Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Get Your Family Helping (Without the Complaints) | Clutterbug Podcast # 254

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Struggling to get your family or spouse to pitch in around the house or embrace decluttering? In this episode, I share practical strategies to inspire teamwork at home and turn chaos into calm. Plus, I chat with Rod Jeter, founder of YBangry Couples Games, about his unique 14-step game designed to help couples resolve conflicts and strengthen their bond. Don't miss this mix of actionable tips and relationship-transforming solutions!   Visit Rod's website for more information on himself and his game YB Angry: https://ybangry.com/   You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #organizedlife Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you feel like your spouse does not help out enough around the house, doesn't do enough housework, or doesn't pick up after themselves, you are not alone. What's so fascinating to me is how many people in the clutterbug community are saying the same thing. How can I get my spouse to do more? Why does my spouse know for help? How could I possibly declutter when they're not on board? How can I possibly, you know, declutter the house when 90% of it is their stuff? It's the same song we're all singing. And today we're going to talk about some real strategies and solutions. Hey, clutterbugs.

Welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. I hope today you do something amazing for yourself. So while you're listening to this podcast, catch up or keep up on something. something in your home, whether it's putting away a load of laundry or doing some vacuuming, sorting some of your paperwork. Listen to me, you have too much paperwork, you got to go through it. Now is the time while we hang out. We're going to learn something new. I'm hoping I motivate and inspire you to kick your house's butt. And at the end, you're going to be really proud of yourself because you've gotten something done. Today we're talking about one of my biggest struggles, which is

how do I say this nicely? Getting my husband to do more crap around the house. And I think the truth is a lot of this is probably my perception of what's important because he does all the housework, yard work outside. I mean, he does all of that yard work, but I see it as well once a week and not in the winter. So I'm definitely prioritizing in my mind some of the things that he's not doing as being more important as the things he is doing. So I just want to say that. And that's one of the strategies we're talking about today. But that being said, even though I struggle with this, we've come a long way. So I'm sharing some of the things that have definitely worked. We'll talk about some of the things that have not worked. And maybe you can find a strategy that works for you

too. I also have a special guest today that has come up with a very cool tool for couples, and I'm going to introduce you to him in just a few minutes. So let's start by talking about some of the strategies that I've found I've worked the most to get a spouse and get my kids to help out around the house when they weren't at all. So I definitely contributed to this issue because when I first got married to Joe. He was living with his parents. He had never lived on his own. And when we first got married and bought our first home, we immediately moved in together. I wanted to be a great housewife. Even though I was working full time, I really wanted to be this picture perfect housewife that I saw on TV. So I did all the laundry and made all the dinners and did all the grocery shopping. And when our daughter

Isabel was born. I was a stay-at-home mom while on maternity leave. And again, I really embraced like this stay-at-home mom-ness. I made it my goal that Joe would have to do as little as possible because he was going to work every day outside of the house. He was earning the majority of the money. I really wanted to be like June freaking Cleaver over here. You know, I was new, I was young, I was newly married and yeah, I did this for years and years and years and years until I got to a point where I started getting super resentful. And looking at it from his perspective, he didn't even know. He was like living his life. It's all he'd ever known in our relationship that I had done everything. I didn't complain. I just did it with a smile on my face. And then out of nowhere,

I slowly got angrier and angrier and angrier without real communication as to why. It was, you don't help enough. I do everything. This isn't fair. And so what ended up happening was I was, you know, nagging all the time. I was bitter. It was affecting other areas of our relationship because I just wasn't happy. And I wasn't really communicating why.

I had changed. He had changed nothing, and I blamed him for not changing. Maybe this could sound a little bit familiar. If so, here's some things that really helped. I find the best thing that I can do when it comes to housework is the first thing is focus on my own crap and do it for me, especially when it came to decluttering. So I think my breaking point came after our second daughter, Abby, was born. And then I decided not to go back to work and to be a stay-at-home mom, but we still needed to earn money. So I tried a bunch of businesses within a year that I was on maternity leave, desperate to earn as much money as I had working full-time outside of the home.

