Hello lovely!

I got into an argument with my husband over parking lot rocks. 

Literal rocks.

And it all came down to how his primary values are different from mine.

We were living in a row of attached homes with a shared gravel parking lot. 

The spot that went from the paved road to the gravel had a big hole you had to drive carefully around so you didn’t drop your car in.

When it rained, that was a giant puddle that you had to drive over, park, and then walk back through to get to the houses.

Our landlord was notorious for making any issue brought to her attention the fault (and cost) of the tenant. Nobody wanted to risk telling her the gravel driveway needed more rocks because she’d make that person pay for it!

I decided one day, after getting my shoes soaked - again - trying to get past this puddle, that I was going to skip the landlord and just fix it myself.

I turned right around, drove to the local rock supply store, and got a literal ton of gravel loaded in the back of our pickup truck for just $24 USD. I drove home and went inside to get a shovel.

My sweet husband was in the living room watching a television show. He paused it to say hello and ask, “Whatcha up to?”

“I’m going to fix that hole in the parking area. I just need a shovel.”

My husband was APPALLED!! His eyes got big and his face started to turn pink.

“What!? No. This is not our house. We rent! We don’t own this property! You should not make changes to property that belongs to someone else!”

“But we live here!” I replied. “And that hole is causing problems for not just us but all our neighbors who park in the lot. Fixing it is the right thing to do.”

“I do not want you to do this. Please don’t do this!”.

“I already bought the rocks. It was just $24 and this will take me like 30 minutes to do.”

Determined, I left the room to get a shovel.

And I fixed the hole. 

It actually took much longer than I anticipated to move all those rocks down out of the truck. I ended up using a broom as well as a shovel but tired and sore, I got it done. 

I still feel like I did the right thing.

Filling in all the blank spots with fresh gravel cut down on the dust when driving in, eliminated the puddles completely, and I got thanked by two neighbors who saw me spreading rocks.

So why did my husband and I have such different feelings about this? 

When we talked it out later, it came down to our primary values.

My primary values are Generosity and Compassion.

I’m willing to spend some time and money (aka Generosity) to fix a problem that impacts all the families living in our row of houses because that’s how I care about people (aka Compassion).

My husband was upset about the gravel because his primary values are Freedom and Protection.

From his perspective, making a change to the parking lot that belongs to our landlord was infringing on her property rights (aka Freedom).

Plus our landlord at the time was known for being unreasonable. She once blamed our dusty furnace filter on the dirty dishes in the sink and threatened to not renew our lease if we didn’t fix both the filter and dishes immediately.

My sweet husband wanted to prevent (aka Protection) any potential backlash if she didn’t like me adding rocks to her gravel parking area.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Our landlord ended up moving out of state shortly afterwards and she never saw the rocks I added.

What was an argument with my husband turned into an opportunity to understand each other better. I respect his values of Freedom and Protection and he respects mine of Generosity and Compassion. 

He wasn’t wrong according to his values and I wasn’t wrong according to mine.

Knowing your primary values can really help you in your relationships.

If you want a free copy of my 138 primary values list pdf to help you figure out your own primary values, click here.

Have a beautiful day!

Warmly,