I was extremely upset while I was listening to a coaching call recently where a woman with three small kids said she was getting no help from her husband on the weekends.
At no point was she asked questions about how she wanted him to act, instead they talked about how to coach herself to thinking it was ok, even good that he came up with all these outdoor “necessary” things to do when she finally had the opportunity to get some time off from being 100% mum.
Used as a proof of this was that she was fine taking care of the kids all the other days, when he was at work and she did not expect help.
I know I am projecting myself and my own feelings around a husband who found building projects and the lawn important to tend to when I desperately needed help with the kids, and my own inability to voice this because his outdoor projects were “important too.”
I wish I could talk to this lady and tell her it is ok to have a dirty driveway, no paint on the house, and knee-long grass in those years where the kids are little. Get him to help!! Tell him! Don’t destroy those years as I did.
Coaching is a beautiful thing, but this time I strongly felt it was not strengthening the person.
My model is:
C: Listening to coaching call September 15th
T: The poor woman is not getting the help she needs and the coach must be from the fifties.
(A lot of self-judging thoughts later on top of that as I, in reality, love this coach but that’s the true thought I had)
F: Anger
A: Ruminating about the imagined life of the lady with the husband who did not understand that someone who looks after small kids 5-7 days a week NEEDS A BREAK and does not know how to TAKE it for herself so she needs to be OFFERED a break, ruminating about how things could have been different if I knew what I know now 10 years ago when my kids were little, ruminating about the concepts of “you can only change yourself” versus “I would have wanted intervention, and I think it is important to help other people”
R: Stop listening to coaching call-podcast, stop doing thought work, not helping anyone least of all myself.
What I would like help with is how to stop wasting time (hours) ruminating about something that is obviously not in my power to do anything about and at the same time not wanting to be indifferent to other people’s problems.
