Being Offended is a Choice

They say that first year of marriage is the hardest and the saying held true for us. They also say opposites attract. These two individuals who are so very different and who have lived separate, self-interested lives are now permanently tied together and the adjustment can be rough. We went from hardly ever seeing each other, to being together 24/7 for our three-month honeymoon. That part wasn’t so bad as we were doing a lot of fun stuff. But now we had to settle down into a regular life, working and doing all the menial stuff that much of life entails.

In one respect, Laura and I are very much alike. Neither of us are very vocal arguers. Instead, we tend to retreat into ourselves and get quiet with each other. I would take offense at something she did and just get quiet or vice versa. Then we wouldn’t talk to each other except out of necessity for a few days until we made up. She wouldn’t know what she had done that I took offense to and I wouldn’t know what I had done. We just needed to communicate with each other but we weren’t mature enough for that. 

This happened over and over and over again and I finally got fed up with it. I made a decision. I realized that being offended is something that you choose. For the most part, we get offended at very trivial things and it can just wear you out. I decided that I would just choose to not take offense at things. The Bible calls it overlooking the offense and it made life so much easier. 

There can be a drawback to this way of living. You can be so overlooking that you never deal with things that really need to be addressed. Certainly, people do do things that are offensive that need to be dealt with. That is certainly one of my weaknesses, given that I generally default to internalize things rather than vocalize. But one must find the balance between the two. 

Another great marriage lesson I learned that year was the reality of another saying I had been told. Marriage cannot be 50/50. It must be 100% each. Most of the time, people think that the marriage partners should give their 50% each to make up 100% of life together. But that proposition can be a recipe for disaster. What one partner thinks as his or her 50% may not be what the other partner thinks is enough and there can be a lot of fallout.

Marriage should be a master lesson in learning how to become less selfish and more self-sacrificing for someone else. Those who don’t learn that and just see marriage as something to fulfill their needs and desires will not do well and the marriage will probably not survive. We need to have a fundamental understanding that each of us need to contribute 100% to the marriage, to just keep giving and serving until it’s done. If you see something that needs doing, you can’t think that you’ve already given your 50% and it’s time your spouse pitches in the rest. You just do it. And as your spouse sees you giving and serving, they will usually respond likewise.

Of course, no one does this perfectly. We are all still self-focused at our core. We need to continually remind ourselves. There can also be trouble if one partner embraces this and the other does not. Usually it’s the wife who does and the husband who just receives. But this lesson has helped make our marriage better than it otherwise would have been.

Even though I was in the midst of learning these lessons, I was, by no means, doing it all right. Christmas was coming up and with it, my company Christmas party. It was a costume party. We went as a twenties gangster and his girl. As the introvert, I don’t care too much for big parties. But as the extrovert who wasn’t getting a whole lot of adult interaction, Laura was in her element. We danced a little but I didn’t really like the music.

Some people call themselves night people. They like to stay up late. Some people call themselves morning people. They function better in the morning. I generally do better in the morning but I call myself a day person. I’m good between about 7AM and 9 PM. I usually wake up at about the same time every morning, no matter how late I stay up.

The Christmas party was getting very late and I was getting very tired. I wanted to go and Laura didn’t. I got her out of the party and onto the street but she was mad. I needed to get her going home as quickly as possible or she would have gone back. The Tube had stopped running and the night buses were complicated. And it was cold.

There wasn’t a regular taxi to be found. The taxi industry in London was very regulated but there was also an unregulated side industry out there as well. It was advisable to stay clear of the unregulated ones but in this kind of situation there was not much else I could do. There was an unregulated taxi down the street and I wanted to get to it.

I tried to get Laura to go but she resisted. I was scared. My new wife wasn’t doing what I wanted and I didn’t seem to have much power to make her. I finally had to actually grab and firmly move her down the street. I was so relieved when I finally got her inside but now I had to worry about this unregulated cab getting us safely home and not charging me a year’s wages. It all worked out but Laura didn’t speak to me for a few days.

A gangster and his girl