All of these businesses ended up not being profitable. So at the very last minute, I decided to open a home daycare. And I advertised that I would watch children during the day. And I ended up getting a few kids. And that money offset what it would cost to me go back to work. I got to take the daycare cost off of that because I was home. And Bing Bang Boobs your uncle. I got to be a stay-at-home mom and run a daycare.

Little kids, though, come with a lot of stuff. And now I had new kids in the home. And I was busier than ever watching a bunch of children. And my house really took a toll. It looked like Toys R Us had vomited everywhere. I couldn't keep up on the laundry. I couldn't keep up on the dishes. We were doing crafts and activities with the kids during the day, which meant a huge mess.

The last child got picked up at 6 p.m. at night. And then I would race to make dinner. And then I would have to spend two hours cleaning up because the kids would be coming the next morning and I would fall into bed, exhausted having not had one minute for myself and still not being able to keep up. Everything was always a mess and every day it just got worse. So I really needed, I had almost like a mental breakdown. I was like enough is enough man. I need a house that isn't hard because I can't keep doing this. And I looked at at my husband who would go to work all day, come home, kind of sit on the couch and watch TV

till he was ready to go to bed and then go to bed and not have to do any of the crap that I was doing after I also worked a full day. And I was angry. So what did I do? When I started the decluttering journey, I kind of demanded, we're getting rid of stuff and I immediately went to his closet and wanted to get rid of his clothes and his stuff or his office supplies. Why? Because it's a lot easier to see other people's things than it is to see our own. It's a lot easier to identify other people's clutter. It's very difficult to identify ours. So as you can imagine, that blew up and was a total disaster. So I decided to just focus on me and what I could do with my stuff. I decluttered my own clothing because it didn't affect him, my own bathroom products. I decluttered things in the

kitchen because I was the person predominantly cooking. I decluttered kids toys because again, I was running the daycare, working with the kids. It wasn't something that really affected him. And so I didn't have to ask permission or run things by him. I focused on the things that were my responsibility or my items. And this insane thing has. happened, my life got so much easier. So that's the first thing I would recommend instead of pointing fingers or not getting started till everyone in the house is on board and everyone's helping and everyone's contributing equally. Ignore everyone else and just focus on you. What can you do today with your stuff to make your life easier? What can you organize? What can you declass? What can you

declutter. What can you clean? You focus on you. And I really call this leading by example. Because what happened was not only did my life get easier and I became happier and I became more self-confident, but I was talking about all these benefits I was having from decluttering and from organizing my stuff. And I wasn't, you know, saying it to Joe with like, you should do it too. I was just showing it kind of of the proof was in the pudding, like look at how much better my life is because of this. And he started doing it to his stuff without me having to nag or ask or beg. I led by example and he was so inspired and motivated he started doing it too. The second thing that I find is helpful is something called the cookie method.

This works for children. It works for people of all ages because who doesn't love? a good cookie. And what I mean by cookie is not an actual cookie, but praise or a compliment, a treat to someone. And so especially with my husband, what didn't work was writing lists, was I would write him like to do list and put them on the fridge or I'd say, hey, I need you to do vacuum for me. I need you to put away this load of laundry. You didn't load the dishwasher. again. I need you to load the dishwasher. That never worked. The only thing that did was create walls. It created frustration. It created resentment. Sometimes he would do the thing, but neither one of us

were happy. I wasn't happy because I had to tell him to. And he wasn't happy because I was telling him to. So instead, I tried the cookie method, which means anytime I noticed him doing something, even as as listen friends putting his plate in the dishwasher instead of on top of the sink you know beside the sink on top of the dishwasher oh this drove me nuts anytime he would without me asking put dishes in the dishwasher or even take a dish and like help unload the table after dinner or any type of anything i would praise and i would say it without you know passive aggressiveness i would say oh my gosh Joe, thank you so much. I really appreciate that you put your dishes in the dishwasher. That's actually really helpful. And thank you. That makes me feel loved.

