How to relate better to one’s wife?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: If there is a fight going on with my wife, and she gets angry, and I too get angry. Won’t that create more friction?

Acharya Prashant (AP): You don’t get angry when fighting with your spouse, because you assume that she is not as strong as you. You say, “She is the weak one, so let her be angry. I am the more responsible one, so it is upon me to not to get angry.” Is that not what the assumption is?

Now see what is actually happening. You are assuming her to be weak and she is controlling you. So, who are you? Weaker than the weak.

Listener (L): For that moment, it is a good idea to…

AP: Have you ever tested anything else? Except for your so-called good ideas, have you allowed anything else to take shape?

There is life outside your assumptions. And you know how much violence is there in not being angry? Even when you are not being angry, then you are constantly being contemptuous towards the other. You are saying, “You do not even deserve my anger. You are so weak and so foolish that if I display my anger, you will crumble and collapse. I cannot even show my anger to you.”

Do you see how violent that is? Or is this a loving relationship, in which you keep swallowing your pride, your anger, all that which is bubbling within you. Are you silent because you are so loving? Is it love that keeps you mum? Or is it something else?

L: Sir, it is the fear that a fight may evolve, and sometimes you are afraid to say what you want to say.

AP:

There are innumerable couples like these in which one chooses to seal his lips, his tongue, in order to keep the marriage going.

And his contention is that I am the more mature one, I am the more responsible one, so I do not speak out.

L: Truth is otherwise

AP: See, not speaking is beautiful, but not speaking from a center of love. And it is not beautiful when it is happening from a center of compromise.

If you love your wife or husband so much that even when he/she is hurling abuses at you, you can joyfully smile…