Ease Up and Laugh a Little!

Here is a scenario:

The husband (we will call him Joe) takes a sip of sour milk at the table. He makes a face, and spits it back into his glass. His wife (we will call Mary) laughs at the face he made before Joe even gets a word out. At this point, Joe erupts with anger and yells about how Mary is a terrible housewife for not looking at the expiration date. Mary gets defensive and says, “Well, if you helped out more around here, it may not have happened. I can’t be perfect. You should have married someone else.”

Here is a second scenario:

The wife (we will call her Ann) ran errands while leaving the boys in her husband’s (we will call John) care. While Ann was gone, John, determined that he was young again, played football with his sons. When he made a touchdown, he did the Heisman dance and lost his balance, falling over into a now broken pot. Ann came home to her husband and sons laughing over John’s embarrassing moment. Ann is determined not to find her husband’s clumsiness funny. Ann starts chewing John’s ear off saying that there is only one responsible parent and it’s not him. Ann yells and rants and totally ruins the mood for her three sons watching on. Ann decides that she cannot handle that John is more of the “fun parent” and storms out for the night to stay at her mother’s house.

What could have averted the crisis in both of these scenarios?

A little laughter! When one takes every situation as though it is serious, it is very hard for the other spouse to make any room for error. To err is to be human. To err is to be funny sometimes! We all make mistakes. Rather than always pointing a figure and revving up your yelling voice, try ease on the break. Slow down; calm down, and find the humor.