Things that can ruin a marriage

You wouldn't think that a bowl of green beans could cause such a problem.

It's because I have problems with food. It's all tangled up with my grocery shopping problems, and my fear of spending money, and my full on kitchen avoidance. I'm afraid that whatever I make will be either devoured without tasting, or picked at and complained about. I didn't used to be this bad, but it all came up after the breakdown two years ago. The result is that when he's home, my husband cooks, and he loves it, and he's good at it, and nobody complains.

Except for him though, because he feels like as soon as the burners are on and the oven heats up, I disappear. Well, he's right. I drop it and run.

He was hoping last night that since I got the green beans out of the fridge and rinsed them off that I'd stay there and trim them. I was hiding on the couch with a book over my face. He was not happy about this.

Of course I felt pretty bad about it- I feel bad about a lot of things. I leaned on his big chest and apologized. He apologized for getting frustrated with me. I apologized for being so frustrating. We made a deal that he'll glady cook for me, he just doesn't want me to take off and dump the whole job on him. He doesn't want to feel abandoned.

I don't blame him. I don't want to feel abandoned either.

Later on we talked again. I told him that a lot of marriages can't survive when one spouse goes through a bad depression. I thanked him because we could talk it out and come to an agreement. I thanked him for sticking with me.

He insisted that he's not perfect and he's not! But we promised to keep that little agreement we made fifteen years ago in front of 130 people and we want to keep it together.

I can see how little things like this can add up over years and years of hurt feelings and misunderstandings and frustrations and anger. It's not the big things. It's the little things.

I hope it's the little things like apologies and agreements that can make us stronger.