One day we went out for breakfast with a few friends and afterwards, my wife wanted to go into the market with a few of them and left me with our baby daughter. It seemed that the minute my wife was out of sight, our baby started screaming and there was nothing I could do to comfort her. I tried and tried and after about 20 minutes I tried to phone my wife and she did not answer.
When she finally came back it was nearly an hour later and I was furious. I told her quietly but very clearly, “We are going to talk about this when we get home.” We sat in silence in the tuk tuk and when we got home I went to my room and she went to nurse our baby and put her to sleep. As I sat there I was going through all the harsh things I was going to say to her…about this and also about all the other things that bother me about her… but then I remembered something from the course… I wonder why she took so long in the market. Could she possibly have a reason for being away so long?
A little while later she came in rather sheepishly and said, “We should talk, right?” ready for me to start screaming at her. Instead, much to her obvious amazement, I calmly asked her, “What took you so long in the market? And why didn’t you answer the phone when I called you.” Her answer was simple, she had heard that one could get a second-hand baby carrier at the market and 2 sellers sent her to different parts of the market where she might find one (hmmm…I thought to myself, she was also thinking about the wellbeing of our baby!). And regarding the phone, a vendor told her that the previous day, someone in the market had her phone stolen so it was important to put it deep into ones bag or pocket so that, coupled with the noise of the market, made it impossible for her to hear it.
I heard her side of the story and was very much aware that she had done nothing wrong. She agreed with me that an hour was too long to be away from our baby and won’t do that again but that whole situation and the way we talked about it was very good for our marriage.
Ready for Me to Start Screaming
-Male church co-pastor, C3
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