I am still thinking about what it means to love your husband,
and the title of this entry, an old slogan from my youth, well, not my youth,
but the time of my youth, came to my mind, Make
love, not war! As I thought about
those words, the truth of them blossomed to me – you cannot love someone and
fight with them – make war with them. It
is kind of an either/or!
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people tell
young lovers to “just wait until you have your first fight” normalizing fights
as something that should be expected.
People fight to win leaving a bloody trail behind them! They take a
position, a belief, and dig their feet in, using whatever ammunition they can
find to make their case. And now couple
expect to have fights; it’s OK to fight, but…
Words! Ugly words
dredging up past failures, past errors in judgment are hurled at each other
like sharpened knives, like the piercing point of an arrowhead. Those words which really carry curses, like you
always or you never zing though the air into your mate’s heart, digging
deep scars, words recorded to burnish the edges and the shine from the words of
love you once pledged.
Wives, you must count the cost of every word you say because
you cannot unsay them; you cannot take them back. Oh yes, you can, and should, apologize, but
no pile of apologies can ever erase hurtful words from his memory. Those jabs, those
bloody wounds leave behind scars, echoes, and I think they become tools the
evil one can and will use to discourage and defeat husbands. And after a while, as the pain accumulates,
the love and commitment becomes a memory buried under words which have become
evidence of rejection, disrespect, and, yes, hate.
Does that mean we should stifle any ideas that might be in
conflict with his? No! But we must remember to lace our
communication with love. We can find
ways to share our ideas in such a way that they are received as helpful, not
hurtful. True confession, I used to
think it would be helpful if I tried to explain why someone might have said something
hurtful to my husband, sometimes the words or behaviors were not aimed at my
husband, but he absorbed them… He interpreted my trying to explain how the
other person could think that as my defending the other person and my agreeing
with the other person. I am so grateful
that he told me that was how he felt.
There was no fight. Instead there was communication, especially helpful
communication about behaviors I could change.
Last night I used bacon bits in green beans, a disaster!!! Don’t do it.
They swelled up into moist bit of soy, ugly. He ate them graciously, but after dinner, he
suggested very kindly that I might not want to use bacon bits again. And, instead of being crushed that I had
failed so monumentally – they really were bad – I thanked him and reassured him
that I wanted to know what he liked, and didn’t like because I wanted to please
him.
I read an article years ago about “counting the cost of your
no’s,” a NO not always being the use of the word no, but taking the opposite
position, and I pass it on to you now.
Before you speak, listen through his ears. Think about what it would be like to be on
the receiving end of those remarks, and make love, not war.
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