Later that day I had a mental image of the two of us in a little boat. I pictured myself rowing one way and he in another. It seemed, well, rather futile. 

He and I are trying to keep this family afloat and the waves keep crashing against the sides. College debt, medical issues, cars that need repairs, and the incessant weather, all slosh us around in the ocean we call life. Any effort I expel working against him depletes the reserves meant to get us to the shore.

One way to keep our oars in sync is to shift my attention from me to we. If I line up my preferences separately from his, it's like rowing against each other. If I can navigate using the map of where we both want to end up, we stand a chance. 

A friend wrote to tell me about how she and her husband are dealing with a sudden death in the family. Because they are having their own reactions it is easy to hurl their feelings at each other. But she is wise enough, barely, to realize that his anger at unrelated things is actually the grief of losing a brother, coming out sideways. It helps give her enough compassion to stay in the boat and neither yell at him for not rowing nor toss him over the bow. She told me,"He cannot help but be in pain." 

Pain does funny things to people, including distracting us from rowing in the right direction.