“Don’t Go to Bed Angry”

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!!