The Relaxed Husband Energy Experiment
I tried to be “chill” like my husband for 5 days. Here’s what happened.
They say opposites attract, and I have found this to be true in my marriage in many ways. I am a morning person, while my husband is a night owl. He is seemingly scared of nothing, and I, everything. I am a planner, and he likes to live on the edge (or on a combination of the edge, and the outputs of my planning capabilities). Take all of these opposing traits, and what you get is a pretty different overall approach to daily life. My approach is deliberate and future-oriented, while my partner is more content with the present, and trusting that whatever naturally unfolds will be OK.
I often find myself resenting this, and wishing he would get more on my level. It’s great that we are different people and can balance each other out, but why do I have to own the responsible, less-fun roles? This feeling has led to a tendency to quite honestly look down on his more relaxed approach. But when I really think about it, I suspect that I’m actually more jealous than disdainful. I find myself thinking, must be nice, more times than I can count. But then I pause and try to remind myself that I could approach life this way too! Is there anything I can point to that’s really stopping me?
I brought this question to a meeting with my coach, Catherine Andrews, who encouraged me to put it to the test. “You need to channel your own Relaxed Husband Energy,” she told me, “it’s in there somewhere.” So it was decided. I would let loose, drop my typical routines, and challenge myself to adopt my husband’s approach to life for five days.
Like any good Type A perfectionist though, I couldn’t just dive into a new way of being unprepared. I needed to do some research, set parameters, and ensure that I really understood the assignment. Sure, watching my husband go through the world seemingly without a care was my day-to-day (perceived) reality, but before I got into character, I wanted to give it a more formal study.
The Sunday evening before starting my experiment, we were sitting on our couch. It was the end of a particularly long weekend, one that strayed far from my preferred routines and structures. We traveled out of town for a wedding and had a nearly eleven-hour road trip the following day. When we finally got home, I was exhausted and stressed about the upcoming week. I sat on the couch, silently admonishing myself for having such an “unproductive” weekend. I didn’t exercise, I didn’t get much time outdoors, I didn’t read my books… I just ate cake pops, drank Orange Crush’s, and sat in the car for hours. Now a full work week was looming, and I was anxious, feeling like it would be another five days before I could get some proper “me” time and get back on track.
My impending experiment popped into my mind, and I turned to my husband.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Not anything? Are you feeling stressed about the work week ahead?”
“No.”
“Are you feeling guilty that all you did was sit on your butt and eat junk food this weekend?”
“No.”
“Do you feel behind on your errands and chores because we were away all weekend?”
“No.”
“Huh…”
Part of me can’t help but think – well, of course he isn’t as stressed. He doesn’t have groceries and laundry and other random errands on his to-do list the way that I do. He simply has less to worry about. But that isn’t necessarily true, or fair. After all, he just doesn’t mind if the laundry overflows for a few days, or if we have to order takeout instead of cooking fresh groceries at home. And, if the laundry did overflow to a certain point, he would eventually take it upon himself to do it! It’s just a different threshold than mine. And that’s what this experiment is all about – seeing what happens if I operate at a different threshold and shorten my (largely self-imposed) to-do list instead of pushing through and grumbling that he has no cares while I have the weight of the galaxy on my shoulders.
This was not going to be easy.
After a few more days of observation, I felt like I had a solid picture of what I would need to do differently to take on “Relaxed Husband Energy” during this experiment. First and foremost, I needed to prioritize rest over endless productivity. Like my husband, I would continue to show up and work hard at my job, but once the workday was over, I’d leave it there. I would not recount play by plays of a conversation with my manager, or ponder about the true meaning of work and question whether or not I was fulfilling my purpose in life. And when not working, I would simply sit down.
Typically, when I have a few minutes of empty, unscheduled time, the first thing I ask myself is – what else could I be doing right now? Could I sneak in a quick vacuum, a 10-minute Peloton abs class, another meditation session? When my husband has down time, he just sits the f*ck down. Maybe pulls out his phone, turns on the TV, reads a book… maybe, he just …rests.
