I know you all thought my last blog was befitting of women only. WRONG! I’m not the only one petty in my house. My husband can be petty too. And if you ask me, men can be just as petty as women at times.

Ok. I told on myself last week. I mislabeled my husband’s behavior and reacted in a petty way that lead to a habit in our home for the next 10 years. In hindsight, maybe it was just a habit or behavior of his but I thought he was disrespecting me. And I couldn’t have that. But over these years, I wasn’t by myself. My husband had some petty moments too. And so have you.

Don’t believe me? Think about it. Over the years, or even months, of being married; spouses will get on each other’s nerves. That’s a fact in every marriage. Every last one of them…all facts. And depending on how upset we get, we tend to take things out on each other when issues go unresolved. We find ways to express our anger by doings things we wouldn’t normally do as pay back OR we will stop doing things as a way of getting revenge or letting our spouse know that we are upset.

What example can you think of between you and your spouse? For me, I stopped doing my husband’s laundry. But for him, and I don’t think he ever realized he was doing this or not. Well when I met my husband, he was Mr. Chivalry. He was opening all doors, especially car does upon entry. Well, in particularly when we got married, when he was upset…he would walk straight to his door leaving me to open my own door. BET.

That was my cue that he was upset. And he would continue this behavior until we had essentially made up for whatever the issue was. But there was a time in our marriage when this would or could last for days at a time. So for however long he was upset, he would stop the obvious chivalry moves like opening the car door for me. Fellas have you ever done that to your wives?

And to make this even again. There is another petty move that we both play from time to time. Well we used to for that matter. We don’t have too many “fights” or arguments now-a-days especially not like our beginning years. Well, one daily tradition we have is that when we leave the house in the mornings, we give each other a kiss goodbye. So what can you guess happens here? If one of us or both are upset, do you think we are giving out kisses and salutations? NOPE. Sure not.

We occasionally will do this now. Is this the right thing to do? Not really. If giving each other a kiss before departing is a way of showing each other love; then no argument should prevent us from doing that. But our petty humanistic ways get in the way and we find ourselves doing things just like this. So have you thought of that petty thing you do to your spouse yet? Is it right to do that? Let me help you…no, it’s not.

Just like most in the world, our hearts are going out to Vanessa Bryant over the death of Kobe and Gianna Bryant (her beloved husband and daughter). We are imagining this tragic fate and how it can happen to any of us; and we are intentionally loving a little harder. My husband, who is the same age as Kobe, has been thinking often about Kobe’s untimely death. My husband recent told a group of our couple friends that he knows when is upset about stupid stuff, its not worth leaving each other upset. What if we leave each other’s presence to never return without being able to make up.

Just what if one of those days we have a petty argument and we depart without saying goodbye or giving our kiss that says, “I love you.” Life is short. We all know that to be true. But often times, we spend our precious days in ‘hate’ of the one we vowed to ‘love.’ We are upset over the simplest things: laundry etiquettes, overflowing trash cans, dirty dishes, squeezing from the wrong end of the toothpaste, miss paying a bill due to forgetfulness, late for church or an event, etc. At the end of the day, the most trivial things we argue and fight about…aren’t worth it.

Let’s learn to step back from our situations and breathe. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And know that it’s all small stuff.

Thank you for your attention.

This summer we will have our 3rd annual marriage retreat. Want to meet us and learn some tools to help navigate the waters of marriage successfully; consider joining us.

Remember you are your own competition.

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