604: THAT’S SO IRRITATING

“At times both words and actions are irritating.” —Anonymous

Raise your hand if you have ever gotten irritated at something your spouse has done or said. Did you also make a comment, either to yourself or possibly out loud to them, regarding it?

Being married is challenging. You more than likely have had times when you thought, “Why does my spouse do that?”

Or maybe you’ve been married for a while and you find yourself thinking, “Why on earth does (insert your spouse’s name) KEEP doing that?” 

You may have also reached the point where you don’t even think it but simply just roll your eyes. Or maybe you’ve reached your breaking point and you’ve shut down or you blow up. 

It’s common to feel irritated by one another over the years. Some common things that can trigger these feelings can be as simple as chewing or as dynamic as the differences you have in parenting your kids. 

Financial decisions, personal habits, and other things of that nature can also be irritating to you. 

Irritation occurs when something, or some situation, creates feelings of annoyance, anger, or impatience. Where the trouble lies is these instances, when not communicated, can cause resentment to build in your marriage. 

Once that occurs, feelings are affected and you may find you are less affectionate with each other. 

At the end of the day, you may be asking how you can grow your marriage if you are creating situations or living in situations where you feel annoyed, angry, or impatient. 

That’s where talking openly about what is irritating each of you comes into play. 

• Are you embarrassed by his/her behavior?
• Do you feel that things are unfair?
• Are you struggling with not feeling heard or respected or important?

No one else can answer this question for you.

For some of you, the irritations have built up over a long time. So it feels like everything your spouse does irritates you and you can’t seem to break out of the cycle of “That’s so irritating!”

Working through your resentments and moving into true forgiveness will allow those irritation levels to go way down!

Best of all, you’ll quickly find that when this happens, your marriage satisfaction will go way up.