I deleted it as soon as I saw it. Then I clicked Undo.
There is often a pithy message from The Gottman Institute in my inbox, and on busy days I whiz past it. On this particular morning I was agitated because of a meltdown with Benjamin the night before, and was not in the mood for sweet sentiments. Then I thought better of it. Did I like being mad? No.
Undo.
The title was
Ten Things to Do Before Giving Up on Your Marriage. My angst was over his outburst after what I thought was a pleasant birthday celebration, and it took most of an hour on the phone with his sister to rein him back in. I had made a dinner of his choosing, the cake was ready, and I gifted him a quilt
of his favorite characters. Then shortly after blowing out the candles there was a forehead sized hole in the wall.
Logic reminds me that such kerfuffles have become the exception, rather than the rule. I should be grateful. But that was not the sentiment rising like cream to the top. Ironically a string of friendly wishes streamed in on social media and email for his birthday. It was not how I felt in that moment. But it niggled me into conceding that I do love Benjamin.
Shortly after his heart rate descended, he made a new wish.
"I want a new birthday!"
He couldn't find the Undo button.
One of the ten suggestions in the article is to nurture fondness, by recalling your partner's good qualities. A score of friends were handily gathering exactly that.
Another strategy is to navigate conflicts with skill rather than expecting them to disappear. Gottman posits that over two thirds of marital differences are never resolved. But they need not be fatal. Your partner may continue to be late, and yet you have a range of choices in how you dance with it. Husbands who are introverts are unlikely to become the life of the party, but their wives can let go of the need to make them wrong.
My first pick would be that Ben stop escalating when it is inconvenient for me. But maybe I could reframe that. It is within my strength to accept that emotions trigger him... even the good ones. Probably there is a slippery feeling inside him that does not show up for me, after dessert and singing. But that need not also mean that he is bad.
