4T 126
(Testimonies for the Church Volume 4 126)
In your household you have always taken too much of the management upon yourself. When your opinions or plans have been crossed, instead of conceding to, or compromising with, those who opposed you, considering that they as well as yourself had a right to their independent judgment, you have felt vexed and hurt. You could not endure that your family should call your plans in question or offer suggestions differing from your opinions. In consequence of this unpleasant state of affairs your family have usually submitted their wishes to yours, and allowed you to have your own way, in order to preserve harmony at home. Therefore there has been in your family much long-suffering, much patient indulgence of your whims. This appears to you only a proper observance of your legitimate authority; you consider it sound and correct management on your part. (4T 126.1) MC VC
Whenever your determination to carry out your own judgment at all hazards has driven your friends to the opposite extreme and to feel contempt for your arbitrary spirit, you have felt and intimated that all such opposition was instigated by the temptations of the enemy. This has made you more persistent in carrying out your own ideas, regardless of the wishes of others. (4T 126.2) MC VC
You are in danger of having trouble because you are unwilling to grant liberty of judgment and opinion to those connected with you. It is well for you to remember that their ways and their opinions may be as dear to them as yours are to you. We are very apt to lose sight of this fact when we censure others for not agreeing with us. You govern the members of your family too rigidly. You are very punctilious in giving them line upon line and precept upon precept; and if they venture to differ with you, it only renders you more determined to act according to your own mind, and to show that you are master in your own house, and that you are not to be interfered with. (4T 126.3) MC VC