Is there someone in your life that you refrain from sharing much of your inner thoughts with because of fear of their reaction?
There
was a time in our marriage that my husband walked on eggshells whenever discussing
problematic issues with me. I had a
tendency to go ballistic. Yeah, I was
the bulging eye-ball lady. My head did
some spinning and there was an explosion of negative emotion blasting out of my
mouth.
Consistently
being judgmental and over-reactionary, taught my husband to bottle up his
thoughts/emotions or at least not divulge them to me. Guess how much effective communication
happened in our marriage?
It
took practice, but I learned to create a safe emotional environment in which to
have discussions. I had to ask myself a
few questions.
Would
I want to share information if I had the fear of getting my face chewed
off?
Do
I want to be the friend of my husband or the parole officer?
So,
I prayed and remembered the golden rule by which all relationships will thrive,
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” Luke 6:31.
On
the other hand, Mr. Muscle wasn’t the only one who faced critical reactions. So, we had a sit-down and came up with a few
ground rules.
~We
are adults who love each other.
~We
wish our marriage to thrive with joy.
~We
are humans who have failings.
~Neither
of us are responsible for the other’s sins.
~We
each owned up to our own responsibility to refrain from sin.
~We
each owned up to our responsibility to not hurt the other.
~We
would try to reverse the initial knee jerk, negative reactions with calm,
“Let’s
work on this together,” reactions.
Ecclesiastes 7:8-9, “Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride. Don’t be quick-tempered, for anger is the friend of fools.”
Finishing with a cool head is better! Having this discussion meant packing away past hurts. It was committing to a fresh start of sunshine. We would move forward with forgiveness and forgetfulness.
It’s
such a blessing to walk on sunshine instead of eggshells.
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