Everyone and their brother are weighing in on the slap Will Smith delivered to Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. I wasn’t going to until I realized it fits right in with the bad marriage advice people get about “fighting”. Specifically, the impact of acting on your emotions when you are upset.
There’s an old saying about sticks and stones breaking bones but words being harmless. If you’re older than the age of 3, you know that’s a pile of crap. Words hurt. So how should you respond? Especially if the words are aimed at someone you care about?
I was born and raised Hollywood adjacent so I’m not in awe of those who make their living in “the business”. I don’t hold famous people up as either paragons to emulate or villains that must be taken down a peg. They are just people struggling with the same things everyone else does. They aren’t better or worse, they’re just more well known.
The facts seem pretty straight forward. Chris Rock made a remark about Jada Pinkett-Smith’s hair—or lack thereof. She suffers from a medical condition that he may or may not have known about. If he did know, then shame on him. But was it assault worthy?
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No. Because very few things are.
Will Smith is seen as defending his wife but was he? And did she need defending? She is a grown woman, and she wasn’t in any danger. You can see that she had a negative reaction to Chris Rock’s “joke”, but nothing needed to happen in the moment to address it.
A pause, a breath, a chance to let the cognitive brain take over is all that was necessary to avoid an incident whose repercussions are still unfolding.
And this is what happens when your emotions control you instead of you controlling them. You misinterpret the situation. You react to the flooding emotion instead of responding to the actual events. And you make things worse.
The only difference—you probably aren’t doing it on an international stage.
But make no mistake, when you give in to your emotions and have an adult version of a temper tantrum, you are responsible for the outcome. Your wife, your child, your co-worker, even a famous comedian do not make you feel a certain way or take a certain action. Those are your choices, and you own the results.
Speculating about what really set Will off—and there has been a lot of that—doesn’t change a thing. Even if there are reasons for his emotional flooding, there is no excuse for his behavior.
But it does provide an opportunity to learn how to behave in a way that honors both you and your wife, regardless of the circumstances you find yourself in.
If you struggle to keep it together at times and have experienced difficulties as a result, I invite you to have a conversation with me and discover how you can turn this around.
source: The Hero Husband Project
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