My husband is getting frustrated with me because I think with my emotions when we have to make a difficult decision. How can we resolve this conflict?

It’s wonderful when a person can feel deeply. And it sounds like God has given you a sophisticated set of emotions. And that’s great.

And then there are factors that play into our lives. We might have been brought up into a home where there’s a lot of drama and emotion. From day one, we were allowed to process our emotions out in the open without any boundaries on them.

But there is a reason why your husband is getting frustrated, and it has to do with the ability of emotions to make a reasonable decision. Basically, they can’t.

I want to step back and just give you a little quick “Emotions 101” lesson. Please, I hope this is helpful. I don’t mean to in any way to talk down, because emotions are a very vital part of our life.

But you see, what we see in our culture is a lot of people thinking with their emotions. Sounds like that’s what you guys are struggling with: time to make a big decision? “Well, how do I feel about this?”

Here’s the problem with thinking with your emotions. Emotions have no capacity to think. They only know how to feel. And as such, they don’t have to feel accurately. They can feel any way they want. They can give you false readings all the time. Go to a wedding. Can’t stop crying. Go to a funeral. Can’t stop laughing. What’s going on? Well, your emotions are pushed to an extreme, and so they default and they become unreliable. And so, that can really hamper a family trying to make hard decisions.

When it’s time to make a decision, sure, you felt all the stuff about it, but when it’s time to make a decision, you need to make a decision based on the facts, the truth, logic, and common sense. That’s how you make a decision.

Now, it’s great that you feel, but you are going to block the ability to make good choices if you don’t really finalize it based on the facts, the truth, logic, and common sense. Sounds like your husband has a lot of that.

So, what I would suggest you do is, let’s take a month. Say, “For one month, my husband is going to have the freedom to make all the hard choices, and no matter how bad I feel and how much I just want to emote out-loud and get dramatic, I am going to ask God for the ability, I’m just going to work in my heart, or whatever, to just zip my lip and keep out of it, and just let him do it and see how they work out.”

And then, you know what? This is also what we have umpires and counselors for. You need to talk with somebody about this, so that your emotions can flow through you but not consume you and control you. Because, see, if you are run by your emotions, unfortunately you can make a lot of bad choices out of that.

Drama? It’s great in the theatre. It is great every once in a while in the home. But for the most part, let’s keep it in balance. When the intellect and the emotions and the spirit are all in balance, it’s amazing how much more fun life is around the house.