Or, hey, I noticed that you didn't leave your clothes on the floor today. You put them in the laundry hamper. Thank you so much. I really wanted just to let you know that I noticed you were trying. And I appreciate that. Even if he just did it one day and he didn't do it six days, what is happening here is you are praising the good stuff and ignoring the bad he's going to want more praise subconsciously friends subconsciously without realizing it he will continue to repeat that behavior because now he is associating that with praise and happy wife and goodness and he feels good and all sorts of sprinkles and candy canes and cherries on tops it's like like, you know, the dog where I think it's Pavel, you'd ring the, it's probably not that,

but they'd ring the bell and then, you know, feed the dog. And then he would just have to ring the bell and the dog would start to drool because the dog would associate. Yeah. Yeah, your spouse is going to associate, you know, picking up his dirty clothes or putting the dishes in dishwasher or cleaning or decluttering or whatever it is that you're praising with good, happy, positive feelings with love. They're going to associate that with like, yay, this feels great. And then they're going to want to do it more subconsciously. If we are doing the opposite, which is, I want you to clean the blabity blimp, do the dishes, and you're screaming at them to do the dishes. Now they're doing the dishes, even though they're doing it, they're associating this

subconsciously, again, with negative emotions. This is, I hate this. This is uncomfortable. Ugh. This is like punishment. You're not going to want to do it again. And I think this works for us as well. If we were nagged a lot as children to do things, if we were like yelled at to clean our

room, if we were, if that was part of chores were part of punishment, of course we don't want to do it as adults, even if we're still kind of bullying ourselves and being mean to ourselves today in order to do these things. So we let our house get really messy and we don't end up cleaning it until we are like hating on ourselves and calling ourselves names. Why are you such a slob and you're so lazy? Get up and do this. And we're doing it begrudgingly. You know, we're not enjoying it. We're not going to want to do it. We're not going to want to do it. on a regular basis. We've trained our brain to hate it. But we can train our brain and other people's brains to also like it. No what I'm saying, friends? Okay. So I'm not saying that this is solved in my house.

There are definitely some issues that are still, that I am struggling with when it comes to sharing the household responsibilities. But what I just found out was a cool game. I actually saw this on YouTube. So I'm excited to share it with you. This is a game called Y.B. Angry. And it was developed by Rod Jeter. And I mean, this isn't like you can't buy it on Amazon or anything. It's a kind of grassroots game that Rod developed that definitely mimics couples therapy. And it opens up communication in a positive, healthy way that doesn't involve you paying a bunch of money to go to couples counseling or you having to have like, let's sit down and work this out conversations with your spouse. So if you are looking for a tool to help solve some of the communication issues in

your relationship, I think this game could help. And Rod says in just 26 minutes, that's the average, you can solve your biggest marital issues. Welcome. Rod, welcome to the Clutterbug podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you. Thank you. I say there's five kind of big umbrella important areas that we should focus on in life. And obviously, relationships is one of those five. It's key. And it takes work, man. I've been married for 20 years. And let me tell you, it's one of my biggest struggles. So I'm so curious how you came up with. this incredible game that you came up with, the YB Angry. Tell me the story there behind that. So at the time, well, about 20 years ago, 20 years ago, so I met a wonderful lady. And after five years, we got married. But just a year or so into the relationship, things went a little

wonky. You know, she's a woman, I'm a guy. But after about 10 years or so, I really, really wanted a divorce. Now, she hadn't done anything. I hadn't called her lying or cheating, and she hadn't been poisoning my food and stuff like that. I just wanted out. So we agreed to go to marriage counseling. The first four sessions, they were just assessing us to see if we were suitable for counseling. So on the fifth session, they said we were suitable for counseling and we would get another eight to 12 weeks of counseling. Well, we got kicked out on the fifth time. It It was my fault. I was being stubborn. I didn't want to do the exercise that the therapist wanted us to do. But a couple of days after that, I was saying to myself, Lord, if I'm going to stay in this relationship, I need to see some progress right now.

So I sat down and start working on something. And while I was working on it, I realized that I didn't have any real issues with my wife. If we had been able to resolve our disagreements as they occurred, I wouldn't be in the predicament. that I was in. And so I just started working on something, and what I came up with is what I call couples coaching with instant results. It's a process to help couples resolve disagreements, like right now, so they can move forward. And that's how I came out, came about it. I love that.

