Happy Chinese New Year

Wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year! In view of the festivities… I’m taking a short break and will be back with a new post next week. Thanks for dropping by!

Something I Discovered Through My Wife

I had a tough time over the weekeend with my wife. Not because she was being difficult, but because I was thinking unreasonably. We were going about doing our usual weekend spring cleaning. Being a mama’s boy, all the hard work and chores were usually done by my mom or the hired maid. Which pretty much means I don’t know how to do housework… and if possible, let someone else do the job.

Ok, so what happened during our cleaning was I had simply shuffled some things from one part of our home to another instead of clearing it up and putting it in its proper place. She got really upset and was furious with me for not doing things properly. In her anger, she accidently made a mess of a few things and blamed me for it. I can understand that she’s upset with my lack of house cleaning skills ( among many other skills I’m lacking as a husband ). I also knew that it was my fault for being lazy and not doing things properly. However, I could not see how it was my fault when she made a mess and she blamed me. Needless to say… I was also upset.

I thought it was just something I could put aside, move forward and things would return to normal. We have been together for 4 years as of yesterday 4th of February… and I know my wife only gets upset when things are not done right or not done properly. The good thing however, is that she calms down and returns to normal as quickly as she gets upset. So she was upset for a few minutes and soon after she was her usual cheerful self. On the other hand, an ugly truth about myself was also revealed in that incident.

I discovered that I could not let go of what happened. I could not accept how it was my fault when she was the one who made the mess. Anyhow, I found it incredibly difficult to communicate with her throughout the weekend. I didn’t know or understand what was happening as I usually don’t express my feelings. My wife was happy as usual, but I simply felt miserable. I was constantly trying to justify how I was wrong for what she did… and that line of thinking made me miserable.

Finally on Sunday evening, I realised that I was feeling resentful of her for blaming me. I knew she wasn’t happy that I was ignoring her throughout the weekend… but she still tried to be her usual self and kept asking me if I was alright and I just said I was ok. Just as we were about to call it a night, I couldn’t stand not telling her how I was feeling. So as she was getting ready to sleep, I just told her as best as I could about my feelings. I told her how I felt resentful of her and the reason why. I explained that I knew why she was upset at the time and how I thought I could just put it behind me.

After listening to me patiently, she told me she never knew I felt that way as I hid my feelings from her. She did feel hurt and told me she found it a little harder to trust me because I was not truthful about my feelings. I apologised for my childish behaviour and told her I was thankful she was being very patient with me. I also told her how I needed her to learn and understand more about my feelings so I could learn to express it sooner and more clearly.

The following morning, as I saw her off to work, she reminded me that she loves me… and that while she will always be there to help me understand myself better… I had to make an effort to learn to sort through my own feelings. After all, we’re in this marriage together and we want it to last. I want it to last… and as our vows said… till death us do part. So, it was a difficult lesson to learn but I’m willing to learn from my mistakes to be a better husband.