Quarrelsome

“It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.” – Proverbs 21:9

Whenever Dave and I go through permutations of work-life balance, we have to make adjustments, not just in logistics, but in what it means to inhabit differing proportions of differing worlds. Where we spend our work day affects how we experience the space and dynamics of home; it affects what our minds dwell on and what it takes to communicate well and feel together in it all.

One example of this is how, with homeschooling, our (entire) house has become a kind of personal workspace. Just as one would organize their office desk, the order and cleanliness of things at home have acquired a new meaning that I forget may seem foreign to Dave, who unlike me still leaves the house for work every day. It’s easy to become microcosmically critical about things he does in our space that I never explicitly communicated about. And now that I don’t have the commute home to decompress, or really any line between work and home, it’s easy for the day’s frustration to leak out upon the only adult I ever see, even just in small ways.

The word “quarrelsome” here can also be translated “contentious.” The best analogy we have is that of continually dripping rain (Proverbs 19:13, 27:15). Dripping rain doesn’t kill you; one drop here or there is not remarkable at all. But the overall effect, if it keeps on going, is just enough to annoy and impair, isn’t it? Everyone who has dealt with a dripping faucet knows how the sound can drive you crazy. Even when it’s only drizzling, you can’t go out and do very much. Eventually anything you leave outside long enough gets soaked through.

That is what being quarrelsome is like: never a notable outburst, nothing that gets it all out in the open, just small squabbles that build up over time, inevitably altering the atmosphere of the home until it becomes a terrible place to live. Proverbs says it’s better to be in a small corner of the roof than in a wide house, better to be in a desert (21:19)! This is a good reminder that the small things we do or say, our facial expressions and tones of voice, matter. Being kind to those closest to us, demonstrating affection, being intentional about communication, is important, more than we realize. And it’s important now more than ever.