Fought With Wife This Morning
Kat (my wife) and I fought this morning. A terrible way to start the day. The fight really began last night, but Kat didn’t know it.
I thought we had agreed to do a yoga class together. I was very excited about sharing this twice a week experience with her. Because of my excitement, either Kat wasn’t clear or I wasn’t listening, that she had some reservations around the class being too difficult. She still wanted to try it, but didn’t share my enthusiasm.
Because of this miscommunication, when her friend said she needed to meet with Kat when our Yoga class was supposed to meet and Kat readily agreed, I was devastated, thinking she held our time together as unimportant. My up-to-now way of dealing with devastation is to withdraw, which I did, at bedtime, and fell directly asleep.
Sometimes, I wake up having let go of the upset. That was not the case this morning. I let her know, angrily, how upset I was about her bailing on the class, when we’d been looking for something to share like that. That’s when she shared, angrily, that she really wasn’t that excited about the class, but, that I was so pushy about her doing it, she didn’t know how to talk with me about it.
My first reaction was an even deeper upset, because I thought we found something we both liked and could do together right off the bat, rather than work at it. My second reaction was to understand that her friend needing her gave her an out she thought she needed. I settled down, realizing we both needed to relax.
Kat was still pretty upset. Somehow, I had shifted. I really can’t tell you how I did it, except to say, I pray for that ability to shift like that almost every day. One day, I’ll be able to do it even before I shut down. I look forward to that.
Anyway, I asked her if she wanted to relax, she said yes, I asked her to lay down and close her eyes, which she did, and guided us both through a relaxation meditation. We came out of it smiling at each other and in much better moods. Now that’s the way to start a day!
We talked out our differences, kissed, made up and Kat left for work. A very busy morning. We clearly have our issues, but we love each other, want our relationship to work and keep developing more and more tools to help us grow deeper and deeper with each other. I am grateful for that.