One of the great things about marriage and living with someone who is closely tied to you is it can lead to new opportunities to learn and practice tools for communication. Is that a nice way of saying you’ll have crappy days? Crappy days are never what we wake up in the morning hoping will happen: “Good morning life. Give me something terrible to face today!” Maybe it’s a me thing, but I’ve also never woken up in the morning and thought, “I can’t wait to treat someone like garbage, so I can feel better,” but some days that’s how some people (not saying my wife) seem to wake up (also not saying it’s not my wife). In all fairness to her, she’s going through some pretty rough physical issues while being pretty amazing at handling the chaotic house renovation situation. Fun fact, when I asked her how she’s been so good at dealing with the renovation chaos, she responded: “My house growing up was always in some type of disaster. I’m used to it.” Huhn, I guess there really is good in all things including having a chaotic house growing up. My mom used to wake up at 530 every morning before everyone else in order to get ready and sweep the floors; I was raised with pristine, so this mess is driving me nuts while my wife is already nuts… I mean used to the house being nuts. I guess you could say she’s used to the house being a mess and her man being perfect… she wouldn’t say that, but you could if you want. I don’t mind.
On this one particular Saturday, I had to get some things done for the dry waller who was supposed to come the next day. My working on the house means my wife is alone with the kids, which means I need to appreciate that her role allows me the chance to avoid my kids… I mean work on some things on my own. (Parents never need a break from their toddlers… never.) I quickly felt stressed and frustrated trying to figure out challenge after challenge – construction is definitely not my strength. Meanwhile, some neighbor friends randomly stopped by and played out front with my girls while my wife chatted with their aunt who was watching them. The night before I asked my wife about going to a garden center to buy a nice fall plant – something that I really love doing (I’m that manly) – and I sacrificed doing something else with a friend I wanted to do in the morning in order to have an hour to do this with my family in the afternoon. These visitors were putting a crunch on our time and I twice reminded my wife the girls needed to eat lunch because it was nearing 2pm. (As bad as I am at construction, she’s arguably worse at reading a clock.) After the neighbors left, I helped get the kids eating, so we would be ready to leave quicker. While the kids had been playing, however, my youngest somehow found the hidden Play Doe and had everyone playing on our nice stone porch. I happened to pass by seeing that and thought, “That’s not a good idea.” Later, while the girls ate, my wife was on her knees scrubbing the Play Doe smears off the porch. (I was right; it was a bad idea.) I ended up having to pass her to take some garbage out and on the way back in I very casually said, “So I guess we won’t be letting the kids play with Play Doe on the porch again.” You might be thinking that’s a pretty simple observation (like me) or you might be thinking “What an insensitive jerk,” (like my wife). To her credit, she didn’t explode and I had no idea until later she was angry at it. And in my defense, I thought I was making a basic observation – no we shouldn’t let them play with Play Doe on the front step. In general, I hate Play Doe. It’s always a mess. If you hate someone, give their little kids Play Doe and laugh maniacally as you think about all the messes they’ll be cleaning up later. I should point out, sometimes people don’t explode from anger, but they can slow release with some pretty strong jab comments. This is often the choice for people good with words. My wife is excellent with words…
While the kids ate, I gave my wife timelines in the helpful way I always do: We need to leave in half an hour. We need to leave in 15 minutes. We need to leave in 5 minutes. We need to leave in two minutes… and that’s when my wife decided to start doing laundry. While I was brushing my teeth, I ran downstairs to grab something from our make shift bedroom (I have a pile of clothes on our old furnace – jealous?), which is when I saw her in the laundry room. I reminded her that we had to go and zing. Confused, I made a benign comment about the store closing soon and zing zang (or whatever is stronger than a zing). A few minutes later we were upstairs and I was given a zing zang zong and my soul snapped. I didn’t yell or say anything; I just broke. The crazy thing is I didn’t look at my wife, but I felt her smirking like “I win.” It was a very strange moment.
At one point my wife told me to go to the store on my own, so instead of getting to enjoy something I really love with my family that I had been looking forward to I was now feeling rejected on top of the zinger wounds. After I broke, I vented (I followed my own advice – physically get out the emotion safely is very important) and my wife was very good to give me the privacy I needed. After releasing what needed to get out, I made my way back upstairs and started working again – at least I was alone. If you saw this situation unfolding I’m sure you wouldn’t be thinking: “This couple must really love the LORD,” or “This guy must be a therapist.” Here’s the problem: The closer someone is, the greater the hurt we can cause and when things are not in a good place, little things can be a lot more hurtful than they would be when times are better. That means as an outsider it could look like we both should’ve brushed off each other’s comments, but they hit hard because we were personally involved. That being said, if you’ve learned anything about healthy communication, my wife and I actually did pretty well. We never yelled at each other despite our hurt, we gave each other space when needed, and I was smart enough to vent out my emotion privately, so good things were happening even though I would’ve looked like a maniac when I was venting – the reason you do it in privately.
