Why and How to be the Big Person

Getting to a happily married place just isn’t fair. It’s not because it often requires you to be the big person. It means that you might have to do more than half of the acceptance. It means that you might have to do more than half of the forgiving. It means that you might have to put in more than half of the effort.

It might mean, over and over again, that you are the one who has to continually move your marriage to a better place while your slacker of a spouse coasts along and benefits from your efforts.

Sucks, right?

I’m not so sure. To explain why, I first need to tell you a story.

This morning I stopped by my husband’s coffee shop, as I usually do during the vast majority of the mornings of the year when I am addicted to caffeine. (Note: I have an on again, off again relationship with caffeine, if you didn’t know already). Getting my morning fix allows me to connect with my husband for a few minutes, which is tender and sweet and squishy, ishy good.

When I stopped by today, my husband was sitting in front of his laptop, with one of his good buddies standing next to him. They were looking at Google Earth, one of my husband’s latest obsessions. I put my arm around my husband and said, “What are you doing?”

I’ll admit that was a stupid question because I already knew very well what he was doing. He was looking at Google Earth.

He said, “Nothing,” and he shrugged me off, actually shimmying his body in a way that forced me to remove my arm. Then he said in a not-so-loving tone, “Do you need something?”

I said that I did not. I left him and his friend to Google Earth and I made my own coffee. My husband usually makes my coffee for me. I don’t need him to do this. I’m quite capable of making my own coffee, of course. Him making me coffee each morning is just one of those sweet things that he does, just like I occasionally get up early on a weekend and make him bacon, even though I don’t eat bacon. It’s just one of those little things that says, “Hey, love ya.”

Anyway, as I was making my coffee, I was thinking quite a few unsavory thoughts about my husband. I’ll just paraphrase them here, because when my mind goes unsavory, it goes really unsavory. I’ve edited out the worst of that unsavoriness for the benefit of those of you who are not particularly fond of cursing. My edited thoughts were as follows:

What? He can’t even say hello?

He knows I hate it when he doesn’t acknowledge my presence! We’ve talked about this!

And he always makes my coffee! What’s up with that? He can’t pull himself away from Google Earth for two seconds to make me a coffee?

And what’s up with not wanting my arm around his shoulder?

That unappreciative, thankless, …. [I've deleted the rest of this sentence for your benefit and his.]

Then I took a deep breath. I let it out. I reminded myself that my husband is usually very happy to see me in the mornings. I reminded myself that this was an anomaly. It really was. I also tried to see things from his perspective. He had been engrossed in Google Earth when I’d walked in. I know engrossed, which is why I know just how annoying it is for someone to break your train of thought during said engrossment. I’ve on more than one occasion, for instance, asked my husband to never talk to me when I’m sitting at the computer typing because curse words are likely to fly out of my mouth just because he said “hello.”

Even after walking a mile in his shoes, though, I was still pretty irritated. I thought about walking right out of the shop without saying Good Bye, because, you know, that would teach him!

Then I asked myself how old I was because I’m older than that. At least, I like to think that I am.

I still thought about doing it, though, because giving him the brush off after he’d given me the brush off seemed addictively satisfying.

I told myself to be a big girl and say Good Bye in a very pleasant and loving way.

I whined to myself, “Why do I always have to be the big person?”

Then I told myself to buck up, “It’s just the way it is. Besides, the only person you can control is yourself. You want to be a loving, compassionate person. Leaving without saying Good Bye is not loving or compassionate. If you leave without saying Good Bye, you are only hurting yourself by acting in a way that is inconsistent with your life goals.”

As my Dharma teacher is always telling me: Anger is an opportunity to practice patience.

So I walked to my husband, waved, smiled and said, “See ya!” Note that there was not a hint of sarcasm in that See Ya. It was not a “You’ll be lucky if you ever see me again” See Ya. It was a “I still love you even though you just gave me the brush off” See Ya.

He puckered up his lips. I kissed him. The anger was gone. He’d never meant to give me the brush off. I realized that. Leaving without saying Good Bye would have been worse than what he’d done because it would have been premeditated. I was glad I’d been big. It felt a lot more satisfying than being small. It really did.

So that’s the story.

My point is this. When we’re angry with our spouses, our knee jerk reaction is to stoop down to their level and do or not do to them what they just did or didn’t do to us. Yet such behavior never results in marital bliss. It only creates more angst.

The only way to move to a better married place is to act big. We must continually grow into bigger people, people who are more forgiving, more compassionate, and more accepting. And every time we pull off being big, we are rewarded in a much bigger way than any of the times we stay stuck in being small.

Being big helps us get a little closer to being more complete, at peace, and happier. It’s worth it, even if it’s not always fair.

Do you feel you always have to be the big person in your relationship? Do you think this is a problem? Why or why not? Leave a comment.

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Tagged as: Marriage Advice