We are told this is sage advice from countless generations
ago since the time of the invention of the matrimonial bed; or, to be more
modern-day- inclusive – the cohabitational bed. Before that, to cave dwellers
and later to communal dwellers who were our ancestors long gone, going to bed angry was probably and merely a function
of going to bed hungry when the hunt
failed or stores of food ran out early.
When modern dwelling improved exponentially to the
subdivided home with bedrooms, going to
bed angry may have spawned the emergence of a branch in psychology –
marriage counseling.
Well, since I took the bold step of taking up the subject
and will not charge anyone the exorbitant rate marriage counselors get these
days this is worth a listening to. Mind
you, over forty years of marriage is a good stretch of relational pharmacy from
which to dispense a cure for much of what ails marital conflict caused by going to bed angry. I took some notes
although soon I realized early on that someone in my household was taking far
better notes who can recite them verbatim, with dates and places, with
footnotes – a reference trove worthy of an endorsement from the Library of
Congress. The working file covers
everything I did wrong or perceived to be wrong. So, to allay your doubts I have the expertise
to disburse good advice on the subject and a full reference section within
reach.
First, here is what a six year old has on the subject when
her parents went to bed angry.
1) They will have indigestion from the bowl of ice cream
they enjoyed sharing just moments before the argument began which was promptly
followed by the bedroom door slamming and lights turning off so suddenly.
2) They will have
nightmares while sleeping.
3) Breakfast is
not going to be good in the morning.
4) Regardless of
who took me to kindergarten school the following morning, it will be a silent
3-mile ride and the goodbye kiss will not feel so good.
5) It keeps me
guessing as to why they’d be smiling and carrying on like nothing happened a day
or days after the door-slamming incident the night before.
“Like nothing happened” was about as best the six year old deserved
in her young life. Soon enough she’ll
learn when her turn comes as she enters the domain of marriage to have her
share of pretending like nothing happened, but hopefully she will have realized
that there is a way to avoid having to do that because she will have found out from
Shakespeare that much of going to bed
angry was “Much Ado About Nothing”.
She will recall what caused the event after a nice bowl of
ice cream. It was immediately after
watching a TV show when she heard her mother say,
“That’s not what
happened”.
Her father responded,
“Were you watching
the same show I was watching”?
That was not a good thing to say to someone who will have
retained a good memory of the show because the story line was about a woman who
was the aggrieved party because of another woman. Anyhow, he was going to suggest rewinding the
DVR but NO! because she had already deleted it just before turning off the TV
in her disgust with the plot.
Furthermore, his power on the remote which is usually his purview was
usurped by the deletion and the powering down of the TV. The recipe for an explosion could not have
been written so clearly since Alfred Nobel came up with one on Trinitrotoluene.
Since this is about, “don’t
go to bed angry”, everything up to that point must have been just
fine. It has always been that way - an
argument stemmed from something about nothing.
The examples below exemplify pitfalls to avoid.
Husband - It is never a good idea to tell your wife, or significant
other, that you’re playing golf the morning of Saturday on the Friday night
before just as you are preparing to go to bed. It should have been preceded
long before that with all kinds of hints, bread crumbs if you will, from about
what the doctor said about the stress-relieving exercise benefits of the game
to the networking it afforded you for your career. Although you may have already told her that
she wants to hear those preambles repeated because those are not the stuff she
keeps in her memory bank. As you can
probably see by now, she has other important stuff in there already. Available storage space is for future
transgressions.
Wife - On the other hand, it is also not such a good idea to
tell him that you ordered new drapes and will be put up tomorrow by a popular
decorator without first giving all kinds of signals and hints weeks or months
in advance, like, “did you know that these drapes have been here since we
bought the house fifteen years ago? Or, “there will be a big drapes sale next
month and as a promotion a local expert will install it for pennies if we order
it ahead”.
Husband - Don’t come home one day with a new vehicle when
all you were supposed to do was have an oil change at the dealership while she
still has the spilled over, diaper-smelling mini-van.
All right, those were big stuff but they’re rare. It is, however, a phenomenon most counselors quickly
determine that it is the little stuff that seems to cause chronic problems.
Well, if they often happen, as the word chronic means, then that is where one
should focus on.
Here is my adult list on why we shouldn’t go to bed angry:
1) If one lays
awake all night and the other is fast asleep, it is not good for the one who
stayed up all night but it will be worst for the one sound asleep come morning.
One will be the giver of wrath and the other the recipient.
2) If both stayed
up all night seething with fury over a TV movie plot, the six year old girl
suffers in the morning. She’ll get a
lousy breakfast and a horrible goodbye-have-a-good-day kiss when she gets
dropped off at kindergarten.
3) An “I’m sorry”
on the night before bed is a lot less draining on the budget than a bouquet of
roses the following day which will wilt in 4-5 days. The two beautiful words
will be etched in her memory bank that will gain better interest than a short
term mortgage.
4) The “I’m
Sorry” done right away is far more effective than a hundred chores done for
many weeks after to atone for misdeeds, real or perceived (by the aggrieved
wife).
5) If both slept
soundly then the issues were patched and settled to the satisfaction of both.
If you can do that consistently every time averting going to bed angry then you both deserve nomination for the Nobel
Peace prize; or, at the very least an appointment to the U.N. peace commission.
As a foot note, I was told that on a 70-30 ratio men say
“I’m Sorry” more times than women.
Furthermore, it is because men are wrong 70% of the time. The survey was done by Women’s Journal
magazine and I must agree with the results. It is a prestigious magazine and
nothing can be more compelling than a poll done across a broad and random
participation by 700 women and 300 men.
The case is closed.
Since I’m a husband, the best advice ever is this: Each morning, before leaving for work or that
golf game, just say this to your wife, “I’m sorry”. It will naturally prompt her to ask, “What
for?” You say, “I’m sorry for everything
I may say or do today”. Call that, “pre-emptive
strike – a most effective marital inoculation of sort”.
From the idle mind, y'all sleep well tonight!!
