I judge today to be a good day to finish up our Marriage series!
Trust Judgment
Do you trust a person’s opinion of their spouse? Most likely they know the person the best, right? As a result, wouldn’t they have the most accurate judgment? It seems logical except it comes up against another idea, as told in a quote we all have heard, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.’ The problem isn’t that we know our spouse so well. It’s that we know our spouse TOO well. So well that our opinion is skewed. It might be skewed toward contempt and denigration like I show in my drawing or toward adulation and adoration.
Judgment for What?
As I was drawing this I came up with a quote, ‘If there is no reason behind your judgment, then don’t judge.’ I was thinking about how a spouse’s judgment has a different reason and purpose than most others. She might be judging based on his emotional attentiveness, finding him lacking or fantastic. But your judgment might need to be made based on his technical skills at work. He might judge his wife based on her organizational skills around the house but you might need to judge her on her social ability at the volunteer organization you both help out at.
What is the reason for your judgment? Very likely it’s different than the spouse’s reasons. Either way, to latch on to someone else’s judgment of someone is a dangerous thing, spouse or not. Making your own judgment, based on your criteria and reasoning, is essential to being an adult in the world.
See the entire series all at one time by clicking this magic word: Marriage
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Bob Edwards, 1860-1922, Canadian Humorist
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