Wednesday Rant – Code Word “Orange”

Have you ever felt like you were going to burst through your skin, raging with frustration, yet ready to cry at the same time?  Maybe you have experienced a moment when everything was fine between you and your spouse and then he asks you, “What’s wrong?” When you quickly respond with “Nothing” red flags go up in his mind and then he can’t stop the quest to figure out what is bothering you.  This in turn fuels whatever wasn’t bothering you – that which your husband took note of – and now you are trying to pinpoint what it is he saw.

Situations like this began to pop up between my husband and I, even before we were married.  He would go down a list of emotions in hopes to catch whichever one was affecting me.  In those moments I was usually all of them, but I didn’t want to admit to any!  This almost always resulted in us arguing about something unrelated and irrelevant.  We both began to get frustrated by these emotional encounters, one time leading my husband to shout out, “Well then what are you?” I don’t know if I was really thinking anything but I shouted even louder back to him, “Orange!”  His furrowed brows quickly shaped into confusion as he responded, “What do you mean your orange?” I had to explain to him that sometimes I can’t pinpoint my emotions and I don’t always notice when something is affecting me.  Women are full of hormones that can be out of whack and we just need a minute to compose ourselves.  Every time I couldn’t verbalize how I was feeling I would use the code word “orange.” I’m not sure if he fully understood or just accepted my weird code word, but we used it many times after that and it seemed to work.

Communication is an interesting and vital part of marriage.  A husband and wife can’t get away with too much without communicating.  The lack of it in a marriage makes a very noticeable impact, usually immediately.  There are other times when you want to communicate, its just a challenge to find the words and still there are those other times where maybe something is communicated just a little too much.  Balance is definitely a key.

Do you and your husband have a healthy communication line open?

Is there balance?

Do you come up with silly code words for certain situations?  (If you think they could help someone else’s marriage or provide a good laugh, please share in the comments below:)