I Have A Temper Problem

Have you ever looked at how you treat guests? For the first ten years of our marriage, my husband’s office was in our home. We never had to have business people over for dinner. If they ever happened to come to town, we would take them to a restaurant and leave our children at home. Well a move across the country changed that pretty quickly and we entertain in our home frequently. We pull out all the stops for guests, the nice dishes, cloth napkins instead of paper towels, I stress over what to prepare, and we always end with dessert. Everyone is also expected to be on his or her best behavior; you can’t burp at the table when guests are over. You would think that since I have all girls burping at the table wouldn’t be an issue, but surprisingly it is. So here’s the thing – I don’t love our guests. I may like them, I may enjoy their company, but I certainly don’t love them, not the way I love my family. We had guests a while ago, and one of them spilled fruit juice on our brand new dining room rug. Now if this had been one of my kids, you can bet that I wouldn’t have shrugged it off as no big deal and told them not to worry about it. That treatment was saved for the guest. Of course we should treat our guests nicely, they have been invited into our homes. But haven’t we invited our children and our spouses into our homes as well? We obviously can control our anger and emotions; we do it when people are watching, why not for our families? 

I have seven-year-old twins. Most twins seem to share a bond that is stronger than a normal sibling bond. My twins are no exception. They love each other and spend almost every day in each other’s company. They play together, are in the same class at school, and share a bedroom. All that togetherness comes with its benefits and drawbacks, they love each other, they adore each other, and they fight with each other. One day they were upstairs doing something and I hear one of them start to cry. Her twin sister instantly exclaims, “it’s not my fault, I have a temper problem!” We all burst out laughing because of course that’s not true. She still got in trouble for hurting her sister even if she felt it wasn’t her fault. But how many times have I “lost my temper” and thought it’s not my fault, you made me lose my temper?  Too often I'm afraid!

But if I can control my anger when people are watching, then I can control my anger all the time. Would our marriages and our homes be happier places if we treated our family as well as we treated our guests? Doesn’t my family deserve to be treated better than a guest? In Drawing Heaven Into Your Marriage, “Goddard challenges you to try a 30-day experiment. For 30 days are you willing to show nothing but kindness and appreciation to your partner? Are you willing to set aside complaints and disappointments and see the good intentions and best efforts in your partner?” Don’t our families, not just our partners deserve that for one month?  November is the perfect month to start our appreciation project as we focus on all the things we have to be grateful for.