Chapter Ten: The Ego

Barbara and Allen were forty-eight years old and in their second marriage. Both had active careers; both were naturally friendly affable people. And both liked to be right.“He embarrassed me in public,” she said.“You left me standing there and walked into the other room,” he said.“What are you talking about?” I asked.“We were shopping for tile,” Allan said. “Not my most favorite thing. I could have been home watching the football game. And we were looking at samples. We had narrowed it down to five. And she disappears. She is in the other room looking at carpet. We weren’t shopping for carpet.”“Well, we are going to need carpet, probably,” Barbara said.“But you left me standing there with the sales clerk feeling like a fool.”“My back hurt standing there. I needed to move. You know I can’t stand in one place too long.”“No I don’t,” Allan said. “Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t. I can’t read your mind.”“No, but you seem very good at raising your voice, reprimanding me in front of others and embarrassing me. And I don’t appreciate that kind of treatment.”“Dr. McMillan,” Allan said turning to me sitting in my rocker in front of them on the couch, “What do we do?”“I wonder,” I said, “if you can see that it is an offense to take an offense. Your problem is not each other. Your problem is your egos.”“What do you mean?” Barbara said.“”Allan was shopping with you for tile,” I replied. “Trying to be a good partner, focusing on the task at hand. And you take offense when he felt abandoned by you. You did in fact leave him to go to another room. Instead of being embarrassed, you might have taken the fight to your hurt pride, put it in its place and said, ‘sorry. I left you. My back hurt and I needed to walk.’”“Yes,” Allan said, “and then we would have been fine.”“Not so fast Allan,” I said. “And you, instead of getting your feelings hurt simply because your wife left your side for a moment, could have done battle with your ego instead and said, ‘Barbara, I missed you. Where did you go?’ in a kind voice rather than an offended voice.”“I see what you are saying,” Barbara said. “It’s an offense to take offense. Both of us had our pride hurt and instead of assuming our partner loved and cared for us, we assumed they were our enemy trying to hurt us, when that wasn’t true. Allan was only trying to get the task done for me and I was only trying to cope with my back pain. Allan chose to feel neglected and I chose to feel embarrassed. Both of us focused on the other’s sin and not on the real battle with ourselves.”“You got it,” I said. This is a familiar story that could be told about any couple. When we are insecure and our egos are fragile, we are not strong enough to do battle with our pride. We shift the fight to blaming our mates, forcing the pride battle onto them. They defend their pride and push the pride battle back onto us. The battle with our pride is lost and the battle with our mates will continue until someone takes on their ego and wins that battle. After that, peace in the relationship becomes possible.