Have you ever noticed how destructive anger can be? When we are angry, nothing better get in our way, or it’s likely to get knocked down, run over and trampled underfoot. While that can be useful when the thing we get angry at is a threat to our family, most of the time, it’s something much less sinister, but with just as strong a result.
Why do we get angry? Often, our anger doesn’t really have anything to do with a threat, rather it’s anger caused by pride. In other words, we get angry because something threatens our opinion of ourselves. Someone treats us or speaks of us as less than we think we deserve and the anger takes over.
This happens all the time in marriages. One marriage partner or the other says something, intending it to be helpful, and the other one explodes. Or, one doesn’t treat the other one as they think they deserve to be treated and the explosion comes.
Those explosions are always destructive. They destroy your communication and your relationship; they can even destroy your marriage.
Think back to the last time you were angry with your wife. Was what you were angry about really all that important? How about when you compare it to your marriage; is it still so important? Were you being destructive just because you didn’t get your way?
When we compare the value of that thing we get angry about to the value of our marriage, suddenly it seems like we were angry about something that’s not all that important. In other words, we’re allowing ourselves to damage something important for something that isn’t important. That doesn’t sound like a good tradeoff to me.
It’s important to maintain the right perspective on these things. That perspective includes being sure that we guard those things which are valuable to us, and we dismiss those that aren’t. Sacrificing something of value, in order to attempt to save something unimportant isn’t good business, nor is it good in life.
No comments:
Post a Comment