Don’t Burn the House Down: Balancing Perfectionism and Reality

The Mess: Feeling Like I’m Not Doing Enough

The Push for Perfection

I push to get it all done. Oftentimes staying up late into the night and only resting when my back hurts so much I could cry. Even on those days, it still feels like I’m not doing enough. I get disappointed that I didn’t accomplish everything I set out to do before he came home.  When I shared my feelings with my husband he told me I was crazy. 

So helpful, right? Lol. 

He followed it up with a reminder of how much I do accomplish in a day and all while working a full time job and taking care of two girls. Because I taught high school, my husband was always the primary care provider for our girls when he was not on shift.  He knows exactly how much work it requires to keep them happy and healthy. I infamously also put too much pressure on myself. It’s my perfectionist tendency…I’m working on it. 

Setting Realistic Expectations

After our initial talk about this, my husband starting giving me expectations to follow when he is on shift: 

1. Don’t burn down the house. 
2. Keep the kids alive. 

Now, for all my strong empowered women out there balking at the thought of a man laying out expectations for you to follow, pause and take a breath(because I feel you on this one)…hehehe. These “expectations” were created out of love especially for me because my husband could see me spinning out leading up to him leaving for work.  

Years ago before therapy and anti-anxiety medicine, he would find me at the kitchen sink with tears leaking out of my eyes, verging on the edge of a panic attack. Something about the process of him leaving would trigger me at times. After he left I would snap into action and take care of everything, but there was something about the build up to it that left me a little unhinged. When this would happen, he would wrap me in his arms and say quietly, “Hey, don’t burn the house down and keep the kids alive.”  

These words weren’t magical and they didn’t fix my anxiety. Lots of work in therapy and the right medication did that, but they did help remind me to not set unrealistic expectations for myself. It was a small step towards help in balancing perfectionism and reality.

Now, years later, my husband smiles at me while he’s getting ready for shift and says laughingly “Don’t burn the house down and keep the kids alive.”

He rarely finds me crying in a corner anymore, but he still tells me these words before he leaves because he knows I still have a tendency to struggle with balancing perfectionism and reality when he’s gone. 

Acts of Service: The Love Language of Everyday Life

These days in addition to not burning the house down and keeping the kids alive, I always make sure doing the dishes is at the top of my priority list. Early on in our marriage, I learned that this is a pain point for my husband. He HATES coming home to dishes in the sink after a shift, so I make sure to do them, not to appease him, but to give him a gift of love. He feels most loved by acts of service (if you haven’t taken this quiz with your spouse, I highly recommend it; to get my ol’ firefighter to take it, I read the questions out loud to him and clicked the corresponding answers…you do what works right). It’s a sweet gift when he comes home and sees that I loved him especially while he was at work. 

And still I can easily find myself getting carried away with my expectations. Actually at the beginning of this fall season I found myself in that exact situation. Since Spencer was working a 36 hour shift over the weekend, I thought it would be an excellent idea to decorate the house with all the harvest and spooky decor. If you’ve ever decorated though, you know there’s a lot of clean up that has to come first. I quickly found myself spiraling, so took some classic, practical  Spencer advice and made a list.  

The Power of List-Making: Balancing Perfectionism and Reality

Anytime I start to voice my worries out loud over the overwhelming amount of things I have to do, Spencer asks me “Well, have you made a list?” Sometimes it makes me want to smack him (just kidding), because no I obviously haven’t made a list and that is why I’m venting out loud to you.  As much as I hate to admit it at the moment, he’s right! Creating a list helps me when I’m feeling overwhelmed by my work too; it’s actually the new way I shut down for the day. I write tomorrow’s date in a notebook and any remaining tasks I have from today, plus a few I hope to get accomplished tomorrow. 

Back to my crazy plan to clean and decorate the whole house. By the time I was done creating the list, my Moleskin notebook had well over 20 tasks in it. 

No wonder I was spinning out. There’s no way I could accomplish all of this in one day  and by myself. I know it sounds silly, but if I hadn’t made the list I would not have realized the impossible task my brain planned. Anybody else’s brain play tricks on them and set them up for failure with unrealistic expectations? 

Impossible list aside. The girls were relentlessly pressuring me to get the decorations out of the attic. They were stupidly excited to decorate for Halloween. I told them I would, but only if they agreed to take over some of the tasks on my list.  You might call this bribery, but I like to call it delegating. 

Delegation: Letting Go of Perfection and Embracing Reality

With that being said, there are a lot of chores in the house that can be delegated. I try to focus on the tasks that truly only I can do. Embracing delegation has been my secret weapon in overcoming perfectionism; it’s a way to invite my family into the chaos and let go of the illusion that I have to do it all alone

Empowering Independence: Unexpected Chores and Family Contributions

My seven year old loves to take out the trash. This is not a chore I would have assigned to her. I was biased and thought she was physically too small to do it; however, she rocks it. She pulls it out, ties it off, takes it outside to the trash, and replaces the bag. 

She also loves meal prepping, and my husband’s appreciation for this task makes our week run smoothly. He jumps in to meal prep from time to time as well. 

My nine year old hates chores, but she does love freedom. She will put away all of her laundry independently to earn free time. Washing the dirty dishes, means she gets to have a Make it Monday. Make it Monday is when she gets to prepare food in the kitchen by herself, no nagging mom around.

Sharing the Mental Load: Navigating Household Responsibilities Together

There are also mental loads that I can let go of as well, like my kids physical health. Thank you Eve Rodsky for writing Fair Play. It helped me figure out how to make the “Shit I Do” list shorter. She has a great resource https://www.fairplaylife.com/the-cards to divy up the mental load of maintaining household. Because my husband is on shift work, the mental load of daily grind activities usually falls on me. I found though, that there are mental loads that his schedule is more apt to handle.

He handles all of the girls’ doctors and dentist appointments. Not just taking them to the appointments but also maintaining the minimum standard of care as well. That means that he is the sole parent responsible for knowing when they need appointments and follow up appointments. What immunizations they need during what year. What changes we need to make in their daily routines to improve their health, etc. 

Delegation: The Key to Balancing Perfectionism and Reality

Delegation is a great tool for balancing perfectionism and reality. When you let go of tasks that someone else is capable of doing, you are let go of executing them perfectly. 

Back to the impossible weekend list. Together the girls and I read over the list and marked who would do which tasks. The girls were amenable and we all got to work to tackle the impossible. We perfectly decorated and clean the house by the time my husband came home from work. 

News flash…just kidding. There were still too many things. Even with help there are still not enough hours in a day to get it all done. Time after all is finite and one of the single most important commodities we possess. Everyone only has 24 hours in a day; there is no way to get more time. Even with help, I quickly learned that delegating tasks didn’t erase my perfectionism completely.

Grace in Imperfection

Embrace What Matters

You don’t have to be the perfect mother or wife. Trust me, I let go of those a long time ago. Find what aspects of motherhood you actually enjoy and do them well.  Balancing perfectionism and reality isn’t a bad thing.

Conclusion: Don’t Burn the House Down, and Keep the Kids Alive.