After venting hard for a couple minutes, I went back to work upstairs. Being able to read a clock (it’s a great skill to have) I noticed I had maybe ten minutes to be at the garden center before they closed if I left in that moment… so I went. It might have been a bad day, but I could at least get a plant to make me smile for the next few weeks. When I got to Coles in Grimsby I discovered a vacant lot. It had been shut down – that didn’t help my day. Fortunately, I was on the phone with my sister (I was doing more venting) and she pointed out there was a smaller garden center not far away that was open an hour later. They had a couple smaller plants that worked really well, so I treated myself to some plants on sale – blooming plants have power to bring healing to the soul.
When I got home, I went back to work and continued working through dinner. I only stopped to help get the kids ready for bed. After prayers and saying good night I went back to work. At several points that afternoon and evening I asked myself: By not talking to my wife, am I giving her the silent treatment (i.e. I’m not talking to you, so you’ll know I’m angry and feel bad) or was it something healthier? The line between these two very different actions can be a little tricky. Part of my brain was like “Screw her!” but the main part of my brain was healthy: “I have no idea what to say and as Thumper taught: ‘If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.’” Finally, about nine hours after I snapped, I knew what to say and was ready. Leaving the upstairs, I found my wife steaming the floors with her headphones in – the sign she didn’t want to talk to me. This was very strange because I thought I was the one who was angry. Turns out she was also angry at me – what? After a few comments back and forth she told me how angry she was about my Play Doe criticism and when she replayed the moment she used this teenage girl attitude with head swivel motion. That was interesting because I’m neither a teenage girl nor a head swiveller. As I wrote in last week’s lesson, what I said didn’t match what she heard. I said circle and she heard: “Circle, you idiot.” I tried pointing out that what I said was very benign and more of a new boundary – no Play Doe on the stairs – but unfortunately, I forgot my own rule: Statements lead to bigger fights. She heard this as further criticism and even my saying “I wasn’t being a teenage girl,” was translated to “You’re so dumb; you don’t even know how to do something simple like listen.” Fortunately, we both regrouped. My wife went with “We shouldn’t talk right now because we’re both tired and nothing good will come out of this.” That was a very wise point. As discussed in previous lessons, however, “talking,” no matter when you do it, almost always leads to a bigger fight. The other option is at least one person will feel like they have to admit defeat and stuff their feelings down in order to appease the other scarier person. Not wanting to take any more time – it had been nine hours – I point out, “I don’t want to talk; I just want to ask a couple questions.” This is what I should’ve done in the first place, but even I can make mistakes (shocking I know). With permission and her warning about not wanting to “talk,” I asked, “When you make comments like you did this afternoon, do you see them as innocent or are you trying to hurt me?” Her response: “I don’t know.” I’d translate this as “It was obviously to hurt you, but I’m not going to admit that right now.” I could, however, be wrong (not likely). As a compliment to my wife, most people when called out on their bad behavior, start to yell as a way to get the other to back off, but she didn’t. She just repeated, “We shouldn’t talk because we’re both tired.” I, however, continued, “I just have one more question,” and with permission, I asked: “Let’s flip the same question to me. When I say things, do you think I see them as innocent or am I trying to hurt you?” Again, she said, “I don’t know,” but this time it was softer. When it comes down to it my wife knows I’m not a jerk/teenage a girl with attitude; I’m socially dumb. (I think that’s better?) A consistent theme in our 17 year relationship is when my wife is in a bad spot, she wants to see the things I say as being mean and trying to hurt her when I consistently try to remind her that hurting her is never my goal – hurting her makes my life worse. Unfortunately, we accuse others of doing what we do ourselves, so it’s hard for her not to see me as someone who would hurt her. In her defence, a lot of women have an “I will hurt you when I’m hurting” side because it’s about feeling understood: If I hurt you, you’ll know how I feel. The other option is it could be a power thing: I’ll feel better if someone feels worse. That being said, I’m not a teenage girl, so maybe I’m missing something.
After I asked my questions, the conversation was done, so it was less than five minutes – perfect. Post fight conversations should never be more than a couple minutes. With this new information we went back to our corners to try to nurse our wounds. To my wife’s credit, she never tried to externally process her feelings with me and the next day she was completely back to her kind self. Considering how much physical pain she was in that was very impressive. And to my credit, I journalled my thoughts and found my one sentence conclusion: My wife confused her physical pain with anger at me because anger feels better. The week before I did something similar. I had been working on the side of the house all weekend and it was Sunday 9pm when I was like “Why isn’t my wife helping me? How can she leave me to do this?… Oh, right. She’s been watching the kids all weekend, so I could work on this. I’m not angry at her. I’m angry I’m still working on this stupid project and won’t be done for another half hour or so.” It’s amazing how easy it is to confuse our emotions. And that was it. That’s resolution. There was nothing left to discuss. Resolution doesn’t mean we’re ready to hug. Sometimes, it’s just coming to our own conclusion and having a good night’s sleep.
I should note that when a conflict like this happens, it’s good to consider was this moment so big that it caused the conflict or was it more the accumulation of different things including the past? For us, it was an accumulation. My wife was in a lot of physical pain while I was on the emotional edge. Overall, I’d say my wife and I handled ourselves really well considering how out of sorts we were. This situation ultimately proves how far we’ve grown because we kept it smaller than it could’ve been and shorter than it could’ve become. It takes two people to have a conflict and two to limit how far it gets – yea, us.
This week may you consider what resolution looks like.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people (like me)