Grumpy

This weekend my husband was grumpy.  He came home to find he didn’t have a house key at 3:40 in the morning after working in LA for 2 weeks straight, on about 5 hours of sleep a night.

The next morning after surprisingly little sleep Joey was up for the day. He was perky and upbeat but I kept waiting for him to crash into the grumps.  He doesn’t usually function well without plenty of sleep. We spent a relaxing morning at home but my guard was up, waiting for the moment whey his lack of sleep would turn my happy hubby him into an irrationally crabby hubby.

In the late afternoon we headed out for a wedding where we danced and talked and enjoyed friends. We left a little early, came home and I crashed on the couch while he watched television. 

The next morning our first interaction assured me that the grumps had finally caught up to us. He had a hard time waking up and I had been calling up the stairs (cause that’s not annoying) to see if he was ready to go.  When I walked up to actually talk to him face to face he was short with me. I walked down the stairs feeling a little injured, self righteous and steeling myself for the rest of the day. But the rest of the day was fine, we went to church, then out to lunch with friends but still I was on the defensive just in case those grumps once again reared their ugly head.  

That evening Joey and I were having what I thought was a normal discussion when he asks  me, “What is up with you? You have been so grumpy all weekend.”

My initial thought is, “ME???  But, YOU!!!”  I think back and realize he hasn’t been grumpy.  I suddenly wonder if while bracing myself for his grumps I had turned my attitude negative and defensive.  I hadn’t even realized it and I wanted to justify myself by putting the blame back on him.

Do you ever have times that your spouse’s response to you seems out of proportion or out of nowhere?  It is a good idea in those moments to do a quick self check and listen if your spouse has something to say about you.  

I would like to justify my  bad behavior by claiming that I am reacting to his attitude towards me. We could go round and round with that excuse. The reality is I get to choose to react in a way that will escalate or in a way that is constructive. If I don’t choose then my default reaction may not come across the way I think it does.  

Even if my husband was grumpy I could have chosen to be kind (like he had been all weekend) knowing that we all get the grumps and sometimes we just need a little space to recover.  But, this weekend I was grumpy.

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