The other day I went into the refrigerator to grab ingredients to make a smoothie. As I moved aside various items doing a very familiar refrigerator shuffle to find what I needed, I couldn’t find what I was looking for – almond milk. The ingredient I needed to make my smoothie. 

I was confused. The last I checked a few days prior, we definitely had a good amount of almond milk left. I asked my husband what happened and he told me, very casually, that he must have used it up making something for the kids. 

I felt myself become (h)angry. I went into blame mode while simultaneously desperately trying to not go into blame mode. I began my line of detective questions. Why wasn’t it added to the shopping list when it was emptied? How could someone use it up and not replace it? Who uses up all the milk!? He defended his position and continued to imply this wasn’t a big deal. I knew I was overreacting and doing all the things I didn’t want to be doing and I tried to soften. But. The. Almond. Milk.

Then my husband graciously looked at me and said, “I love you more than almond milk.” All of my blame and anger subsided. What he did in that moment de-escalated our encounter entirely. He shifted the focus of the conversation to our connection with one another, which countered the way I was disengaging from the person in front of me while I was so preoccupied by and entangled in my anger and blame. In bringing us back to our relationship and care for one another, it took the power out of the issue and the surrounding details. When we can soften around our anger and remember that the people we are often most activated by are the people we care for the most, it can help bring us back to what matters most….them, and not the almond milk!