Last month was Mess-Up Month for my husband and me: There was the overdrawn checking account; the flight one of us erroneously cancelled, having to last-minute book at twice the price; a flight reserved with a layover, when it could have been direct — and for less; the credit card one of us “lost,” then cancelled, only later to be found under some papers.
And by “us,” I mean “me,” who messed up the most last month. Not that you’d know it, given my husband Dave’s response to my mishaps. When I sheepishly told him about the overdrawn account, and how he couldn’t take out money for the next few days, he shrugged, unconcerned.
“You could have pulled a “Lucy” on me, and I wouldn’t have known the difference,” he said. He was referring to Lucille Ball, and one of the many catastrophes she got into on her sitcom, and took great pains to hide from her husband Ricky. But that is not how we roll.
Dave and I have a No-Fault Marriage. Early in our relationship, we agreed it was more important to solve a problem than to find out whose offense it was. Dave’s philosophy was “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy?” For me, it was not wanting be like my parents, whose emphasis on being correct and perfect always landed someone in the doghouse.
We’d both experienced what happens in a critical relationship. Afraid to trust your own instincts and competence, you end up doubting yourself, making more mistakes, and trying to hide them when you do. You end up looking for the other’s faults, so as to mitigate the sting of your own — a mutually assured destruction, no one thriving in the blame.
Dave and I have been together for 15 years, and in that time, we’ve made our share of blunders: car accidents; foolish purchases; oven fires; hotel reservation errors; unlatched gates with runaway dogs; tools left out to rust; missed anniversaries and birthdays; bad investments… the list is endless.
We don’t ignore big mistakes, but, when it’s helpful, we focus on the what of a mishap, not the who. We collaborate on how we can solve the problem, and move on.
I was reminded of this approach listening to a podcast recently. The topic was airline safety and why the rate of airplane crashes over the last fifty years has plummeted — a lot.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, the numbers of yearly aviation deaths and major plane crashes worldwide dropped from a high of 2,429 deaths in 1972, to a rate of only 761 deaths in 2014. But globally in 2014 there were over six times the number of daily flights than in 1972. What changed?
In 1976, the The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) was established. The ASRS is a confidential, non-punitive program, available to all participants in the National Airspace System who wish to voluntarily report safety incidents and situations.
When the airline industry focused on finding solutions over placing blame, commercial aviation improved rapidly. Pilots were free to self-report mistakes without retribution, and problems got solved — flights became safer, a lot safer.
So too, with Dave and me. Even in error, we always assume the best of each other. And boy, did we do a lot of assuming last month. This atmosphere of forgiveness and grace — our No Fault Marriage — frees us to take chances and be our most creative, flawed, unashamed selves.