Do you ever overreact to something your spouse says? We meet their seemingly innocent remark or action with a minor explosion that even surprises us. What is it that causes us to do that?
A few years ago, Roxann and I had such an experience. I had entered a speech contest. I had already won at the two lowest levels and had the speech down cold. On the night in question, I was doing some final practicing and polishing. At one point, Roxann threw out an idea. It seemed like a good one so I incorporated it. Then she had another idea – also helpful – so I added it. Then she had another idea – and another one. (My wife has a lot of ideas.) I couldn’t keep up with her. I panicked. “Slow down. You’re going too fast,” I shouted.
Immediately, I emotionally shut down. Roxann didn’t see it coming. I didn’t even see it coming though I could feel the pressure inside me building. Even though I had given that speech over 30 times, I could not remember how to complete it. Why did I react that way?
I decided to use a method we had learned a few years earlier – I’d ask God.
I prayed: “Lord, what am I feeling?” I’m not very good at putting my finger on my feelings. My wife doesn’t need much time to know what she feels. I do. What did I feel? It took a half hour, and even then the best I could do was the words I had blurted out:
“Slow down. You’re going too fast.”
Next, I asked God to remind me when I had felt that way before and where the emotion came from. An incident came to mind from over 40 years earlier. I hadn’t thought about it consciously since it occurred. Roxann had never heard the story. We had never talked about it because I had forgotten it myself.
When I was in junior high, I went to a Christian summer camp in the mountains. I was a year younger than the other boys in my class and in addition, I was small for my age and a slow runner. I could keep up with them academically, but not athletically.
Late one afternoon, the scheduled activity was a scavenger hunt. One counselor was on a team with about six boys. We followed clues into the pine forest. About 45 minutes away from camp, a large hill loomed in front of us. The counselor and the other boys scampered up the hill but I was slower, and I couldn’t keep up. They couldn’t have been more than 10-15 seconds ahead of me, but I couldn’t keep up.
“Slow down,” I told them in my head. “You are going too fast.”
When I got to the crest, I couldn’t see or hear them anywhere. I couldn’t even see where they had gone. They had disappeared. I was all alone in the forest and sunset was two hours away. I had a problem, and I was all alone to deal with it.
I thought it would be stupid to go ahead since I had no clue what was there. Afraid to go forward, I decided my best alternative was to try to find my way back through the forest. After a little while I spotted a barbed wire fence with a horse behind it that we had not seen on the way. I knew I had to stay on the right of it. Forty-five minutes later, I came to the camp, went in, and made it to the mess hall just in time for dinner.
My friend ran up to me in the line. “Where did you go?” I was ready for that one: “Where did I go? Where did you go?”
It turned out there had been a small opening in the trees that showed we had made a large circle back to camp. They saw a clue and scampered through the opening before I got to the top of the hill.
Once I made it back, I knew I was safe. A sense of relief came over me. I hadn’t even missed dinner. I assumed everything was okay and I promptly forgot about it, I thought . . .
. . . until Roxann started throwing out ideas faster and faster, and I couldn’t keep up with her. Those hidden emotions rose to the surface, and Roxann took the brunt of the explosion. She triggered those feelings that I didn’t even remember I had.
Is your spouse sometimes the recipient of your hidden emotions and unresolved wounds? A friend of ours once told us, “My wife and I finally realized that what we were arguing about wasn’t really what we’re arguing about.” If you want to stop arguing, ask God to help you get to the root problem and resolve it. You may find yourself with one less thing to argue about.
