Thanks to Willie and Dee Jolley, for sharing this wonderful excerpt from their new book, “Make Love, Make Money and Make It Last.”
Flip-Flops happen. I decided to ask some of the experts what to do when relationships flip. In this newsletter, my focus is how successful couples handle those unexpected flip-flops. The perfect couple to tell us what to do when events flip us out, are marriage experts, Willie and Dee Jolley. Willie shared an excerpt from his best-selling book, “Make Love, Make Money, Make It Last.” Enjoy how Willie and Dee handled their “flip-flop flight.
When Your Spouse Flops…Don’t Flip Out
My wife Dee and I have been married for over 33 years and have not had an argument in over 30 years. But, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been opportunities or situations that could have created major disagreements for us.
We’ve figured out that when your spouse messes up, you don’t need to flip out.
We were scheduled to leave on an evening flight from Washington DC to Greensboro, North Carolina, for my speaking event scheduled early the next morning. We were departing from Washington Reagan airport at 7 p.m. Dee starting asking me about leaving for the airport around 3:30 p.m. She hates being late and rushing. I, (on the other hand), love getting to the airport just before the cut-off time. She continued to ask if I was ready to go because she felt we needed extra time due to rush hour. I reminded her that I was the “seasoned traveler,” and had it all together.
I had calculated the travel time and the traffic, I thought. We got caught in the worst traffic I’d ever seen! The 25-minute drive to the airport was over an hour. Of course, we missed the cut-off time for the flight. I explained to the airline agent about the horrific traffic and how important it was for me to be on that flight. She was not impressed. She told me that our seats had been given away.
As I continued to plead my case to find a way to get to Greensboro that night, Dee just stood by my side and didn’t say a word. Finally, the airline agent was able to get us a connecting flight through Philadelphia that would get us to Greensboro in the wee hours of the morning; enough time to change clothes and wait for the car service pickup for the event. Still, Dee never said a word, and was cooperative throughout the whole mess.
She didn’t have to say a word. I already knew I had messed up! She could have said, “I told you so,” but she didn’t. And I really appreciated that, because I was already beating myself up, and didn’t need any cheerleaders joining in. I apologized to Dee and I told her she was right, and she quickly said, “I forgive you. We are in this together.”
Needless to say, since then, I’ve listened to her counsel about travel times. I learned to flip my flop into a new attitude and a new respect for time. All of this was because my wife didn’t flip out when I created a flop.
Here is the lesson—flip the script and learn to make the most of each situation with a new positive, cooperative attitude.
Share this message with folks who may need some help with those inevitable flip-flops.
