August 7, 2025

Different Standards

It can be extremely difficult when people who live together, or who are in a serious relationship with one another, have different standards for how the house will be kept, how the shared schedule will look, what to spend money on, and what to make for dinner.

My husband and I have had plenty of wars over all of these things. Sometimes we come to an agreement, sometimes one of us has to accept that we are not getting what we prefer, and sometimes we are just at odds like we are right now. We see so much so very differently. It didn’t seem to matter when we were much younger. And now it’s the same things on repeat.

Being a licensed therapist does not make you immune from marital conflict. And though you may know, and try to communicate the solutions ad nauseam, if the other person does not choose to do to work individually and as a couple to engage in pursuing helpful solutions there are a number of very significant challenges.

This post is not a post about divorce. This post is also not a post about conflict resolution, marital counseling, or reconciliation, growth, or improvement. It is about the dark valley that any of us can find ourselves in when we invest an unfathomable amount of everything that we have and everything that makes us who we are and we find ourselves without that expected return on our investment. We find ourselves wondering how we got to a place of questioning whether all we have given and continue to give has been worth it.

This post is not about whether it has or it hasn’t been worth it. It’s about those moments when it’s almost impossible to remember that there’s absolutely so very much hope and so very much to hope in, despite the imperfections of both human beings in every relationship and despite the state of being on such very different pages and sometimes even different planets of thought and behavior.

I’ve been here before and I am holding space for the weight of all this again today. May you know that I see you and I have been there if you are in, have been in, or will be in a similar position.

When it all felt like more than I could handle today with unexpected words of condemnation coming at me almost simultaneously from three significant adults in my life, I texted a best friend. I set verbal boundaries firmly. And I used ACT principles to practice Mindful Radical Acceptance and to shift my focus back to meaningful work. There are many other worthy tools.

Relational conflicts, even for seasons, can be a very heavy part of the sandwiched stage. Know that you are not the first or the only one to experience this and that you can trust yourself to know what is and is not best.