Little Things that can Make a Big Difference
Imagine growing up with five other brothers.
And imagine living in the 80’s, in MSU-Marawi. Kids then play the traditional patintero, tumba-lata, jolen, and luthang. When it’s mushroom season, they would gout before the sun is up and scour the golf course with mushrooms and bring home the viand for breakfast. “Best mushroom ever”, he would reminisce. When it’s spider season, he and his friends would purposely go out at night with flashlights. It was the best time to catch toughie spiders. Only Filipinos know what these boys would do to these poor spiders. My point in all of these is that, he had a normal childhood. And because boys have a higher propensity for teasing, his growing-up environment allowed him to develop nonchalance for teasings.
Doesn’t he look gentle? He is. He’s not the type who would want to strike up conversation with strangers, let alone smile. He would choose not to talk to you to give you your personal space. And he sincerely does it in order not to disturb your peace.
But when he’s home (his natural habitat), his natural color shows. He would hide behind a door for a long time or would pretend to be asleep, just so he could find a perfect timing to startle me out of wits. Grrr. Imagine that happening for over 60 months. (and I have not exhausted all the other examples)
Our tolerance for teasing is not the same. I have poor tolerance for simply because I did not grow up with it.
How do you deal with your spouse oddities? I have a few suggestions:
- Forgive them. They are not doing it to hurt your feelings. The highest probability is that they’re doing is out of habit.
- Pray for yourself. Often, we need to change our perspective than change the other person.
By God’s grace, now I am able to see the fun in his jokes. And we can laugh together. Now I look forward to a fun-filled and laughter-filled marriage.
