One day both of you wake up very late and go about your morning business rather in a lazy way, albeit with a guilty feeling. Now, in most of the households the aspect of the utmost importance would always be ‘who will have the privilege of using the bathroom first’, and this depends entirely on your spouse. You or anyone of the members can avail of the opportunity only when she issues the permit. That day she gives you the green signal to bathe first, and in a happy state of mood you prepare yourself for the privilege. The moment you’re ready putting the towel around you lower half and about to head for the bathroom your spouse appears with something on her hands and says she has a little piece of business of to do in the bathroom telling you to wait a bit. You do wait, sitting down on a chair.
After about ten minutes you get a little doubtful and approach the closed bathroom door inquiring politely, ‘are you taking a bath?’ to which she says ‘no’. You return to your chair with the towel still around your lower half. More than twenty minutes elapse, and you become impatient, hungry and even angry now. Then she comes out saying that she decided to take the bath due to so and so reasons. You show your emotions continuing to sit on the chair, with the towel around your lower half. Now, she gets angry at your indifference to her generosity and blames you with baseless charges as to why you’ve not gone there immediately. You obviously get genuinely angry now; you get rid of the towel, put on your shorts and start preparing breakfast for yourself, being very hungry. Hell breaks loose: her nagging and your unavoidable retorts justifying your action that you had no ulterior motives. Your spouse is not in a mood to relent and the morning is almost spoilt. In such a situation the ‘reversing of emotions’ process comes good: you wear a broad smile or a Fixed Grin while sitting on chair muttering not a syllable, and the moment she comes out you go in smilingly and silently. The morning and eventually the day are saved for you.
Another fine morning you wake up in the normal hour and go about your morning business in good spirit. Your spouse informs you that as she has some work in the afternoon the lunch will be early, and tells you to take a light breakfast. You obey most amiably. After that ‘light’ breakfast your spouse sits on the bed talking on her mobile phone. And, she goes on talking for hours, apparently forgetting the ‘the early lunch command’, and you find yourself waiting indefinitely, hunger making you desperate. You somehow manage with one or two visits to the kitchen taking a mouthful of dry fruits or nuts or biscuits. When it becomes intolerable you say to her, still busy talking, rather a bit loudly, ‘you promised early lunch, and now have me tortured by hunger. If you cannot, allow me to cook myself…’ And obviously hell breaks loose again. You can avoid this easily adopting the ‘reversing of emotions’ process—doing your work with broad smile or a fixed grin and saying absolutely nothing, ignoring the growing pangs of hunger like a spiritualist; because peace and bliss is the priority.
Both of you have to keep an important appointment that day, and you told your spouse much in advance to get ready at the appropriate hour without fail. As it happens with most wives, she gets late and even the hour by which you are supposed to arrive at your destination passes. Her casual and indifferent ways infuriate you further. However, in this situation you’re already following this nonentity’s advice: waiting patiently and remaining absolutely silent, not able to display the recommended broad smile or the fixed grin though. You’re only a human being. You cannot help long impatient breaths escaping your lungs and muttering extremely softly, monosyllables like ‘oh my God!’ kind of things. Even these catch the attentive ears of your spouse and all hell threatens to break out again. So, you understand the peculiar utility of following the ‘reversing of emotions’ process in its entirety.
Right or wrong and reasonable or unreasonable arguments hardly matter in the matters of a happy conjugal life. You accept the wrong gleefully if your spouse says so, and your ‘right’ is never accepted easily which fact you must surrender yourself to. If you say her wrong as ‘wrong’ clearly it’ll work as a trigger to erupt her like a volcano; never dormant, you must understand that too. You see, all for everlasting conjugal happiness and bliss. However, this is not the general picture. On many occasions you spouse reverts to your ‘right’ sometime later making you ecstatic and vindicated; however, you’ll help yourself better by not displaying these emotions too openly. It is also imperative for you to be a perfect listener which you probably are in workplace. When you spouse is in an expansive mood and launches into a long soliloquy you must continue to listen in the most alert position—never interrupting her, neither getting up or moving around and nor fiddling with your mobile phone irrespective of ennui or similar feelings you may have encountered in the process.
Of course, you must understand your better half taking into account all the circumstances of the household and outside of it that can affect her invariably. In recent times the pandemic and the frequent lockdowns are making your spouse a prisoner in the kitchen with no outings or food parcels from her favorite restaurants, and all these easily make most of the wives stressed beyond measure and irritated all the time. You must understand your better half much more than you understand yourself. If you want to help her in the kitchen which you must, do it as per her wish, and taking absolute care that nothing in the kitchen gets displaced or the floor gets dirty, even if it was a spilling of a few drops of water. You’re bound to make mistakes in jobs you’re not used to, and therefore, whenever you make mistakes undo these immediately before you spouse comes to know. And, always keep in mind the ‘reversing’ formula.
