There’s a show on German TV called Paare, which translates roughly as “couples.” I’ve only watched it once (we just got German programming about a month ago – more on that in another post), but it was highly entertaining. The whole gist of the show is to highlight a wide variety of tensions that are found in relationships – you know, the little things that rub each other wrong.

I enjoyed the show because it showed a lot of the common conflicts in relationships that are a result of two different points of view. It also shows the common failure of each side to see things from the point of view of the other.

What scares me is how we often let those little things build up. We start to create a little database of all the wrongs that our spouses have committed or regularly commit. We let those things build up. We make a case for how terrible the other is. And, left unchecked, this case will get stronger and stronger until, finally, we have enough justification to terminate the relationship.

That’s the problem. We laugh at all the little things (in other relationships), but meanwhile, in our own relationships, we are letting those same little things build and ruin a good thing.

So, how do you avoid that?

I don’t know – maybe just by realizing that it happens. Maybe throwing away the scorecards we keep on our spouses – focusing less on what our spouses aren’t doing, and more on all the great things they are doing. And not forgetting that to love is to give freely - with no expectation of getting anything in return.

Maybe it’s asking, “What am I doing to show my love for my spouse?”