6.4 Activity with Your Children

Kids can get on board with a secret code strategy too. Talk about what situation often catches your family off guard and a clever way you can remind each other that it is happening. Make sure everyone agrees that it is a problem and how you can call a time out with an agreed upon signal.


6.1 The Skill

It helps to have your own personal version of Morse Code. When you are in a public setting, and things are going awry, it is handy to have agreed upon signals to cast across the room.
It could be a certain kind of sneeze, or a well worn joke, or a pet name. The message you want to covey can vary as well. You may want to be able to stop a wayward conversation in its tracks. Perhaps you honey is talking about something confidential, and does not realize it.
In any case, you can talk ahead of time about how to get the other person's attention in a subtle way without scarring anyone.
Another time for a secret code is when the two of you are alone, but spiraling out of bounds. For awhile we used the precise sound that Wiley Coyote made when he was falling over a cliff, and crashed at the bottom of the canyon. For us it was a reminder of a quote we love.
"In the presence of true married love, evil spirits cast themselves over the deep and perish."
When John and I get sucked into an argument with no positive outcome insight, one of us might remember and make that fall-and-crash sound. Then we can both smile and step out of the quicksand.
Talk together about what situation you feel needs a life raft, and a way to rescue your relationship when it happens.


6.3 The Story

Spelling is easier than it used to be. 

 

Not because the occurrences of obstreperous spellings have diminished, but because of the handy little red line that appears when we make a mistake. I appreciate that there is no penalty for trying, and even repeated failures. It is different with my ATM card, that yells at me when I mess up three times and snatches my card away. Probably the teller that gets minimum wage for screening hours of mundane interactions gets a good laugh and tells his friends about the lame lady who cannot remember her PIN. That happened to me in Paris. I cringe to think of them mocking me in French. 

 

But with computers you have a forgiving advocate hiding beneath the keys who nonchalantly brings small errors to your attention immediately, so you can actually redeem yourself before you click on send or worse yet, print. 

 

You are not an unprecedented jerk. You simply cannot figure out the minutiae of vowels and prefixes that take inordinate delight in fooling you. Hence the handiness of the spell checker. 

 

A couple we know came up with a similar scheme for routine interrelational faux paus. 

 

"ouch."

 

It does not even get a capital letter because it is supposed to be said surreptitiously, not announced. 

 

When one of you says something that causes the other discomfort, the appropriate response is "ouch." It does not heap shame and revenge on the speaker, it simply underlines the words, giving him or her a chance to amend them.  

 

I am grateful for the spell checker that redirected me approximately seventeen times in this short diatribe, perhaps convincing you that I can indeed spell proficiently. 

 

I am equally grateful to John, who quietly gives me another opportunity to speak kindly. 

  

6.5 Prayer

Oh Lord,
Why do I make the same mistakes over and over? Why are I so slow to learn?
Thank you for the chance to try to honor my partner in better way than I have done in the past. Please help me to stop doing damage to my marriage, and to be willing to see hurts when they happen.
Remind me that I love my spouse and the last thing I want to do is hurt him/her.
Amen.