This is a foreign concept to me. Resting with no side tasks or distractions? Watching TV without also cooking for the week or researching dinner reservations for my out-of-town guests six weeks in the future? And the hardest of all – resting and forgoing simultaneous productivity without feeling guilty about it?
Relaxed Husband Energy would also require less planning and thinking about the future in general. Relaxed HusbandsTM don’t spend their Monday evenings calculating their Thursday morning hair wash schedule or Saturday workout plans. They just wake up and decide what feels right on the day of. And they definitely don’t worry that by not planning these things well in advance, they will miss out on some great opportunity, look terrible, or deeply offend someone they care about.
In addition to less planning and fretting over the future, Relaxed Husband Energy would entail less focus on the past and self-evaluation. At the end of each day, I’d need to refrain from conducting a full post-mortem, critiquing myself for all the things I should have accomplished but didn’t get to, and wondering if I’d best optimized my time (my brain’s favorite activity). At the end of the day I would truly rest my body and mind, and resist mentally completing my daily performance review or planning for the following day’s activities.
I would need to just …be.
Day 1
I start my challenge on a Friday. My typical weekdays begin with some early-morning exercise before work, however my first act as Relaxed HusbandTM is to stick with his schedule, and we both sleep until 8am. The minute I open my eyes, I am sucked into my typical morning repertoire. My mind races with thoughts about the previous day, and temptations to launch a full-scale review to see what I should do differently (read: better) today. I then switch to the day ahead, and begin hyper-planning - when will I fit in a workout? Do I need to run any errands later? What will I – I catch myself in the act – NO Avery, relaxed people don’t do this. You think he is lying there spiraling about what to make for dinner in 13 hours? Of course not.
I quickly push the thoughts aside, without too much effort to my surprise, and get up and greet the day. At other points throughout the day I find myself grumbling, even whining a bit to myself internally. Ugh, I don’t want to work today. I’m just not in the mood, this is so annoying.
This is another thing I really don’t see my Relaxed Husband do. Despite my own deeply held biases, “relaxed” does not equal “lazy”. He works very hard. But part of his relaxed approach means he doesn’t spend much time lamenting key components of his daily to-do list. He has a very stressful and demanding job, but he rarely voices complaints. Sure, he wishes he could work less at times, but as his favorite (and my least favorite) expression goes, “it is what it is.” There’s no point in fighting it.
So with this in mind, I kindly mute the voice that says I’d rather be doing anything but working, I plug in, and continue with my tasks for the day.
Day 2
I wake up on Saturday, see that it’s only 7am, and calculate that I certainly did not meet my typical 8-hour minimum sleep target. My mind starts doing its thing again - was I a fun enough or productive enough person yesterday? What are all the to-dos on my plate for today? Ugh, it’s so early, and I’m so tired, I’ll never fall back asleep, this is terrible, poor me!
I roll over and look at my husband. I know he doesn’t think any of these thoughts. He’s fast asleep and likely will be for hours. I tell myself - everything is fine, you can fall back asleep, you have no urgent to-dos. And low and behold, I fall back asleep (which never happens) for another two hours.
Once we get up, I spring into Saturday morning panic-cleaning mode. We had a friend stay overnight, and our apartment is a mess. Deflated air mattress on the floor, crumbs in the kitchen, wet towels crowding the bathroom, and I am …uncomfortable. I catch myself pacing around the apartment, wiping up crumbs, placing dishes in the dishwasher, and muttering to myself: “This place is a mess," anxiety coursing through my body.
Then I remember my experiment, and I pause. I look over at my husband, who has made the great journey from the bed to the couch. He’s been watching funny videos on his phone while I spent the last 20 minutes tidying up, scurrying, and muttering under my breath.
Yikes.
I stop in my tracks, resist the urge to put away the air mattress, sheets, and towels, and pick up a book.
As the day goes on, I am presented with plenty more opportunities to go against my typical habits in favor of my husband’s more low-key approach. In a particularly bold move, I choose to take a complete physical rest day, with no exercise. To be clear, I have no problem skipping workouts if the day requires it (i.e. traveling, full schedule), but having a blank slate of a day with no planned activities and choosing to spend that day sedentary? Unheard of. It feels indulgent, as rest often does for me.
