The other night, my wife and I were watching TV and out of the blue I asked her a question. Never mind what it was. My point is that her answer didn’t sit quite right with me and it got me all flustered. It happened a couple more times during that same hour. Finally, I couldn’t handle it anymore and I started to raise my voice in protest. The next thing you know, we’re at it. Just like in the presidential debates, we both were spitting words out like broken arrows. Like empty bullets. Utter nonsense! We were trying to validate ourselves by squelching each other every which way we could. I was mad. She was mad. For a moment, we were both helpless.

I’m a little embarrassed to write about this now but in my experience, transparency heals the soul. I don’t want my emotions to rule over me. I want to respect them. To accept them. But to rule over my desire to do the right thing? No.

In anger, nothing right, or righteous comes out of the mouth. In a relationship, anger can make us unhinged. Detached. An enemy of each other. I know I have to fight inwardly every time. I have to fight for her. For us. For what’s right. And winning this fight means you have to feel the other person’s pain more than yours. It’s the only way to develop compassion and a way out of the mess.

Being a prideful soul that I am, it took all of my being to muster enough strength to stop this madness before we had to go to bed. I did not want us to sleep through this, I thought. So I apologized. And hoped for the promise of better days.

And that was it. Pain relinquished. Joy restored.

In the end, what matters is that I love her. Who’s right? Not so much.