I love it because you were kicked out of marriage counseling. I feel like my husband and I might be kicked out of marriage counseling. I've proposed it many, many times and he is not open to it. So what I love about this is even when you're, if you're not open to that, this is something that can help you basically instantly. But I'm hoping you share some of the tips and tricks with us. So I'm going to tell you one of the most common complaints that I get, probably because I'm clutterbug and I talk about cleaning and organizing. But this is also the biggest issue in my own relationship. is the struggle of it not feeling equal and even in the home? I'm sure you've heard this. Come on. I do hear this all the time. And I can tell your listeners that this works every time.

There's three main rules to this. First, both people have to want the relationship to work. Secondly, they have to be honest about whatever it is they agree to talk about. out. And thirdly, they have to, one of them have to be able to count to 14. I know that sounds simple, but the benefit I bring to a couple when I sit with them is I help them count to 14. Like someone might be doing step eight when they're supposed to be on step four. I need, I help them stay in order. So it's, to me, it's really simple, but it's not really intuitive to some people to go from 1 to 14 with these steps.

Okay, so let's pretend they don't have the game yet. And I'm hoping everyone goes and orders the game. But let's talk about while they're listening today, some things that the listeners can do to really open up communication in a non-healing, non-nagging way, specifically about how do we get our spouse to, like our spouse to help? And this is the magic trick. Like if you could solve this, how do we get our husband to help more? Let me tell you, you'd be world famous because I can't tell you how many women, including

myself, sometimes contemplate divorce over a load of laundry or the spouse not using the vacuum cleaner. And it sounds ridiculous to say out loud. But when you feel like you are doing 90% of the household tasks, you know, it's very easy to feel resentful. It's very easy for that to kind of build up. So what can you offer as some advice? Because you've worked with tons of couples,

you've seen them work through this exact issue. What are some of the things that either they can do or some of the real underlying issues that maybe we're not realizing are going on? So, Cass, for me and for the game, all the issues are the same. Every last one of them is the same. It always comes down to communication.

The game forces your spouse to hear you. So this year on Super Bowl Sunday weekend, I sat with one couple and I helped them resolve nine issues in one day. And after we finished the fourth issue, the lady goes, she got a little frustrated. She says, I don't understand. I'm not saying anything now that I haven't said a hundred times before. And I said, what do you mean?

She said, I haven't said anything now that I haven't said a hundred times before. Why is it working now? And I said, well, April, you have to understand that if you're telling him something for the 50th time, you're probably not saying it with the same attitude and tone that you had the first time you told him. And his wall is probably going up and he's getting defenses. So he's not really hearing you. he's hearing you now. Or if you're telling him something for the 20th time, and he may need to be told it again because he hasn't corrected it, but he may feel nagged and his wall is going up,

so it's not hearing you. But when they sit down and play a game, a game like this where you can't win by yourself, your relationship has to win or you both lose, you're on the same team. So no one is attacking and no one has to get defensive and your partner can actually hear you. And I think that's all that's all it is getting your partner to hear you. When you go to talk to your partner, if it's like, look, we need to talk, then that wall's going to go up. Or if he sees that look on your face that he didn't see that first week when you met when you come to talk to him, then he already knows something's going on. And the wall is going up. But every single time, no matter what the issue has been, people are able to talk calmly and clearly. The game just provides that

structure and your partner can hear you. And they aren't getting defensive. That's it. I love this. Okay, can you share with us some of these 14 questions? Like, what are these prompts that get people started? First, we have to agree to focus on just one issue, just one. So, If you're going to be talking to him about the laundry or the to-do list, that's all we're talking about. You can't talk to him about the laundry and the bills. The game don't allow you to do that. It makes the couple focus on one issue. So what was the issue you said?

He does not do any housework. Okay. Okay. So if it's the housework, then we're just talking about housework. That's pretty general, but we can do that. So the next step is we have to convert that issue into a yes or no question, which is a little more difficult than it sounds sometimes because you may not come up with the right question. So you sit down and play the game and the issue is going to be, should you do more housework? It has to be a yes or no question.

Or do you help me enough with the housework? a yes or no question. Making it a yes or no question simplifies it. Okay? So the next step, Cass, can I ask your husband's name or is that cool? It's Joe, yes, it's Joe. I'm going to say, Joe, do you help me enough with the housework? And do you know what he's going to say?

Yes. And your answer is going to be no, right? So now what happens is you're going to sit down and you're going to write down all the reasons why he does not help you with the housework. He's going to write down all the reasons why he does help you with the housework. Can you give me one reason why he doesn't help you? Like why he doesn't or an example of how he doesn't. An example of how he doesn't.

