Millennial Marriage
By: Katherine I sure have been away for long! But don't worry. I am back! I took a student sort of "sabbatical" to finish my degree. Now armed with more knowledge in addition to my personal experience, I am back to begin sharing more of the things I have learned over the past long while. There is more exciting news too. I've got a friend! Welcome Aimee Angle! We both went to school together and studied similar things that strengthen and support marriage, family, dating, children, really the whole gamete of people we have relationships with! And we both feel equally strong about how important it is to keep those relationships healthy and strong.
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It was so nice to see an actual sunset tonight in Idaho. Wow have I missed the sun. Seeing such a beautiful sunset tonight made me think how often we go through dark times in our life and in our marriages, but once we emerge from the darkness, how much more we can appreciate the light! This weekend, I spent a little time in the dark for a while. I had become frustrated with my husband over what was essentially an unmet and unspoken expectation I had of him (more on expectations later - just a hint though - spouses can't meet a need or expectation if it is unexpressed). The result though was that I was hurt that my expectation wasn't met, and because of this, I was angry. Man, I was angry! In my angered, hurt, and self justified state of mind, I concluded that I was going to let him have it when he came to bed. To put it shortly, that was a mistake. Instead of being validated in my anger or letting him "have it" while he took it submissively, I kept us up late into the night, made Mark angry, and I cried. It was a disaster to a "T".
Thankfully, just as the night gives way for the dawn, the anger gave way to forgiveness and love (not without some time and talking of course). Even though it was a really trying and painful experience, how much more I appreciate my husband because we were able to work through it together. I learned a powerful lesson from it though:
Anger usually comes from a place of hurt and pain. We should never react out of that anger (hurt and pain) because we are much more likely to hurt the ones we love when we do so. Instead, wait for the darkness of anger to pass, and respond to those feelings of hurt and pain in the light of understanding and love. |
People need people.
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