Have you ever gotten mad at your spouse for doing something so dumb you just can’t believe they did it? How could they be so oblivious, or absent-minded, or short-sighted?
Sadly, I have to admit I have. There’s been times Wayne’s done things, goofed something up, and I’m like, “What the heck were you thinking? You had to have seen that coming?”
Oh yeah, when he goofs up I assume the superior air because no way would I have made the same mistake.
But, of course, I do. Maybe not the exact same mistake, but I make plenty o’mistakes nonetheless. And does he act all high and mighty and look down his nose at me? Not usually. Most times he’s just relieved it wasn’t him who goofed up. And then I’m duly humbled because I know he acted a lot better than I would have if the situation had been reversed.
This hasn’t happened in a while (desperately knocking on wood), but my friend Brenda’s the one who got me to thinking about it. I emailed her to ask how the birthday celebrations for her youngest daughter went. She wrote back saying all had gone well, the birthday party had been a big hit, but she’d “made a bonehead move.”
“During the cake lighting and singing happy birthday I was videotaping, except I never pressed the ‘record’ button! When I told Lee what I had done he said, ‘I’m just glad it was you and not me!’ That’s something I would have gotten mad about if he had done it. So, there’s a lesson to be learned there for me.”
I wrote back and told her there’s a lesson there for me, too, and I planned to share it in a blog. Because I know if I’m guilty of this and she’s guilty of this, there must be other wives out there who are guilty of it too.
Besides, it never hurts to be reminded that we should go easy on our spouses when they goof, because goofs are so easy to do. No one’s immune from making them. Dale recently wrote about how a little spoiling goes a long way, but I think the same can be said for forgiveness, too. Don’t you?
Courtney Mroch writes about animals great and small in Pets and the harmony and strife that encompasses married life in Marriage. For a full listing of her articles click here.
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