My Husband Said This ONE Thing, and it Ended 90% of the Fights In Our Marriage

My husband, who is usually a very composed guy, lost his cool with me not too long ago. My Netflix-viewing of Friends right before bed must have been particularly loud that evening, and we were up later than usual because of a dinner out with friends. He was tired, he was ready to go to bed, and the laugh-track had gone off one too many times when he snapped.

“I’ve told you I hate it when you watch TV at night!” he lamented. “I’m trying to calm down, and it’s so loud. Now I’ll never fall asleep!”

You’ve probably experienced some similar moments of stress in your marriage. “Why do you have to CHEW like that?!?!” “Why can you NEVER seem to find the laundry hamper?!?!” “I don’t KNOW where your keys are, but we’re LATE!!!”

We’ve heard over and over that there’s a thin line between love and hate, and scientists have actually proven that to be true: the neural firing in your brain is almost identical when you feel both loving and loathing. So it should come as no surprise that our spouse is also the person who can annoy us most in the world.

But losing your cool at your partner can lead to a bigger fight, and enough fights over time erode the foundation of a marriage. So how can you avoid losing your cool in your marriage? My husband was about to show me.

The argument over my Netflix-watching went on: he complained that we had agreed on no TV in the bedroom, but watching Netflix on my computer was effectively the same thing. Why couldn’t I just wear headphones if I insisted on watching TV? We argued back and forth for several minutes before agreeing we were too tired to think rationally, and decided to call a truce and go to bed.

As we sat down to breakfast in the morning, he turned to me. “I’m sorry I got so upset last night,” he began. “I realized that just because I was irritable doesn’t mean you were being irritating.”

Wow. “Just because I was irritable doesn’t mean you were being irritating.”

Think about how much power those words could have in your marriage. It’s so easy to get annoyed or irritated with the person you spend most of your time with. Life is stressful! It’s full of challenge and frustrations, and the path of least resistance is to turn to the person next to you and take it out on them. But that’s neither fair nor healthy, nor does it bode well for a relationship.

The next time you want to snap at your spouse, remember that you being irritable doesn’t make them irritating. Stop and ask yourself if this is an argument that could actually resolve something, or if you are just feeling stressed and annoyed. Less arguing will make you both less irritable, and that’s good for 100% of marriages.