Please, don't explode. Mentally count to ten. Ask God to help you watch your mouth, because you know that you can't watch it right now. Try a little tenderness - tell the truth: you aren't in good mental shape at the moment and your "Look" isn't your spouse's fault.
Sometimes you feel as if you really need to talk. And your spouse is barricaded, plopped down in front of the tv watching the news or a favorite sports program, or fiddling downstairs in a work room - or talking on the phone incessantly to a relative or friend so you couldn't get a word in edgewise. You want to dissolve into self-pity. You want to say, cold as ice, "I don't know why I'm even here because I may as well be invisible."
Don't say that. Your spouse doesn't have ESP. Wait till the phone call or the tv show is over. Wait till the house settles down to more peacefulness. Try a little tenderness - tell your spouse that NO ONE in your life listens to you as well as he or she does. And - you really need someone to listen to you right now.
Sometimes tenderness can mean a smile, or a hug, or a gentle voice, or a kiss on the top of the head. But tenderness can be any unselfish word or gesture that reminds both of you that you two are "Us" - not two separate loners who occasionally connect.
Sometimes tenderness can be handing your spouse a glass of wine before she asks for it.
Tenderness can be giving him the last candy bar or pierogi that you really wanted for yourself.
Tenderness can be listening to the other vent when you're ready to fall asleep.
Tenderness can be taking time for a dinner and movie date when you think you have no time.
Tenderness can be waiting up for him when he's late getting home from work, or being there for her at a Doctor's appointment.
Tenderness can be saying "I love you" in the morning and at bedtime and, if possible, any time in between. Even when you don't feel like it.
Tenderness can be holding hands wherever you go, even if you've been married for fifty years.
Once, before you'd even met each other, God saw that the two of you were lonely and unfulfilled, and gave you as Gift to each other. God whispered into your hearts that He was giving you the priceless gift of the Mathematics of Love because Love would teach you about multiplication, not subtraction, and Love would show you addition, not division. Love empowers us to multiply all the reasons we love each other; Love emboldens us to continually and creatively add on new ways to express our love. When we allow selfishness, bitterness, or self-pity to take over our hearts, we begin to subtract ways of tenderness from our lives, and move off in our own egotistical directions, so that eventually we divide.
God - Love - can make all things possible. Love can warm our tepid hearts, strengthen our minds with courage, put a dance into our feet so we run towards each other, not away. God can remind us that, no matter what tragedies we've endured, the spark of romance can always mend our broken hearts and give us new reasons for living and loving, together as one.
So lower the flame under your temper. Wipe the fears and tears away. Reach out to that person whom you once gave your life away to, and remember the reasons why. Then, try a little tenderness.