At the end of the day, in an attempt for maximum rest, I lay down on the couch with my eyes closed, doing absolutely nothing. No scrolling, no TV, no distractions - just resting.
This is so uncomfortable, I think, I don’t know how to do this. But the longer I lie there, I realize how deeply tired I feel. I can’t believe that without this challenge I would’ve had a full day of errands, cleaning, and exercising. By giving myself a day to really rest, I became even more aware of how truly tired I was. I could use three days of lying here like this, I thought. And yet, I wouldn’t have even given myself one.
This profound realization is then interrupted by reminders of my ever-growing to-do list lurking in the corner. Since I’m just laying here, I think, maybe I should plan what chores I need to get done once this challenge is over and how can I make up for these days off...I’ll just write it down quickly and then get back to this whole resting thing.
I realize, of course, that this defeats the purpose of my experiment. One of the key features of Relaxed Husband Energy is that my husband doesn’t feel like he needs to earn his rest, or make up for resting by being overly productive afterwards. Rest and relaxation are just a part of life, and participation doesn’t necessitate any trade-offs or punishments.
I close my eyes. I love this, I deserve this, this is what I do, I tell myself. No sweat.
As I get ready for bed, I pass the still deflated blowup mattress sprawled on the floor, taunting me.
Day 3
When I wake up the next day, mess is still the first thing I see. I stay strong however, make myself a coffee, and sit down to write.
Suddenly, my husband interrupts my writing with a question: “do these go in the wash?”
He is holding the sheets from the air mattress.
It takes a few seconds to register. Oh my god, he’s cleaning up the other room. I try to be cool as a huge smile crosses my face. “Yep, thanks.”
One day. It took one day.
How much more often might this happen if I let it? Sure, I’d prefer that things get cleaned up right away. But I’d also prefer not feeling like I do an outsized share of tasks around the house. What other to-dos might I be able to relinquish, and get help with without even asking, if I wasn’t so quick to immediately address any slight imperfection in sight?
I’m not sure yet which matters more to me, it might depend on the day. But it’s not lost on me at this moment that perhaps the whole galaxy wouldn’t be on my shoulders if I was more willing to slow down and get comfortable with minor imperfections in my home.
Day 4
I find myself reflecting on the experiment so far, and what I’ve taken away from it. And what’s coming up feels like disappointment. At the outset, I thought this experiment would be funnier, but honestly, it’s skewing towards just plain sad. So far, it seems, the moral of the story is that Relaxed Husband Energy means not being so hard on myself all the time, prioritizing and permitting rest, and accepting that everything doesn’t need to be perfect.
True to perfectionist form, I was hoping for a better outcome.
Day 5
The final day. I wake up feeling tired and grumpy, which I later realize is PMS (something Relaxed HusbandsTM truly never have to contend with). I want to make some time to write about this experience while it’s still fresh in my mind, but am feeling low on creative energy and time. I voice this to my husband, though he doesn’t know exactly what I'm planning to write about as I have not revealed the challenge to him.
“I need to write, but I just don’t have time or energy!” I say. “I have too many other things to do first, and I’m not sure when I’ll find the time.”
“Less planning, more doing babe!,” he chirps as he heads out the door.
The irony is not lost on me.
Later that day, I go for a walk with a friend. Without knowing about my experiment, she starts to talk about how her fiancé seemingly just “exists” while meanwhile, she can’t sit still. “Nothing seems to bother him,” she said, “and he thinks I go looking for things to busy myself with. He thinks I’m too busy, but frankly, I don’t feel like I’m doing enough.”
Do we all do this?
I confess my experiment to her, and for the second time that day, I am put in my place. “I hate to point out the bad news,” she said, “but you do realize the irony of you planning five days of relaxation?!”
We get a good (though slightly sheepish on my end) laugh out of this. I guess this experiment is pretty funny after all.
OMG I'M OBSESSED. Laughed out loud so many times and scrolled past the air mattress photo as quickly as I could.
very funny and I enjoyed it. this coming from a 'not so relaxed husband'. it is not about them, it is about us.