Thursday, July 26, 2012

A Frustrating Lesson

My husband and I have a problem with frustration.  I'll share his experience first.  He doesn't like it when I leave dirty knives in the sink.  He's the kind of person that would shove his hand into a sink of water without looking and believes that he's going to be injured by my carelessness.  So he comes running into the bathroom while I'm in the shower, holding paper to his finger and tells me he's cut his finger and it won't stop bleeding.  I asked how he cut himself and he said that he was washing dishes and saw a huge knife in the sink.  He left it there and picked up a paring knife to clean instead and brooded on my lack of consideration.  While he was cleaning the paring knife, he stabbed himself in the finger. I pointed out that if he hadn't been so annoyed at me about the knife, he wouldn't have stabbed himself. 
That's the back story for me to learn my own lesson.  This morning, he complained that his computer was running slow and that something that I'm doing was messing up his computer.  I retorted that I am the one who maintains the computer and it's more likely something he is doing that is messing up his computer.  Shortly thereafter I left for work. (Without kissing my husband goodbye) I go into my car, checked the street and backed up in order to clear some debris ahead of me, to pull out into the street.  While in reverse, I felt a jolt and heard a crunch.  I hit the front of my husband's car!  And I have a back-up camera!  There was no reason for it, except that I was distracted by my husband's accusation and brooding on the situation and not paying attention to what I was doing.  Needless to say, I felt like an idiot all day.  I cried the whole way in to work.  And teared up a couple of times at work.  I realized that I was guilty of the same thing I had accused my husband of not two weeks earlier.  I was brooding and annoyed and as a consequence of not letting the situation go, I smooshed my car.  Both cars are fine.  Hubby's car got the license plate squished a bit and I have two screw head shaped impressions on my rear bumper. 
This has been a pattern in our marriage.  We get annoyed at eachother and instead of letting things go, we feed the frustration and let it fester and as a consequence, something else frustrating happens.  How much agrivation could we have avoided if we would just have charity toward eachother and let little disagreements pass and forgive more readily.  Let's hope the lesson sticks this time!

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