The Not So Excellent Wife
Keep your stupid chocolate bunny!
That’s what I heard anyway.
Do you ever hear your husband’s words through the filter of your hurt and not the way he intended them?
Don’t let this mistake ruin your marriage: Listen with your ears instead of your feelings.
And learn how to cope when you think your husband has rejected you.
I thought an Easter “basket” would be a nice surprise and a way to show my husband how much I appreciated him. I collected gum, mints, socks and other useful stuff I thought he’d like, and put them in a gift bag. As a final gesture I topped it with a chocolate bunny, and left it on his sink before going to bed.
The next morning, the chocolate bunny was sitting on my sink. Chocolate bunnies don’t hop.
“Why’s the bunny on my sink?” I asked him.
“Keep your stupid chocolate bunny,” he said. Or at least that’s what I heard.
Has that ever happened to you? Do you ever listen with your feelings?
Your husband says something and you think you know what he really means but just doesn’t want to say it. Your belief is based on the way you feel.
Well that’s what happened to me. I listened with my feelings. Feelings are reinforced by a voice in our heads reminding us of the hurts he’s caused. They also tell us we’re unlovable, inadequate, or stupid.
Pools forming in my eyes, I snatched my bunny off the sink and crushed his hollow soul. His aluminum foil suit partially hung on his torso. Shards of his chocolate head pelted against the trashcan as I slammed his decapitated body into the trashcan and walked hard down the stairs. “I’ll tell you what you can do with this chocolate bunny,” I mumbled.
Bunny situation escalated to DEFCON 1 in a matter of minutes.
Extreme? Yeah. Extreme hurt causes extreme reactions.
It was just a chocolate bunny. Why did I overreact?
We go to extremes when we feel rejected, ashamed, or unappreciated. Because of past hurts and resentments in our relationship I heard him say, “Keep your stupid chocolate bunny. How could you be dumb enough to give me a chocolate bunny when I’m cutting back?”
He actually said something like, “Thanks for the bunny. I want to eat it for breakfast. But, I’m trying to cut back on the sugar. I’d like to keep it all to myself, but would you mind if I shared it with the kids and you?”
When his words were filtered though my hurt, their meaning was lost in translation. So every time I thought about the bunny that day, I got madder.
I felt like I needed to be super angry to let him know he’d hurt my feelings. I slammed the ham on the platter at dinner. And I silently ran my own commentary with God alongside my husband’s prayer.
“Lord, we’re so grateful for your son Jesus Christ. . . “
Grateful? You’re talking about grateful? You weren’t thinking about grateful when you threw that bunny back in my face.
If I’d moved my feelings out of the way for a second and listened to what he’d really said, I could’ve responded differently.
Bottom line. If you find yourself feeling hurt over something your husband says, be sure you heard him with your ears not your feelings. Even if he is wrong, I choose how I’ll respond.
Instead feeling hurt or angry:
- Ask for clarification.
- Repeat what you thought you heard.
- Explain what you thought you heard and how it made you feel.
- No matter what the offense, decide it’s not more important than your relationship.
- Even if he is wrong, I choose how I’ll respond.
Should my husband have handled the chocolate bunny situation differently? Maybe. There was no easy way out of the situation, so he decided to be honest with me.
DEFCON 1 dropped to DEFCON 5 by bedtime. But I wasted the day being mad when I didn’t have to be.
I felt even worse when he got into bed that night, snuggled up next to me and whispered, “Where’s the chocolate bunny?”
Can you name a time you listened with your feelings instead of your ears?
Need skills to build intimacy?
- Get on the waitlist for my next group coaching session–Change Your Mind; Change Your Marriage.
- Visit my website, like my Facebook page and join my private Facebook group.
- Check out my FREE resources and download How to Be A Wife No Man Will Ever Want to Leave.
- Apply for private coaching with Sheila.
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Also known as the Not So Excellent Wife, Sheila Qualls understands how tiring a tough marriage can be.
She went from the brink of divorce to having a thriving marriage by translating timeless truths into practical skills. She’s helped women just like you turn their men into the husbands they want.
After 33 years of marriage, she’s a coach and a speaker whose passion is to equip women to break relationship-stifling habits and do marriage God’s way. And you don’t have to be a doormat to do it.
She and her husband Kendall live in Minnesota with their five children and their Black Lab, Largo.
In addition to coaching, Sheila is a member of the MOPS Speaker Network. Her work has been featured on the MOPS Blog, The Upper Room, Grown and Flown, Scary Mommy, Beliefnet, Candidly Christian, Crosswalk.com, The Mighty and on various other sites on the Internet.
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