I love my husband, I love my husband.
That’s one example of a four-word phrase I say aloud when faced with moments of intense rage—like when I came home from an evening out to discover that he had played every single board game we own with our 7-year-old,,,and not cleaned up a single piece. I noticed my internal anger meter rising. I wanted to call him every name in the book. But that’s when I reached for an alternate four-word expression, borrowed from a corporate handbook: “Always assume good intentions.”
The reason it works is kinda obvious. The act of assuming good intentions serves as a reminder that we are, in fact, in tricky situations together, allowing us to reframe a messy moment and reminding me to pause, back up and put myself in my spouse’s shoes. “OK, before I blow my lid off, perhaps there’s more to the story here? Maybe it was a hard afternoon. Maybe the baby started crying halfway into a game of Trouble. Maybe my husband deserves a bit of grace.”
As the former CEO of PepsiCo., Indra Nooyi, once said in an interview with Fortune, assuming good intentions changes your whole approach to a person or problem. “When you assume negative intent, you’re angry. If you take away that anger and assume positive intent…your emotional quotient goes up because you are no longer almost random in your response. You don’t get defensive. You don’t scream. You are trying to understand and listen.”
I’ve put this into practice in my marriage and found that it really works. It’s not about avoiding conflict or conversation around tougher topics (it was irritating that our home was a mess and that I stepped on two Yahtzee dice). It’s more about making room for productive and thoughtful conversation, reducing conflict and achieving an improved way forward together. My husband and I have come to rely on the phrase in matters large and small.
And spoiler: It helps him not get mad at me too. Like when I forgot to book a day camp only to find out the night before that it was sold out. Instead of freaking out, he put himself in my shoes. Life has been crazy busy, this detail fell through the cracks. We unified as a team. And yes, we did split the childcare the next day.
