What a Scuffle at a Sleep Over Taught Me About Marriage

When I picked up my daughter from her first sleep over, I learned that she and another little girl had gotten into a verbal scuffle. My daughter had been the instigator. Obviously this concerned me, so, during the drive home, I asked her why she was so mean to this other little girl. Let’s call her Candy.

“Why were you so mean to Candy?” I asked.

At first my daughter gave me a bunch of reasons that made no sense. She told me, for instance, that this Candy should not have been allowed to skip a grade in school. She told me that Candy always got what she wanted. She told me a lot of things that just didn’t add up. When I questioned her logic, my daughter changed her story and said that the other little girl had been mean to her first.

I knew this wasn’t true. I also knew that my daughter has had issues with this girl – who by the way happens to be one of the sweetest little girls I’ve ever met – for a while. It has baffled me.

After asking her lots of questions, it finally dawned on me what was going on.

“Are you worried that Candy doesn’t like you as much as she likes some of your other friends so you’ve decided to not like her more than you think she doesn’t like you?”

Yes, convoluted question, but my daughter totally got it. I knew I was right by how much she smiled. She looked as if I finally understood her.

I said in one of those know-it-all Mommy tones, “What do you think is more likely to make Candy like you: being mean to her or being nice to her?”

She said in one of those long drawn out Mommy-Please-Leave-Me-Alone-Already tones, “Being nice to her.”

I shook my head at the folly of it all and thought, “Poor kid. She has so much to learn.”

And then, just like that, I remembered a recent argument I’d had with my husband. I’d felt hurt by a remark he’d made. He’d made the remark on one of those nights when I was already feeling stressed about other things that had nothing to do with our marriage. I was sensitive, okay? So when he said it, I worried that he didn’t love me anymore.

Hey, this happens to the best of us.

Do you want to know what I did next? You already know because I wrote about it recently. I was exceptionally mean to him and I delivered quite a few hurtful remarks. I refused to sleep next to him that night and I didn’t talk to him most of the next day. And when he apologized, I gave him a cold glance.

And, it must be said, I spent a lot of time thinking about his funeral.

It took me most of that day to finally humanize him again, to allow myself to feel again, and to hug him, cry, and tell him I was sorry.

It was bad.

And I’d done it all because I hadn’t felt loved.

It really doesn’t make sense now, does it? But anger rarely does. When we’re angry, we’re really good at justifying it, of convincing ourselves why we have a right to be angry and why we have a right to lash out.

In reality, though, the vast majority of marital arguments are about not feeling adored. At least they are for me. Will getting angry help me feel adored? Will lashing out help me feel adored? It’s not likely.

In the future when I am tempted to throw an adult temper tantrum I hope I’ll remember to ask myself the same question I asked my daughter after that sleep over: “What is more likely to make him adore you: being mean or being nice?”

And then, I hope, I’ll choose an assertive form of nice.

What about you?