Believe the best

Recently I read a blog post on marriage and this one section in it really stood out for me. A month later I'm still thinking about and wanting to do better at living it.

"[Charity] Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

1 Corinthians 13:7

"Assume goodwill.

If you are in a good intentions marriage and none of the 4 A’s (abuse, abandonment, addiction, and adultery) are present, then you can and should assume the best about your husband.

We all make mistakes in how we present things, say things, do things. But if you can take a step back and assume that he meant to do it as a good thing and didn’t intentionally make a mistake and certainly didn’t mess up AT you, things diffuse a lot more quickly.

I ran our car battery dead yesterday. We have a fickle headlight system and I left a door open. My husband knew I didn’t run the battery dead on purpose or to make his life harder. He just pulled his car up and jumped it. No yelling. No passive aggressive down talk. Just fixing the problem. Because we all make mistakes.

Imagine how differently that interaction would go if he didn’t assume good things about me and instead assumed I was trying to make his life hard or that I messed up on purpose?"