Part 1- The Passivist
Sometimes (ok, who am I kidding really?! Oftentimes….) in marriage we are triggered by our spouses. Ok, ok, make it sometimes a daily occurrence. (In reality, we can be a source of triggering too but that will be addressed at a later post, wink wink!). Triggered, may be an overused term these days, so let’s call it provoked, angered, disappointed, or wounded, or possibly emotionally eviscerated. Bottom line, we want them to experience the shrapnel they have left on our soul and in our heart because they fell short of the mark for loving us well and we are hurt. ‘You hurt me therefore, I want you to pay!’.
We are left with a choice in how to react or respond. This is where I have a table pounding passion. One of those relationship concepts-hills that I will die on. As a result of my own in-dwelling sin and dysfunctional childhood, I was a passivist (read peace-faker). First, let me give a disclaimer-I don’t want to lead anyone astray as to thinking that I nail my relationship-responses perfectly every time or that I’ve arrived because that wouldn’t be true. I so wish it was. But it doesn’t take me off the hook for sharing what I know to be true and humbly admitting that I fall short while striving to respond correctly. When I do respond rightly, it’s more of a case of ‘but for the grace of God there I go’ vs. any self-righteousness within me. Left to my flesh I am just as likely to fumble the ball as anyone else.
Instead of choosing to respond in a biblically loving way, because it is unnatural for us to do so, we seek to control the outcome….and that is when the train derails. We seek to do what is right in our own mind instead of following God’s Word….and though we may get away with it for a season, it will eventually bite us. It’s just not God’s best. For instance, we are called to lovingly build each other up and spur one another on towards godliness, sometimes admonishing in love when we see a fault in our spouse. But what if I have a naturally passive personality? Does that make me exempt from that call to gently correct him/her? What if I have a died-in-the-wool people-pleasing personality? What if my spouse has a naturally self-centered personality or can be verbally abusive or unloving/insensitive in nature? What if I have kids and I see my spouse being verbally abusive to my kids and I allow it for years because, in my own mind, I figured that my spouse would eventually change if I just modeled love (agape)? But I get years down the road and my spouse hasn’t changed and I realize that what I actually did was enable that destructive behavior. (I see this all the time by the way). What then? In the meantime, I have built resentments and bitterness because I didn’t respond rightly sooner, much much sooner! When I look in the rear-view mirror, I thought I was responding rightly. Truth is, maybe I just didn’t want to experience my spouse’s wrath or was misguided as to what true biblical love actually is. Maybe I am just modeling what I saw growing up-no relational conciliation tools…..’It’s just what we do’. I see a lot of confusion in the church (and out of the church) assuming biblical love is boundary-less. Biblical love isn’t taking abuse and serving up a smile in return. Is it good to overlook an offense? Absolutely! As often as you can! Is it my job to nit-pick or nag my spouse and be his ‘Holy Spirit’? Heavens No! But when there is a pattern of behavior that is unloving or abusive? That needs to be addressed (in love!). I would go so far (and pound the table) as to say that it is actually unloving not to address the behavior that isn’t loving. It might feel easier temporarily to not have the difficult conversation. It may feel like peace in the short term, but it’s a false peace. So if we aren’t speaking the truth in love, we will allow that unloving behavior to grow to patterns of abuse. We teach people how to treat us by what we allow and influence them by how we respond.
**Of course if a person is in an abusive relationship or danger they need to reach out to proper authorities to address the abuse and get to safety. This is meant to address marital conflict where there is not threat of violence and people aren’t in physical danger.