This weekend, I replaced my dishwasher. The old one broke down a few months ago, and for various reasons, I chose to hand wash dishes rather than replace it. Finally, I decided to go and get another one. While installing it, I learned an important lesson: if you let a dishwasher sit for a few months, any liquids inside it sit too. Not only do they sit, they begin to smell awful. I learned this lesson when I unhooked the old one and tipped it over to disconnect it. Though I couldn’t see water in the machine before doing so, it was there.
Dealing with the broken machine was so much worse because I waited to do it. This truth is evident in dealing with broken appliances, but it is also true of relationships.
There’s a great line in the New Testament, where Paul is talking about anger. He instructs his readers: “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger and in your anger give the devil a foothold.” What he is referring to is the tendency we have to let anger fester and intensify when we let it sit, rather than dealing with it.
When I ran addictions treatment groups, I would often ask the clients how many of them had resentment or anger that they thought about regularly toward someone they hadn’t seen in years. I rarely found folks that didn’t. The result is sickness in relationships that festers into ugly things. In extreme cases, it spreads and infects every area of our lives. In less extreme cases, it simply wrecks the relationship.
My experience in marriage counseling has often revealed that many marriages struggle from lots and lots of little things that never get dealt with. Little insults or injuries that accumulate into big things. One or both partners, often unintentionally, hurt the other.
Nothing is said of it, or an argument grows out of trying to deal with it. The hurt is remembered and revisited often. It gets bigger and bigger until both parties are ready to walk away. Ultimately, the problem starts with not dealing with little things that turn into big things. The same principle applies to friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, parents, kids, church members, etc. Anger that isn’t dealt with can grow.
The solution to this involves a change in approach. In the same chapter of the same letter, Paul takes about “speaking the truth in love.” The idea is that we talk and deal with each other in loving ways in an effort to address anger before it grows.
This may involve learning to understand the other person’s point of view, which is difficult. Often in couples counseling, I spend half my time teaching how to understand your spouse and see things from their point of view. This is incredibly hard, especially when you’re angry.
It requires a commitment because being angry feels kinda good at the moment. Unfortunately, if left to sit, anger begins to stink and affect everything around it, like my stagnant dishwasher water. It’s far easier and more pleasant to clean it up before it gets bad.