We have three kids. I do a load of laundry a day and I put it away by myself. And he doesn't put any way. Okay. So if you look at the game, there's a little space for you to write. write your detail. You have to keep the detail short. So it would be like, I always do the laundry. You never do it. Something like that, right? Okay. Check yes. So, and then another reason would be, what? He's never vacuumed. Okay, he never vacuums. And another, one more reason. He never dusts.

Okay, he never does. So you can have as many as you like. I like people to come up, with at least three. Now, you're going to take all those reasons. They're on different cards, and you're going to write down how relevant that one reason is to the issue of him not helping you around the house. So the laundry, if that's your big one, and you're going to rank them from one to ten, that might be your ten. Never vacuuming. That might be a nine, and not dusting. That might be really close to. the nine, but you're going to make it an 8.9 because you can't duplicate your numbers. You have to decide in order which ones are more and least important. It's forcing you to do it and not making

him try to figure it out. This is good. I can see why this is helpful because it's really taking a bigger issue, which is me always nagging like you never help and really identifying within that specific things that are peaving me off the most. Right. So now he, he, is going to take his cards and he's going to write down all the reasons why he does help you enough. He might say, I pay all the bills. He might say, I take care of the yard. He's going to have his reason. He may say, I have a bad back.

These are his reasons. And he's going to rank them on a scale of one to ten also, not duplicating his numbers. Then you're going to put those cards together and you're going to rank them, stack them in order of importance. So chances are your 10 is going to come up on top. Now you're going to take all those other cards, sit them aside, and you're going to deal with one detail at a time. So you're taking this big issue with maybe eight, nine details, and you're going to focus on one detail at a time. Because as you can imagine, if you are throwing all your five details at him and he's throwing all his three at you, that's still chaos, right? So now we're just going to talk about

just the laundry and you're doing the laundry all the time. That's it. You try not to talk about the other ones unless it's really relevant with this card. The next steps, steps four and five are the most important steps in the game. Here, Joe has to say back to you what he believe you means in his own words. And follow that with is that right? What this does, it makes sure he understands you and so that when he does respond, he can respond to what you actually mean, not something he thought you meant. It also makes you feel heard, which is a huge deal. So here, when he says, so what you're saying, and I insist that they say, so what you're saying to me is, I'll tell you why that's important later. So what you're saying to me is you always do the laundry and I never

help you. Is that right? And you're going to say yes. Now, I could say, so what you're saying to me is you always do their laundry and that makes you tired. And you'll say, no, that's not what I said. This step really levels the playing field. Because as you can imagine, in most relationships, one person is going to be more dominant or more articulate than the other person. And they're going to get their point across more, and even the other person kind of lost or losing more often.

But just giving up. So now that we're on the same page and talking about the same thing, gets to say step six is this detail true yes or no now you may say it's true but you'll be surprised how often the couple the other person is saying this is not true now as you can i know he's going to say he does it all the time because in his mind he does help probably once every two weeks so i can see and he i mean he he's like i help you all the time so with the laundry We're talking about, are we talking about the laundry? Specifically with the laundry.

He believes that he helps out all the time with the laundry in his crazy mind. Right. So it wasn't all the time. So here he said, no. So that allows you to say, and he doesn't have to respond yet, he's just going to say, no, this is not true. But what I want to say, as you can imagine, it's hard for a couple to resolve a disagreement when they don't agree on the details of this issue. Right? So next, he has to say how relevant this issue is to him.

It was a 10 to you. And he might say, you'd be surprised. He might say, well, it's a 10 to me that you feel like I never do the laundry. Now, you actually feel like he values what you felt. Okay. Now, if he said it's a six to him that might show you that you guys are incompatible a little bit here, or at least on this issue. So step 8 is where he gets to respond.

short. So he may say, it's not true that I never help you. I do the laundry at least once every two weeks. And that's it. Now steps 9 and 10 are just like steps 4 and 5. Here you have to say repeat back to him what you believe he means in your own words and follow that with is that right. So what you're saying to me is that you do the laundry every two weeks. Is that right? He'll say yes. Now step 11 is the focus, discussion, and detail section where you guys talk about this one detail as it relates to the issue. Here in this step, Cass, you probably might have to admit that, okay, I said you never helped me with the laundry, but you really do help me every two weeks. So maybe I am emotionally adding more to it or not seeing it the way it really is.

