Love Your Wife As Yourself

Love Your Wife As Yourself

             Babylonian Talmud

The important point, says Telushkin, is not that you feel as if you acted with love, but that your wife feels loved.  It’s not about my actions, but about her feelings.  In so many ways, our actions can be misinterpreted.  It’s is all, and always, in the subtext.  There are the words I say, but there is also the way that I say them.  Just as there are the actions that I do, and the way that I do them.  As in all of life, it’s not about the action or the intention alone, it is also and always about the way the words and actions are perceived.  

It is that way with people who are sometimes unintentionally cruel by telling the truth.  “You asked, so I told you.”  Not always the best way to respond.  Sometimes, to maintain peace in the house, it is necessary to nuance your answer or action.  Truth may be the easiest story to remember.  But it’s not always the best story for the situation.