So today was cool because I was not required to carry on with any of the previous dares, Thank goodness, I did however have to, without attacking him or justifying my behavior, ask Jt to tell me three things that cause him to be uncomfortable or irritated with me.
I asked him first thing in the morning because I knew it would take him all day to come up with three :D lol. Well that didnt really work because we had yard work planned all day and he completely forgot the details of the question hahaha. But of course you know what I was doing all day, i was stressing! Thinking things like "great what is he going to say this is going to be really hard to hear and worse to not be able to respond on my behalf :/ seriously are theses people crazy? I thought through all the things i think I do wrong and can I say it was not easy to think I was going to have to hear out loud from "the mirror I cannot avoid" this was NOT going to be easy in fact I was very worried it was going to hurt in a bad way.
When we put the girls to bed and the house was all settled in I asked him "So did you think at all about the question I asked you this morning?" there was a long pause!!!!!!!!!! This CANNOT be good!! (Is exactly what went through my "the world is over" head). The answer that finally found its way to the surface could not have been further from my worst fear. He replied " Im not sure I can even come up with three!" (you can exhale now haha) Thats what I told myself! :P I know barf, right! Oh how great for me, right! Wrong! I know that he can say this now but let me tell you 3ish years ago before I set out on this self reflecting journey he would have had a list! The ONLY reason he can say that is lots of hard work and staying focused on God and what he wants our marriage to be. It has not been easy! So these words sound oh so sweet to me! I went on and said well would you like for me to say what I think I do that irritates you? We ended up having a good open conversation where I was able to hear what he had to say and in no way was I offended! I am finally at a place in my life where I am comfortable enough with my brokenness and also very self aware knowing what I am doing wrong.
We came up with three things... 1. When he is at work and something happens at home... I call him, but get no answer, I text him and still nothing, I text again, nothing, so then I start in and it usually goes along the lines of "oh what do you know here I am left to figure it out on my own all by myself! Like usual!" or say he makes a mistake with the schedule, it is always (and I say that sincerely) an honest mistake. But I blame him and say dont worry I!!! will figure it out I!!! always DO! In other words I throw his job in his face in a way! As if he could care less about me and the girls! 2. I am always throwing what his mom does and how she acts in his face and I also tend to blame him. I never give him credit for the things he has done to try and combat who "she" is. I love my mother in law, she is such a great help to us with the kids and she absolutely loves us all! I am just jealous and feel like "He is my man now" back off! I get very territorial! lol I know that sounds bad! That is because it is! The truth in what you just read is that I am simply not confident enough in myself and my marriage yet! I should not be threatened at all by my Mother in Law or any women for that matter! I know there is room for growth here!! I can say I have made leaps so far, maybe not bounds yet :). and 3. When he has something very important going on at work and I call him sometimes he will answer to tell me hey something is going on let me call you back. He is trying to give me a heads up and I yell at him that we haven't talked all day and if he was unable to talk then why did he answer the phone at all!
At the end of it all I think I made it through the dare with a lot less scrapes then i was planning! I am glad we had the chance to openly communicate so that I could hear from his perspective what I might try working on! I did have a few things pop out at me so here they are: "If you're thinking that your spouse-- not you -- is the one who needs to work in this area, you're likely suffering from a bad case of ignorance, with a secondary condition of selfishness." and "do you wish your spouse would quit doing the things that bother you? Then it's time to stop doing the things that bother them." Id like to end on a thought. It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over but each time your expecting different results. This was an inspiration for me when I decided to try working on my marriage what I was doing over and over was not working, "trying to fix him" just made things worse, so I went about it with a different approach I decided to start fixing me instead! Day 6 will be "Love is not irritable" stay tuned!
LT
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