At my bridal shower, guests were able to fill out cards with wedding advice for me.  One of the most listed pieces of advice was “don’t go to bed angry.”

I understand the thought behind this–you want to go to bed every night at peace with your spouse. And why continue the argument the next day if you could resolve it and move on from it so as not to have two unpleasant experiences back to back. It makes sense.

And I think when we were dating I would’ve agreed with this. I wouldn’t have wanted to get off the phone or go to bed mad at him or with him mad at me.  I would’ve wanted to talk it out or fight it out and passionately resolve everything before going to sleep.

While I get this advice in theory, in practice I’m not so sure.

Sometimes going to bed angry can be a good thing.  It can give you time to cool off and collect your thoughts so that you can articulate better your feelings. I’ve found that when I go to bed angry I’ll wake up the next day and it will take me a little while before I remember “oh, I was mad at him last night” and usually the feeling is just gone.

Maybe we don’t have serious enough arguments or do things that make each other angry.

Maybe there’s a difference between angry and annoyed and this advice is for when you’re truly angry.

I asked Mike what he thought last night and he agreed that it’s OK to go to bed angry.  I reminded him that when we were dating he was a big proponent of this advice and he said that I was too but that time has shown us that sometimes it’s better to sleep on it.

We will disregard this piece of marriage advice and see where we end up.

What do you think??

Let’s discuss:

Don’t go to bed angry. Agree or disagree?