to put the cans out by 4PM on Monday, &amp;quot;In case I forget like last time.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;His comments are innocent enough,&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;d tell myself. After all, it&amp;#039;s not like he&amp;#039;s beating me or cursing me out. He is simply stating his opinion.  But the truth was, they really irked me. Like a small grain of sand, a few specks here and there didn&amp;#039;t add up to much. But with the dust flakes slowly piling up, pretty soon I had one big mountain of frustration. From my perspective, there were three ways to navigate that mass: 1.Keep on hiking up a hill of irk. 2.Walk around the gigantic pile, not saying anything, but burning inside. (Perhaps filling my canteen with extra Two Buck Chuck to numb out.) 3.Dig a tunnel right through. I opted for #3. Of course, the hole through that tunnel didn&amp;#039;t come easily, nor naturally. I&amp;#039;m a pleaser by nature. I&amp;#039;m also an exploder. But throwing verbal dynamite did about as much good as ignoring Rex&amp;#039;s hen pecking. In fact, it only made things worse.  Finally, I told him how I felt. I did it calmly and rationally. I didn&amp;#039;t need to holler. I knew I was worth it, and I needed him to hear it from a place of strength. &amp;quot;Cut the crap or you can have the cleanest house in the universe since I won&amp;#039;t be living in it anymore,&amp;quot; I said, sweet as pie. Okay, I didn&amp;#039;t say that. Instead, I came up with 3 new rules: 1.Unless the house is on fire or I&amp;#039;m going to cause bodily harm to myself and the kids, don&amp;#039;t complain the moment you enter the house. 2.Know that I respect your need for order, and will do everything I can to stay on track. (Translation: You&amp;#039;re anal, but I love you anyway.) 3.I&amp;#039;m never going to do stuff exactly like you, so stop turning me into your mother. Like one of my favorite songs from RENT, &amp;quot;Take Me for What I Am\u2026 Who I Was Meant to Be.&amp;quot; The song goes on to say, &amp;quot;Take me baby, or leave me.&amp;quot; We celebrate ten years tomorrow. Looks like he &amp;quot;took me&amp;quot;. Let&amp;#039;s hope he continues to take me \u2013 in more ways than one. Happy Anniversary, Rex! * Photo of Idina Menzel from the stage version of RENT.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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