During my wedding shower, years ago, I remember reading note cards from all guests, that had pieces of advice for me to read aloud. One that repeatedly came up was, “Never go to bed mad!” And I get this. Life is too short and there is never a reason to go to bed mad at your spouse/children, etc. I do believe this……YET…………. There are times when you should realize everything can not be fixed before you hit the hay!
Last week, I experienced a fairly stressful evening, where kids were not going to bed when they were supposed to, work items surfaced and I spent hours in the office, to realize I had forgotten something, just when my eyes started burning from exhaustion. I got mad at my kids and Matt, my husband, for not doing….God knows what….and then I realized…I just needed to go to bed. My usual tendency is to resolve any negative feelings with Matt before I did so, but saw that he fell asleep on the coach. Obviously he was not that terribly bothered by our difference of opinions, and I was okay with that at this point. We both crawled up to bed in silence, while drifting off to sleep, I prayed for a better day when I woke up.
Sure enough, I woke up with a new perspective. I was able to calmly look at the prior evening and offer any apologies that needed to be spoken. With that, Matt and I understood each other’s perspective and agreed to set aside some relaxing time for us that evening.
While I understand it’s not great to go to bed angry and in the middle of a serious argument, sometimes, you just have to let things pass and settle down before you can gain perspective.
Because Matt and I realized that it would’ve been more stressful and make us more exhausted if we would have tried to talk everything before our head hit the pillows….we both knew that the morning would bring better perspective for us. Therefore, it works for us! Only you know what is best for you and your relationship…but just remember, you can not fix everything in the heat of the moment and some nights, you just may have to go to bed mad….and it’s okay!
