I have a question, mostly to those of you in relationships. Since I began this practice, things are much different then they were before. I have a new outlook on life, issues that arise, problems and such. I prefer to, and really now find myself doing this without much effort, taking things much more in stride then I used to. I don’t get all bent out of shape, or depressed or feel like life is specifically making itself more difficult just for me. I also don’t get so upset with others when they don’t get things done, or forget things, because I look at the world much more from a place of “suchness” than I used to.

For example: I can’t tell you how often my wife used to give me a hard time when the dishes weren’t done and she was working long hours, but I got home earlier then she did. Now, I work two jobs and still have to drive the boys to practice and get dinner done most nights, and when I have a spare second – even though it would be much easier for her to do the dishes while I sleep for a few hours before going to my second job – I wash the dishes that are, inevitably left in the sink from the night before. It is what it is.

My question is this. I am more like this now because, I believe, I have been practicing our way, and it is a natural progression. My wife is not a practitioner of the Way, and though I’m sure that’s not the sole reason why she gets so uptight, I believe it has something to do with the reason that she can’t deal as well with unexpected changes or issues. So how do I better react to her? She gets sooo angry when things go wrong. She called me on my cell phone today to argue with me about the fact that I didn’t take the trash out today (I forgot, and though it is trash day every Thursday, it’s sometimes tough for me to remember since all the days tend to blur together when you work nights too!) and I can understand her being upset about it, but yelling?? I just seems so unnecessary to me. It aggravates me because it seems like such a pointless exercise to get angry about. Now, this isn’t to say that I can’t improve and get the garbage out, but I think there are more constructive ways to do this.

So what to do? I can’t talk to her from a Buddhist standpoint, I tried that once or twice (because that is an integral part of my decision making paradigm) but she said she doesn’t believe in that and I respect that. How do you, for those of you with non-buddhist spouses or girlfriends / boyfriends, work with your significant others when your view points on things differ?