Sometimes when two people are newly married, they lack some of the skills they later learn (hopefully).

Little things sometime pop out of our mouth that we don’t realize can devastate our mates. We are not used to considering someone else all the time and it is very difficult to adjust.

One of the worst things a husband can do is compare everything to the way his mother did &uot;it&uot;.

I had a friend years ago that had been married only a few months. Short on money, they had taken a small apartment over a garage. She worked shift work at a tiring labor job and on her days off she worked hard to make their apartment nice.

She made her shopping list so she could prepare meals she knew he liked. Then she labored over the meal and tried to set a pretty table with tablecloth, cloth napkins, candles, the whole works.

Without fail he would say, &uot;This doesn’t taste like my mother’s.&uot; It did not stop him from loading his plate and polishing it all off.

As first her feelings were hurt and she would cry when she was alone but still she kept trying.

One night she fixed a big meal and they sat down to eat. Sure enough, as soon as her husband began eating he said, &uot;I don’t know what you did to this, but it doesn’t taste like my mother’s.&uot;

She very quietly got up, opened the window by the table, took hold of the tablecloth, wrapped it around everything on the table and shoved dishes, food and all out on the cement two stories below.

&uot;There,&uot; she said, you don’t have to eat anymore of it. Go to your mother’s house and let her feed you from now on because I will not.&uot;

In a happy ever after story, he would have come home and apologized. She would have apologized and everything would have worked out fine. It should have been something they laughed at over the years. The fact is it never happened. He stopped at his mother’s every evening to eat dinner. She ate at home.

There was no happy ending. He resented what she did and never got over it. They stayed together and even had two children but they only lived under a truce. A few years later she was diagnosed with cancer throughout her whole body. A few months later she was gone.

I grieved for the friend I lost, but I also grieved for the happiness she never had at home.

It’s strange how we can let a few words or a thoughtless act ruin a relationship. We can never get past the anger and insult. Later on we don’t know how to go back and change it or we no longer care.

The apostle Paul said, &uot;Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.&uot;

If you hold it longer, it can become bitterness and bitterness will eat you up. It can cause mental, emotional or physical illness.

If you have a problem in a relationship – be it spouse, family or friend – fix it today.

E-mail me at sylvia.hughes@r-cnews.com