and then he may say something like, you know, I didn't know this was that big of a deal to you, honey. I'll try to pick it up and do it once a week or something like that or whatever or a little more often. I didn't realize it was that big a deal. I thought you were just nagging. And then steps 12 is next. Here, he's going to say what he took from this interaction on this detail. He's going to say, I didn't realize doing the laundry was that important. To you, I'm going to try to do better.

No response from you. And then, still 13, you have to do the same thing. You have to say what you took from this interaction. You will probably say, oh, yeah, I forgot. It starts with I feel better because. So now you're going to say, I feel better because I realize, yeah, you do do the laundry, let's say, every two weeks. And now you realize how important it is to me. And you're going to try to do it more.

Then step 14, the last step has two parts. One, part one is you guys have to decide if there was any progress, any progress at all with this one detail. And most of the time you're going to say, yes, there was some progress. The second part of the step, you have to decide, was there enough progress to resolve this issue? Yes or no. If there was enough progress to resolve the issue, for example, if he agreed to do it once, or twice a week or whatever, whatever it was to help you, then, I mean, he may say in your conversation, he might even agree to, that he hates doing the laundry. I'll clean the bathroom

and I'll dust every day and not do the laundry, something else that takes weight off of your shoulders. So for some reason, you guys were able to resolve this issue. If so, the game is over and you guys would tell each other what you wrote on your other cards and how, important they were to you. This is for disclosure. This is one of the reasons why the game works and it and it stays working because you were able to get it all out by telling him what you wrote on the other cards. He was able to hear all that stuff versus you try to have a conversation with him and you guys not really come into an agreement. You just kick it under the rug or him cutting you off and then you coming back tomorrow and say, you know what, and another thing.

Another issue about the laundry, something you didn't get out. And he's like, oh, man, I thought we settled this yesterday. And he's feeling nagged. You got it all out today while we were happy, having a good time, making progress. Now, if you did not resolve it on the first issue, the vast majority of people resolve the issue on the very first card. They can have 13 or 14 cards, but the vast majority of people resolve it on the first card. And that's because they talked about the main issue, the big one first.

I've helped couples resolve issues that have lasted 20, 30, 40, 57 years. On average, they resolve it in less than 26 minutes because even if they have 13, 14 issues, they talk about the main one and the person gets it out, the other person understands, and it's a done deal. If you don't resolve it on the first one, then you just go to the next most relevant detail until it's fixed. It just works every time. And that's it.

I love this. Yeah, it's just really proper communication. And I think usually when we bring up things with our spouse that's bothering us, we're doing it like in the moment of rage, you know, and we're just, we're throwing it all on the wall. Or when we are again, even in a calm place, we're like, hey, I really want to talk to you about something. There isn't always like a methodical thought process. We're not really breaking it down so that it's clear. and concise. So I love that your game does that framework for us, though, that we can have proper communication. Right. So timing is really important. So, for example, instead of you going to Joe and saying, we need to talk at a wrong time with that attitude, if you say, hey, honey, let's play

why be angry. You guys have played it before. He knows it's not going to be a lot of drummer, and you guys are going to have fun. Now what's happening is you have a, you have a, you have this undivided attention. If he's in the middle of the football game and you're trying to talk to him about the laundry, that doesn't work. Right. But if he's sitting down to play with you, this is a team. You guys own the same team. He's agreed to resolve this, try to resolve this one issue with you to focus on this. And he's not the problem. The issue is the problem. So he doesn't have to be on guard. I like that because he's also bringing his side. And everyone has to be. Right. the same amount of stuff they're bringing to the table to talk about equally in a safe place.

Hey, this is really good. It's kind of like marriage counseling, couples counseling, but without the big therapy costs. You know, if you don't have to leave your house and you don't have to be uncomfortable with another person there. You're really working it out. But using the framework that most therapists are using, this is very good, Rod. I'm feeling excited about this. The counseling thing, I think there's a place for that.

