My Wife Triggers Me

It’s crazy to think that there was a time in my marriage when I would get negatively triggered by my wife simply by her coming into the same room.

I remember several years ago when my wife would walk into the room while I was sitting on the couch in the living room, or I’d be in the family room watching TV.

For reasons I didn’t understand, I would suddenly become very irritable and frustrated with her.

We hadn’t been in a fight, nor had she done anything wrong, but it was obvious that I was often getting triggered when she would come into the room where I was.

On one occasion, when Lisa noticed the change in my demeanor, she asked me, “Honey, are you okay? Is anything wrong?” I simply said, “No, nothing’s wrong!”

I was definitely lying to her.

I didn’t know why I was being triggered like this, nor did I know how to change it, but it was a very discouraging place I found myself in until one day, when I had a very unusual experience.

It happened in 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. My wife had a chiropractor appointment that she needed me to take her to. I was not allowed to go inside because of Covid rules at that time so I dropped her off and left to do my own thing. On my way back to pick Lisa up, she texted to inform me that she was done, and I let her know I was almost there. As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw my wife standing next to the building waiting for me, and when I saw her face, something very unusual but extraordinary happened to me:

Suddenly, I was overcome with intense feelings of passion and excitement, like in the movies when the guy and girl lock eyes on each other, the romantic music starts playing, and imaginary fireworks go off.

That’s what I felt at that moment with my wife, the woman I had been married to for over 30 years!

What in the world was going on?

What was wrong with me?” Such strong emotions caught me off guard. I wasn’t sure if I was experiencing a nervous breakdown or a midlife crisis, but something unusual was happening, and it was freaking me out.

When Lisa got in the car, I didn’t say anything about this because I didn’t want to alarm her. I decided to play it cool as best I could. I had a hard time understanding what was happening. At first, I thought it was just a fluke, but I soon discovered it wasn’t.

A couple of days later, I was home sitting on the couch when I heard the garage door open, and Lisa’s car pulled inside. A few moments later, I heard her say, “Honey, I’m home!”

I turned to see her coming out of the kitchen, and when I saw her face, I experienced the same thing that had happened a couple of days ago in the parking lot. The fireworks went off, and I was flooded with exhilaration, feeling passion and excitement for my wife.

That was when I realized what was happening: through a particular activity that I began to practice that I felt God had guided me to do, I unknowingly rewired my brain and changed the way I thought about my wife!

As if simultaneously, I also had the realization that the negative triggering occurred because I constantly dwelled on my wife’s flaws. I was fixated on the things she did that bothered me, things that I felt that she should have been doing that she wasn’t, the times I felt disrespected by her, and especially all the times that she would reject my advances for physical intimacy.

This habit of fixating on her flaws that I didn’t realize I had come to form were piling on and were dumping into my soul. Unfortunately, they had been programming my brain on how to think about and perceive my wife.

I also failed to notice how all the negativity and preconceived notions have affected not only our marital relationship but our other family members as well.

As parents, we aim to teach our children the correct values and lead them as they prepare to take their own path in life. However, we sometimes forget that these teaching moments are not limited to the times when we talk to them or try to correct their ways. Rather, it is every moment that they spend with us.

Our children observe us all the time,