G and I have never made a huge deal of Valentine’s Day. However, I do find myself reflecting on our relationship at this time of year. One thing that always pops into my head is something a friend once said to me in high school. He said, “Ya know, all women are crazy and all men are stupid.” While I’m sure there are many who would disagree with this, the comment has been a stroke of word genius for me.

So much stress in my relationships has been relieved just by acknowledging the fact that, while my husband often puts zero thought into something, I always put entirely too much thought into everything. And because I would spend so much time thinking about everything, I couldn’t comprehend someone putting such little thought into something. Therefore, G-Man’s actions (or lack of action) felt like an attack on me. How could you do this to me?

Then another kind buddy taught me, “They’re not doing it to you, they’re just doing it.”

I began to realize that thinking so much about everything wasn’t making me thoughtful, it was making me crazy. From there I was able to broaden my microscopic point of view. It took me years to discover that so many of my frustrations with my husband were completely self-inflicted. And now I’m well on the road to finding humor in the (his) stupidity and turning the volume down on the (my) crazy.