We Did Not Agree In The Aisle

You both said fine.

That is what happened in the aisle and it is the most important detail in this article. Neither of you said no. Neither of you argued. Somebody said fine, and then the other one said fine, and the fine was said in a particular way that both of you heard perfectly well.

And then it was bought, and brought home, and installed, and it has been running for nine days.

And nothing has been said since.

Not silence exactly. The house is normal. There have been conversations about the week and the car and somebody's mother. But there is a particular subject that neither of you has gone near, and both of you know it is there, and it is taking up more room every day that it is not mentioned.

And here is the honest part, which is the reason this article exists.

It is not really about the machine. It is that she wanted something and did not get it, and you were the reason, and neither of you has found a way to say that out loud without it becoming a larger thing.

You are two people who bought a machine and left something unfinished, and a disagreement in a store aisle has never once been a thing a marriage cannot close.

Follow after the things which make for peace

There is an instruction in Romans written to people who genuinely disagreed about real things and had to keep living together.

Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. (Romans 14:19, King James Version)

Follow after.

That is a verb of pursuit. It means go after, chase, take trouble over. Peace in that sentence is not a state that settles on a household when everybody happens to agree. It is a thing that has to be gone after, deliberately, by somebody who decides to.

You are able to go after something rather than wait for it to arrive, and a peace that requires somebody to move first has never once been a lesser peace than one that came on its own. The Holy Spirit is the one present in a house where a subject is being avoided, and Romans 14:19 makes peace a thing pursued rather than a thing received.

And notice what he does not say.

He does not say: settle the question of who was right. The whole chapter is about people who disagree and are going to go on disagreeing, and the instruction is not to resolve the disagreement. It is to pursue the peace, which is a different object entirely.

You are not required to win this or to lose it, and a household that never settles who was right has never once been a household that could not have peace. The written word aims at the peace rather than at the verdict, and the Spirit of God is the one who takes a question off the table that was never going to be answered.

And then the second half: things wherewith one may edify another.

Edify is to build up. It is a construction word. The pair of them are being told to go after the things that build the other person, which means the measure of a move is not whether it is fair but whether it builds.

You are able to make a move tonight that builds rather than one that is fair, and a sentence chosen to build somebody has never once been the weaker move in a marriage. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man which sentence builds, and Romans 14:19 puts the building beside the peace as the same job.

What has not been said

Something practical, and it is about what the nine days have actually been.

Both of them are waiting. That is what is happening. Nobody is angry and nobody is sulking, and each of them has been waiting for the other one to open it, because the person who opens it is the person who makes it a thing.

And every day of waiting makes it slightly bigger, because a subject that has been avoided for nine days is a subject that has clearly been avoided, and the avoiding becomes its own item.

You are both waiting for the same sentence and neither of you will say it, and nine days of an unopened subject has never once been nine days of it getting smaller. The written word says follow after, which means somebody goes first, and the Spirit of God is the one who moves a man to be that somebody.

Now the instruction, and it is about what to say rather than about being sorry.

Do not apologize for the decision. The decision stands and you both know why it was made and an apology would reopen something that does not need reopening and would be dishonest besides.

Say instead: the aisle was not finished, and I know it.

That sentence does something specific. It names the unfinished thing without reopening the decision, which is exactly the thing neither of you has been able to do for nine days.

You have one sentence available that opens the subject without reopening the choice, and naming a thing as unfinished has never once been the same as agreeing to do it differently. The Holy Spirit is the one in the kitchen while it gets said, and Romans 14:19 pursues the peace rather than the verdict.

And then let her have the last word. Whatever she says, that is the end of it. Do not answer it, do not improve it, do not explain the reasoning again. She has been waiting nine days to say something and the whole point of going first is that she gets to.