Being wrong the right way...

Do you ever have those days where you have an argument with your spouse and you launch into it sure that you are 100% right and you just need them to grow up? It never gets easier to have that moment when I think, hmmm maybe his issue is making my issue(s) show up? I think its a turning point in every marriage when one realizes though that even if we do come out of it finding out we were the one in the wrong, its better to have those conversations anyway. What I mean is that I can spend so much time living in our heads, and analyzing things just to be sure that we are right before we say how we feel, that we are paralyzed by it. Isn't it better just to be authentic and say how we feel (keeping in mind that what is helpful restrains me), knowing that the conversation may mean my humbling and my enlightenment and not theirs? It would probably help how the conversation goes though if I was really cognizant of the fact that I might end up being the one enlightened in the conversation. Why is that so hard? Why does my position seem so right on the front end? I guess that's why Proverbs 18: 17 says, "The first to plead his case seems right until another comes and examines him."

My husband shared with me a few months back that its much easier for him to take my viewpoint when I come at it from the perspective of, "I'm not playing God or the Holy Spirit here, its just how I see it." Its easier for him to listen and its much easier to just be me than try to always carry the burden of rightness. I'm not saying I'm even close to getting this "not being right" thing right either, I'm not. But I think its good to try. To voice things as just me as I see it. Intimacy doesn't mean I always get it right. It means there are two voices in the conversation and they both matter. The twist in marriage is that our spouse's issues reveal our issues more than it ever is some black and white situation where someone is totally in the wrong.

Its hard though to really truly have the integrity to surrender my spouse's issues to the ONLY judge and let Him deal with my issues. Isn't that the irony of dealing with other people's sin? Other's hypocrisy reveals ours in judging them, other's arrogance provokes ours, and being misunderstood provokes my idol of being heard and understood. The issue usually ends up in my lap to deal with vertically. I guess dealing with relationship issues right means that what starts out as our issue with someone else ends up as my issue before God. As it should be.