I do, though I hate to admit it.

I’m a stickler for details. I didn’t know this about myself until I experienced my partner’s reaction to this annoying tendency. He doesn’t enjoy it one little bit.

I’ve learned to recognize that the reason it bugs him is that I’m often needlessly correcting him. To him, it feels more like nit-picking.

I see his point.

I know I’m not alone.

I’ve been around other couples where one partner or sometimes both are sticklers for details. They, too, bristle when this happens. It’s unpleasant to observe.

Seeing how unnecessary it is when I see other people doing it is a lot easier. When they’re doing it, I think to myself, “What difference does it make, for goodness sake?!? Let your partner tell their story!”

 But when I do it, it somehow feels really important to make sure that my partner has all the details straight. It takes a lot of willpower to bite my tongue.

I’m not talking about moments where there are significant consequences, like when giving out our address to the fire department to come put out a fire.

I’m talking about the many times I’m tempted to correct him about stuff that really doesn’t matter if I stop and think about it.

It’s a quality that’s valuable elsewhere.

In my defense, as a psychotherapist and a life coach, I’ve trained myself to retain accurate details about people.  It’s part of what makes me good at what I do.

Being a stickler for details is useful in other contexts, too, like following directions for assembling a piece of IKEA furniture or balancing the checkbook.

But in relating with my spouse, it’s got a big downside if I’m not thoughtful about it.

By talking about this issue in a calm moment—when it’s not happening–I’ve learned that my husband hears my corrections as criticism, not as the helpful reminders that I intend them to be.

The message he hears is, “You moron, you don’t know what you’re talking about. How could you describe it that way?”

Let me tell you, this is not what I want my husband to feel and is not what I’m trying to communicate.

Knowing that he experiences it this way is a strong motivator for me to do my best to stop doing it!

This tendency does not reflect my life’s intention to be a loving partner.

In the life coaching model in which I’m trained, I use a tool called the Life’s Intentions Inventory. The purpose is to clarify what areas of your life hold the most meaning for you and use those as guides for creating the life you want.

Clarity helps us to be intentional in our choices and our actions. We can more consciously choose to show up in a way that reflects who we are and what’s important to us.

It also helps to re-orient us when we lose our way, which is part of being human.

I have a number of life’s intentions. At the top of my list is to be a loving partner and family member.

Your life intention is your measuring stick.

If I look closely at my knee-jerk response to correcting my husband when it really serves no purpose but to cause distress, I see that I’m not acting in keeping with one of my main life’s intentions, to be a loving partner.

If you’ve read this far, I suspect that whether you realize it or not, you, too, have a life intention to be a loving partner. It matters enough to read this blog.

If you have a habit of needlessly correcting your partner and it’s hard to stop, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions when you have the impulse to jump in:

• Which is more important at this moment? To be right, or to be supportive?
• Does it really matter if my spouse is wrong or inaccurate at this moment?
• What would someone with a life intention to be a loving partner do right now?

There may be times when you decide that it is most important to set the details straight. That’s fine.

What’s most important is that you ask yourself if you’re doing it as a default habit or as a thoughtful choice.

If being a loving partner means learning to control a pesky habit that does nothing for either of us except get us disconnected, then gosh darn it, I’m going put my heart and soul into doing that!