Jasmine's Place Issue No. 11 - May/June 2014 | Page 23

PCR: If you’re going to have to talk to your spouse about the problem, how do you approach that? Do you plan a weekend away, do you sweeten them up first, do you blurt it out? JN: It’s so easy when we’ve been hurt, to be tempted to just blurt it out, we can just let it come out, whatever way, full of accusations, judgement and hurt. Often with betrayals, we don’t know for sure if it’s happened. And so we’re often starting from that place of uncertainty, if we think they’ve lied, or think “gosh these bank accounts are not lining up with what we’ve talked about”, or we’re seeing tell- tale signs of infidelity, how do we raise these things? If we do it at 11pm at night when everyone is tired, emotions are riding high, we’re not going to have the right sort of conversation. So, if we can first get to God and say “I’m really worried, I’m afraid that I’ve been betrayed” and if we can pour out our hearts before God first and ask Him for wisdom. You know the Bible says call wisdom your sister, call understanding your best friend …. And we need that in marriage, and we need to get to that point when we say “God I need Your help with this”…raise it in the day time . PCR: I was reading the other day that our control over our emotions and our conscience are much better in the morning. Evidently our conscience gets more relaxed as we go through the day, we’re more likely to do wrong things later on in the day than we are first thing in the morning, and we’re more likely to get more emotional later on in the day. JN: Certainly tiredness makes emotions more fragile. And so, that makes perfect sense if you haven’t had a good night’s sleep. Take your time, don’t raise it when your spouse is about to go out to work. If you have children, have someone to look after them, and be clear, “there’s something I really want to chat to you about” - creating that space, praying about it before, thinking about how we say these things – they may have… JASMINE'S PLACE 23