Your spouse had a bad day and you told them yours was worse. Some regrettable moments are worse than others and have even landed people in divorce court or jail. We call these actions “sin”. To sin is an archery term, and means that we have missed the bull’s-eye. We have missed the bull’s-eye of God’s will for our best lives. That grieves Him. It hurts us.
How does it happen that someone really doesn’t want to hurt someone but does? How does it happen that we destroy our lives and our bodies seemingly without thinking? The Apostle Paul even went through it, admitting, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do,” Romans 7:15. It’s a universal problem. And we have the eternal solution of forgiveness through faith in Jesus.
There is a chain of processes that we get to go through, if we choose to, to arrive at a better behavior and decision. Oftentimes this process is completely skipped. Sometimes we skip it because were in too big of a rush. We feel the time is of the essence and we just have to do something immediately. Other times we skip the process because we are embarrassed. We do not want to show our feelings because we’ve decided that some of them are embarrassing or shameful. We don’t want to examine our beliefs because it makes us feel uncertain. We may not even be sure of what we believe anymore. We have been lulled into simply watching our devices and being entertained. It’s a sad, lonely existence that leaves us isolated.
The process we get to go through to arrive at our best decision is this…
Event—First Feelings—Thoughts—Ideas—Beliefs–Actions We Take or Don’t Take—Next Feelings
Your wife says, “Did you even clean up at all?” You instantly feel surprised and annoyed. You are surprised because you thought you had done a good job of cleaning. You are annoyed because she is calling you out and you believe you don’t harp on her the way she does you. You then get stress induced thoughts, “She’s such a nag” or “Maybe I am a bad husband.” Hopefully, you can access some positive, loved-based thoughts too like “She’s just had a hard day” or “I’m still a good husband.” Then you start sorting through ideas about why this happening. “Oh, it’s because I forgot to do the dishes. Or maybe it’s because she’s still mad about something last night. Maybe she’s about to have her period. Maybe I do need to put in more effort when it comes to cleaning. She’s trying to make me feel bad. Or no, she’s not, she still loves me.”
All these ideas and feelings are flooding the brain, when we start to think through what we really believe….or at least we really need this often overlooked step…..”Do I really believe she wants to hurt me? If so, why would someone who loves me and whose life is so interdependent on mine want to drag me down?” Oh, maybe I believe she means well. If you chose to act on that belief, you will probably say assertively, “I can see you are irritated by what looks like no effort. I can do better. Please next time, tell me exactly what I missed and if you can, remember that I’m not trying to make your life miserable.” And then you’ll get up and clean. If however, you chose to indulge in the negative belief that your wife is just a nag, the fight is on.
Fighting with an important loved one doesn’t have to be frequent. It can be done effectively so that afterwards, you are more connected as a couple. This will be a topic at our upcoming online marriage retreat:https://lastinglove.us/etn/created-for-connection-hold-me-tight-couples-retreat-for-christian-couples/
Most of us would like to make fewer regrettable moments for ourselves and for others. To help with this I have created a visual graphic to remind myself and others to slow down and think things through. This along with some other free resources available at our website www.lastinglove.us. Click here to access the document: https://lastinglove.us/products/why-i-need-space
