Monday, September 24, 2012

What's Past is Past


 
Entrepreneur Stephen Covey says, “The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.”

It never ceases to amaze me how people can bring up situations or conversations that happened years ago with all the details when they want to make a point about something that is happening in the present.

This is especially true when a couple has a heated discussion or argument and one or both people throw salt on old wounds leaving the other person bewildered as to the relevance of something that happened long ago, to the current issue. The circumstances surrounding the current discussion or argument are totally different from what happened in the past. This is almost always done to hurt not help.

When arguments and disagreements are not resolved one way or another, they seem to have a way of popping back up at the most inappropriate times, adding even more confusion and bitterness to an already negative situation.

Inserting old stuff into new situations is at best counter productive and at worst it prevents couples from getting to a point where they know where each other is coming from as it relates to what they are talking about or dealing with right now. The “main thing” is what we as couples are dealing with right now without baggage of the past coming into play. Maintaining a loving relationship is never easy, but we make it harder than it has to be if we can’t move forward because we keep bringing up the past.

Bruce Edwards

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