No One Else...

How do we keep from getting our feelings hurt when someone we love is being difficult?

Yes, it's true.  My husband can be a bit grumpy when he's tired, hungry, hurting or bored.  When any two or more of these things occur at the same time, he can be a real bear.  Not the cute, cuddly kind, either.  More like big, hairy, sharp-toothed, standing on two hind legs, growling and foaming at the mouth kind.  Well, maybe that's a slight exaggeration,  but not by much.

And why does it seem that his ill feelings end up falling on me like a deluge?  Is it because he's angry at me?  Did I do something wrong?  Or not do something right?

99 times in 100, it has nothing to do with me personally. I just happen to be the one close by.  Since he had surgery on a badly broken elbow this week, he's been experiencing several of his bear - inducing feelings.   And, naturally,  since I'm the only one here with him (15 year olds hiding out in a bedroom playing Xbox do not count) he has no one to growl and snarl at but me.  Aren't I lucky?

When I was in high school, my senior English teacher used to write a quote on the chalkboard each day.  One in particular has stuck with me all these years...it said, "No one else can make you so happy or so mad, simply because no one else matters so much."  I don't know who should get credit for that quote, but just know it's not original to me. 

He matters more to me than anyone else in the world.  And he can make me so happy and so mad, sometimes within the same conversation.  Knowing this helps me keep his grumbling in perspective.   He doesn't mean to be mean.  And it's not about me.  I've even learned that it's quite narcissistic to assume that every emotion he feels is in response to me.  Huh.  Never thought of it that way, did ya?

The same is true for him. How often does our mood display a direct response to our husbands?  Quite often it's more about hormones, offspring,  jobs, and a host of other people and things. 

The past few days have been challenging but I have learned that the joy in my heart, the joy that comes from an attitude of gratitude,  cannot be shaken by a grumpy husband.

I'm just glad he's not always this way!

Be blessed.