Is This Really Loving Your Spouse…?

“I feel beat up by you.” Those horrible words came out of my husband’s mouth. And they were about me.

How had I been unkind? I really didn’t know. I reran the morning in my mind. I had said “thank you” no fewer than five times. I had praised him about the same. We had worked out together and I even wore my racy exercise attire.

Beat up? How?  I was at a loss.

Taking a pause…

Isn’t this how marriage goes at times? We can offend our spouse and not even know it or understand how it could have happened. But when we discover we did indeed offend them even though we seem oblivious, it happened, so we can’t ignore it. We need to dig in and investigate it.

This is where I found myself on this particular morning.

Tracing it back….

When I first got up and made my way to the kitchen in the morning Mike was excited to tell me something. He had been doing our year end accounting and wanted to share how well many of my “author” projects had done. When he told me I said, “That’s all? Well, that’s not good enough at all.”

In my mind it wasn’t enough. I didn’t do well enough. I was not good enough.

I didn’t stop at “that’s all” and “not good enough” bashing myself continued with various other insults.

Then, those words came: “I feel beat up by you.”

I said, “How have I beat you up?”

“When I told you how well you’d done you started bashing and you didn’t stop. I am happy about how well you’ve done. I was sharing good news with you and you totally dismissed me.”

“Wait. What?” 

“When I bash myself you feel beat up?”

He said, “Of course I do. I was excited for you but you trashed me.”

Mind blow.

I seriously had no idea he felt this way.

His words hit me hard. While my care and words for him was kind I was being grossly unkind to myself and it was pouring all over him. I had been quite harsh on myself that morning and even more dismissive of my husband. I can see now how that can feel like someone is beating you up. I had never considered how closely tied our behavior to ourselves affects our loved one. If we are negative and destructive and self-deprecating it can’t help but spill on our spouse.

Have you ever thought about it in this way?

Being hard on yourself is hard on your marriage.

No one wants to be with someone who’s beating themselves up. It’s like being beat up yourself….if you love them.

Consider this next time you are tempted to be too harsh with yourself.

Being kind to you is being kind to those around you.

I learned this lesson today.

Be kind to you.

Fondly,

Lu

For more tips on flourishing in your marriage order “From Me to We” by Lucille Williams. Don’t miss any future posts and subscribe to LuSays today.