Peeves Make Poor Pets

When the apostle Paul wrote, "Love is patient, love is kind..." I'm not sure he was referring to our attitude of Escalades that take up two parking spots and stick out halfway into the driving lane. Yeah, so, I have some "Pet Peeves"—who doesn't?! I'm annoyed by "luxury SUVs" (oxymoron); I don't like waking up to red cups in my lawn (I live next to State); I can't stand people running me over just to get a quarter sample of quiche at Costco; and I don't care for pickled beats that Pat & Oscar's insists on putting in their Greek salad...to name a few.

Lately, I've noticed that I have more "pets" at home. It's easy to understand why strangers and strange things bug me, but my personal and cherished Tera? And, to be more specific, my wife tends to be the object of my peevedness. It wasn't like this when we were "in love" during the dating process. As every nuptialed couple knows: what's endearing when you're dating can become annoying when you're married.

For example: Nothing sends me through the roof like finding shoes in every room of the house (including the bathroom)—and they aren't even with their mate! So, I have to play the matching game around the house through a maze of toys and discarded cheese sticks in order to find the other shoe in order to put them away (where they belong). Not to mention, Linsey uses the "garbage disposal" as a garbage disposal—literally. If there is any left over food, it goes in the sink. I'm not just talking about a few peas and half eaten carrots. If we bought a whole chicken to eat for dinner, the remains—bones and all—would go in the sink. Don't EVEN get me started about pen caps or eating in bed.

One particularly pestilent peeve has to do with my wife's peeves. This is like the graduate school of irritation. When our two kids are both screaming, throwing full-body tantrums, Linsey reaches a threshold and becomes outwardly exasperated (a big deal for an introvert). And that bugs me. Notice that it's not that my kids were at Defcon 5 that bugged me, but the fact that my wife was bugged, that really bugged me. And that bugs!

I know I'm not the only one.

I once counseled a spouse who brought in a list of grievances. An actual inventory on lined paper, numbered, on two sides. "Wow," I thought to myself, "that is some series bitterness." Which makes me think: I wonder what's on Linsey's list...

I remember the apostle Paul telling us that real love doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Ouch! Question: Does writing a blog with a record of wrongs count if it's a literary piece with theological purposes? Wait. Don't answer that.

I think Paul said this to put a question mark next to anything we haphazardly call love.

Linsey and I are no longer in love. [dramatic pause]. Oh, we love each other, but it's more of a verb now—it takes action, learning and effort—compared to when we were dating and just kind of 'fell' in love, which required no effort at all.

When we first became a couple, I didn't understand the illustrious "infallibility" of infatuation, but after eight years I do. There are times when I wish I could swallow the blue pill and go back into the matrix to enjoy an effortless false reality. But most of the time I'm thankful for the man I'm becoming as my character has been formed through the crucible of a chosen love.

And this love, which delights in the red pill (the truth), seeks to know the full measure of grace that it takes to "remove the plank from my own eye before considering the speck of dust in my spouses." After all, what is Jesus' Good News if not learning what reconciliation means—which usually means me coming to a place of humility and recognizing that my "pets" are a superficial means of self protection sprinkled with an illusion of control and inward shame.

I like how when Paul talks about our true home, he contrasts our entitlement to peeves with being rooted and established in love. Which means, when mi casa becomes a zoo of zeal and frustration, it's really a barometer of how available I've been to receiving God's love for me.

And, when it comes down to it, my abode is Linsey's home too, and she can leave half-full glasses of water wherever she pleases, even if it's in every room of the house. And, I know my "pets" are a parody of the reality that Linsey's list, if she were to have one, would look more like an encyclopedia.

Besides, peeves make poor pets. I think I’d like a dog instead.

Reflection Questions:
What's on your list? What pets of yours need to be spade/neutered, or put to sleep?


What do you think is on your significant other's list? How can you help alleviate any unnecessary tension there?