Do you ever keep score in your relationship? Do you add up with you do something good, or when your spouse does something bad? A common pitfall couples regularly fall into is score keeping. This is detrimental to relationships for several reasons:

1. Keeping track of your spouse’s deficiencies is an unfair way to observe their behavior. Negative things hold 4-5 times more weight in our minds than positive things do. This makes it much easier to observe deficiencies rather than his or her strengths. Typically, what a person looks for, a person finds. Can you relate to this? Think of a time you decided you did not like something. The more you thought of reasons to not like that thing, the easier it became to pile on the negativity and feel even worse about that thing.
2. Focusing on your good behavior makes it easy to avoid the realities of your poor behavior. Generally people don’t like to admit when they are wrong. Most people don’t start a day out thinking of all the things they can do wrong that day. Hence, when we make mistakes we see them as mistakes. We minimize the behavior because we may not have intended to cause the event or ramifications. However, we don’t typically give the same rationalizations to our significant other. We personalize their mistakes, see them as character deficiencies, and maximize the problems.

I suggest that you flip score keeping on its head and use it as a tool to better your relationship. Try keeping score of all the good things your significant other does. Then keep score of all the deficiencies you bring to the relationship. Realizing your own deficiencies and your significant other’s strengths will help you feel more grateful for your spouse, and be more focused on bettering yourself for the sake of your marriage.