I just think issues like you mentioned can be handled between you and your husband and save the counseling thing for deep, like daddy issues, things that happened to me when I was a kid and all this kind of stuff like that. Yeah, fighting over the laundry. Probably don't need to involve a third party. You just need to have real communication and actually hear each other what we're saying. saying. Guys don't want to go sit in front of another person and feel like they're being teamed up on and all this, this kind of stuff. So it really, it really works. The fact that it moves all the negative emotions from the conversation, it really makes logic a priority and puts

emotion right behind that. This is like another tool for our toolbox, right? Because when we're trying to improve our relationships, there's a lot of like, try. this, try this, try this, try this. I love that you've just created this clear and concise kind of step-by-step system to help people with the big issues because I know it seems like housework or picking up after yourself or whatever it is isn't a big issue, but that resentment can really build and cause a lot of toxic feelings and emotions in a relationship. If we don't have a structure to follow, it's very easy to just fall off track, start arguing like a strong man argument, talking about other things. I could see how this would be extremely helpful. Thank you so much. Okay, let my listeners know

how they can grab a copy of this game and try it in their own relationship. Thank you. So everything is at Y-B-A-N-G-R-Y.com. That's my website. From the website, you can go to a YouTube channel or you can order the game. And also recently I came out with a mobile app. So the app walks you through this process. You can use a paper and the app I'm telling you step by step what to do. The game forces your spouse to hear you, you know, without twisting the arm. They're just sitting there calm and happy and laughing with you and understanding you. It just works.

So y-b-a-n-n-g-R-Y, Y-B-A-N-G-R-Y, Y-B-A-N-G-G-com. I love that. that. Why be angry? Okay, well, thank you for creating this framework for us so that we can open up real productive communication with our spouse without the yelling and the wanting to throat punch them, you know, just really resolving issues. And like you said, on average, in 26 minutes. Lovely to have you. I appreciate you bringing a new tool for us to try. Thank you so, so much. Thank you, Cass. Thank you.

I loved having Rod on as a guest. I find this really interesting because definitely one of the biggest issues that couples have, and I know this is the biggest issue in mine, is the lack of real calm conversation and communication about the issues and the resentment that we have. So what a cool tool. Definitely check in the description. I'm going to put a link to that if you want to check that out. But there are also things that you can take from that, I think, conversation that we had with Rod and implement in your relationship without necessarily having to buy the game. We can use eye statements. So this is something that all therapists suggest when you're speaking with someone else,

instead of saying, you never help. We use eye statements. I feel disrespected when you don't help put away the laundry. instead of you leave your crap everywhere and never pick up after yourself. I feel really sad when I come home from work and I see that now I have to pick up items that aren't just mine. I feel disrespected when I have to pick up your dirty clothes off the floor. I feel like when we're using eye statements, well, this is proven.

It's proven when we use eye statements instead of you statements. it's way better received from the spouse. So it's they hear us through listening. They don't put that wall up of like, ooh, defensiveness. They're more open to actually listening to what it is that you're saying. And I also think as part of the game, the prioritizing is key. And this is something that I didn't really think of before. But when I say you never help with housework to judge.

So what within that is the biggest priority to me? And it definitely laundry is hands down the biggest one that I have. So focusing instead of the you never help with anything, which is that all or nothing statement and that you statement, I feel like putting away the laundry is my biggest burden. And I feel disrespected that you don't help with that. Is there a way that we can work this out? So prioritizing, breaking down that big task into little tasks and really focusing on the thing that's bugging us the most.

So, so good. There was so much wisdom that was coming from Rod and he created this incredible game. And again, I mean, this isn't like a sponsored thing or anything. It's this grassroots thing that I just happened to see on YouTube that I really wanted to share with you because I think this is a big issue that a lot of families have. And maybe if it's not with your spouse, maybe it's with your children, or maybe there's just, you know, relationship struggles with your friends or your family that some of these tools can help you overcome them. So thank you guys so much. I hope you're feeling inspired. And more importantly, I hope you got stuff done today. I hope you're feeling proud of whatever you got done. And it's not going to be perfect. And there's probably more to do. But celebrate your win today. You took action. You got something done, no matter how small it was. I hope you're feeling amazing. And I'll see you guys back here next week.