But finding a label did not solve everything, since it was not my husband who was causing my unhappiness.

I was.

What finally opened my eyes was a moment involving broccoli. (That’s marriage for you). Dave was standing at the sink washing a pile of broccoli for his lunch, and he was taking a really, really, really long time to do it. Like, five minutes per floret.

As he was standing there washing, taking up the part of the kitchen that I needed, I had a clear and satisfying vision of roundhouse-kicking him in the back of his head. Can you NOT see that it’s lunchtime and I’m racking around the kitchen trying to make the kids’ lunches? Can you NOT hear how tired and crabby they are? Can you NOT be so damn selfish for even a minute?

When he finally finished, he turned around and I saw that he was completely unaware of the chaos around him — the kids melting down, the wife pushing past him a hundred times. He looked content, even had this little, loving smile on his face

In that moment, I slowed down and zoomed out, hovering over the situation as if I was watching a movie. There were two hungry and irritated kids, there was a man washing broccoli, and a seething woman, exhausted from holding so much resentment.

I zoomed out to see that Dave was a human being, someone’s child, someone’s brother, someone’s father. When I took that bigger view, I found compassion. That may sound like a simple revelation, but it’s anything but.