Doing the same things and expecting different results

It has been a staple of American thought for decades and fodder for late night TV to summarize a person with bad habits as "insane" because they "Do the same things over and over and expect different results."

After decades of counseling people, especially couples, I have decided that helping people to get out of the rut of bad habits that do not work is quite simple but extremely difficult. It is like telling people to stop eating and writing with the right hand. When I reflexively pick up an item with my right hand I am acting from long habit rather than a conscious decision. That is hard to change.

When a woman viciously attacks the man she loves because he forgot to bring home a gallon of milk on the way work it is habit speaking. She is automatically doing what she has always done and it seems right for her to keep doing it.

But when that habit pattern destroys what she really wants, love, then she needs to stop it and develop a new habit. That seems simple enough but most people look at me as if I had told them to stop gravity when I suggest it.

When a man habitually comes home from work late and is unavailable to help his wife and kids it surely upsets the apple cart. He knows it is a bad habit but he just keeps doing the same thing over and over until his wife and kids are disgusted with him. But when I suggest ways he could be on time he is shocked at the possibility of a change.

Here is a simple formula:

If what you are doing helps you get what you want-keep doing it.

If what you are doing is not working-stop doing it.

In the first year of so of my marriage to Karen I had a great suggestion for how she should wash her hair. (This was in the era of curlers and so forth.)Karen was already fed up with my arrogance and superior airs but this was the last straw. She exploded and, looking around to find something to hit me with that was not fatal, picked up a pile of freshly washed towels and smacked me with them.

That was enough to help me see that telling my wife how to do things was not working!!! (I was pretty smart, eh?) I did not completely stop my long habit of arrogance immediately but over time I have gotten better. Why?? Because it was not working. It did not build peace, harmony and romance in our tiny little apartment in Mt. Vernon, Illinois.

Conflict is inevitable but misery is optional. Stop stuff that causes you and your family misery. "Wise up, son!" as my daddy would say.