Why is it with all of the jerks in the world that our loved ones are the ones best able to make our blood boil? Is it expectation gone awry? Do we idealize our loved ones so much that we cannot bear the occasional dose of reality? I don’t really know. We do mellow as our relationships weather heated battles over the ages, but the potential seems to be never completely gone. After over 30 years of marriage, my own sweet mother stomped furiously around the basement furnace rehearsing her speech to my father. “Our marriage is over. While we’ll not divorce, our marriage will continue in name only.” My father’s sin was to mock my mother’s inability to resist a silver tongued salesman, but her purchase was an aerial photo of the family farm intended as a surprise gift for an anniversary. Unfortunately, the salesman dropped off the photo at a time when my father had neighbors in for coffee. The lack of appreciation and humiliation in front of friends was simply too much.
A friend of my husband’s once described a horrible thought about her own troublesome teenage son. He had dragged himself limply out of the car in their driveway to open the garage door. As he tugged at the door and she sat behind the wheel she admitted entertaining the thought, “it would be sooo easy.”
I don’t remember the details of many of my own husband’s sins, but I do remember my anger. There was the infamous glass of milk whose contents ended on our kitchen ceiling because of my poor aim. My 3 year old daughter’s brain grew 3 sizes the day she quietly sat by while she heard me tell my sister-in-law that I didn’t know where the stain on the ceiling came from. I recall dumping a half bottle of good wine for being pompously chided about something related to wine storage. It is not only disapproved actions on the parts of our loved ones but lectures from them in the wrong tones of voice that can set us off. We judge but don’t want to be judged.
