Are you grinding or polishing?

"You know, we really are perfect for eachother."
"Yes we are."

It was midnight, I had just gotten our 5 month old son to sleep. My husband and I were lying in bed where he was entertaining my desire to talk despite his desire to sleep. That's usually when we do most of our real talking. Not the "Where are the wipes??" and "What do you want for lunch?" kind of talking, but quality conversation that reminds us we have more in common than the mess-making minions we cohabitate with.

"No, but not just because we're in love," I said "because we bring out the worst in eachother."

"What??" I had his attention.

"Well, each of our short comings are the other's strengths. We seem to bring out the parts of each other's personalities that need to be worked on. We're constantly giving one another opportunites to grow by causing us to have to work on our immaturities and short comings...we are polishing each other into better people."

"Yeah..." he said thoughtfully, "Sometimes I think we grind more than we polish."

No marriage is perfect. Its very rare you find a couple who had never been in a fight. Its even more rare to find one that never argues or disagrees at some point. It's natural to do because we're individuals with different thoughts and feelings. And let's face it, men and women are on completely different planets when it comes to thought processes. So, there are going to be times in your marriage when you are going to disagree.

The question is: Are those moments being used to polish or grind?

Women, think for a moment about something your husband/boyfriend/fiance does that drives you absolutely crazy. Now think about how you react when he does that.

When we react angrily and negatively to situations where our spouse is displaying their not so positive qualities, we are "grinding" on them and our relationship with them. Instead of saying "I understand you're a human who isn't perfect and I accept you for your flaws, lets work on this" you're saying "You can't do anything right, why do you always do this? I'm right, you're wrong!" when almost always, none of that is true.

But that is how we make eachother feel when, in an argument, we are prideful and only think of ourselves.

As a couple, our job is to build eachother up. To be using the situations where we disagree or perhaps are displaying our shortcomings to help polish eachother as individuals and as a unified force for good. When we respond to eachother with patience and understanding and then look at ourselves and accept the existence our own flaws then we can truly begin to polish and stop grinding.

Because just like there was at least one (or probably more) things you could think of that drives you crazy about your spouse, I guarantee he or she has a few of those about you. We need to be willing to let go of our pride and accept that the weaker areas of our relationships are most likely 50% our fault as well. We have to be willing to step back and not always be right. We need to be polishing ourselves into more understanding individuals who value the feelings of our spouse more than our own.

When you care about someone else more than you do yourself, that is true love.

So...what are you going to do next time you get in an arguement?

Grind or polish?