It happens, you know? You decide to spend a lifetime with someone, and before you know it they don’t listen to what you’re saying. Or maybe they listen, but they hear you wrong. Which I guess is about the same thing really. And really, it’s frustrating.
I recently asked my husband if he had a chance to do something I had asked him to do a couple of weeks ago? As of late our lives have been beyond chaotic. With a new baby, a new house, and long hours worked by my husband at his job and me at home, it was exhausting really. I was tired, he was tired, and we both were busy. I personally felt like I lived in a race, running from one baby nap to the next, and nothing seemed to get accomplished.
So when I asked my husband about that little chore, despite my frustration that it hadn’t gotten done yet, I managed my sweet wife voice. I was certain I did. And when he reacted in anger I couldn’t understand.
He sounded defensive, which only served to make me what to bristle my own prickly quills, and I quickly questioned him about his ill attitude.
In his mind, it seems, I had started the conversation with a mad, accusatory tone, and my certainty that I indeed had not only served to make me want to separate myself from him.
When you’re angry it’s easy to walk away, to be silent, to close off.
When you’re misunderstood it’s easy to not try and understand, to not even care about such a thing.
When you’re angry it’s easier to push away. It’s harder to press in.
Our brief argument, really just a collection of curt words, ended with me in the kitchen and him in the living room. The silence separated us making the very real distance between us seem even farther. I could keep it there, make the chasm wider, or I could press in.
My cocky persona, that selfish part of me wanted to be right. It wanted to stand firm in my certainty that I had done nothing wrong, even if perhaps there was a small chance I had.
Did I use a harsh tone when I questioned him?
The woman in me who felt justified to react in anger wanted to remain silent, to remain distant, to wait for an apology. Even if one wasn’t warranted.
The other part of me that loved my husband more than all the stars in the sky, that woman wanted to close the distance, to break the silence, to apologize first. Even if it wasn’t warranted.
That woman wanted to press in, and it was that woman who walked from the kitchen into the living room. It was that woman who walked up to her spouse, turned his face towards hers and kissed his straight mouth, and then enveloped him in a warm hug. One of those hugs where you feel the stiff anger melt away as the embrace becomes more fluid, merging you into one another.
I’d like to think that that woman, the one who pressed in, that she was the kind of woman who wanted to represent Christ in her marriage. I think that’s right. It felt that way anyhow.
It happens, you know? When you decide to spend your life with someone else you will encounter differences. You’ll be misunderstood, and you will certainly misunderstand. You will get your feelings hurt, and you will hurt the feelings of your spouse. You’ll get angry, so darn angry, and you’ll want to push away. But perhaps in those moments the best course of action may be to press in.
kristie Fiveash says
Great read! Definately relate!!