How do you handle negative emotions in your marriage?
I’m not referring to “the big” problems. The occurrences in marriage that require formal apologies or lengthy discussions will not be the focus of today’s post. I am simply asking how do you handle the non-intentional, difficult moments that are a natural result of two sinful people living together?
Right now I am sitting at Starbucks, drinking a water, and stewing on my emotions. My husband hurt my feelings this morning. It truly was nothing serious! Jason is so kind and gracious that he would never intentionally hurt me, but I am dealing with a real collide of unmet expectations and careless words. So, here I sit… too sad to even remain in the same house with him. He kissed me and gladly granted me this time away because he knows I need to be alone when my feelings are hurt. I am rarely ever able to articulate my emotions and so I simply pout. This pout, however, is different from the normal “over-dramatic Darby” pout. I am not trying to control him… I am simply trying to control my own emotions.
I know I am acting childish. My entire drive here was spent reasoning with myself. I am like a two-year-old who is sticking her tongue out at her brother. Only, Jason isn’t my brother and I am no two-year old child. I am thirty-one and my behavior toward my life mate is embarrassing. So I ask again,
The crunchy feelings, the daily “ouches,” unmet expectations, and the child-like desire to retaliate are not healthy and yet they can suddenly consume me (even thought I know they shouldn’t). Honestly, I have never handled negative feelings very well.
As a child, I buried them deep down inside, refusing to share the real me. As a teenager, I continued to stuff the emotions down with food. In college, my escape was shopping. Now, nine years into my marriage, I realize I need a new approach to manage my emotions.
So, here I am (fighting the urge to eat ice cream and shop at Target) forcing these feelings up… refusing to suppress them any longer! I can’t run away, shop, hide, and eat every time my feelings get hurt. I can’t retaliate or avoid or attack simply because I feel wounded. What scares me most is that, in allowing myself to feel one pain, I will inevitably open a scab that has been in place longer than I have been married. Hurts and disappointments, long never dealt with, will come erupting with the force of a geyser. Do I know a constructive and healthy manner to process my hurts?!
It seems so much easier to escape than to engage. Easier to retaliate rather than rectify.
Yet, the marriage I want and the wife I want to be would choose the harder route.
A healthy, thriving, and ideal marriage never takes Easy Street. It is easy to pout, to run away, to speak carelessly, and to blame. It is hard to take personal responsibility, have humility, offer grace, and to communicate with maturity. I want the latter, but I so often choose the former.
This post doesn’t have a clean conclusion, but my hope is that once I bring this out into the light… give it a voice… the power it holds over me will lessen. For now, I must finish my water, drive home, and smile at my sweet husband. Hopefully that smile will be the first of many steps in the right direction.
How do you handle negative emotions in your marriage?
Linking up with Thriving Thursday, Wedded Wednesday and Wifey Wednesday.
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