Bob714

This is one chapter that I would like to say is not a problem and breeze past.  But it would be a lie.  My wife frequently accuses me of being irritable.  I really don’t think that I am all that irritable, but maybe I am.   My first excuse is reason #1 in the book: stress.  So I try to control the stress, and try to be less irritable.

But as I read the chapter today, I was hit by reason #2.  Selfishness.  I know I am selfish.  I have worked on it, but it is not easy to just ‘not be selfish’.  I work at putting others first, especially my wife, but then suddenly it hits without notice – I am irritable because I am not getting what I want.  I usually don’t recognize it until after the fact.  Just processing it and writing right now has been enlightening.

I’m sitting here crying as I read and re-read the part about being easily angered because of selfishness and lust.  My problem is lust in the traditional sense.  I have worked to control sexual desires outside of marriage, but turn my desires on my wife, and she cannot fulfill them.  Probably due to my wrong (selfish, lustful) attitudes, she doesn’t even want to try.  She constantly accuses me that all I want is sex.   I am unable to deal with the frustration that this causes – it becomes bitterness and anger, and comes out as irritability.  I never put this together until I read this chapter today .  Now I realize that being filled with selfishness and lust explains all this.

I am seeing this as a vicious cycle.  She doesn’t feel like being intimate with me because of the way I treat her.  This frustrates me, and I become more irritable.  This causes her to be even less interested.  This causes me to be even more frustrated and irritable… Wow, 18 years of that no wonder there is tension in our marriage!  No wonder she is OK with me not being in the house!

This will not be quick or easy to deal with.  I always blamed my frustration on her – if she would satisfy me, then I would not be so frustrated.  But God is showing me right now that this is my problem to deal with – right now, when I am completely out of the house and not with my wife at all.

Please Pray that I will be able to deal with this - and completely replace the lust in my heart with love.

Bob

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