Okay, so I posted about my hurt stemming from an argument with my daughter and anger at my husband for not standing up to her along with me and how he said the most hurtful things to me. I did not find your response surprising at all because I actually expected you to say what your did about our thoughts creating our feelings and nobody can make us feel anything but ourselves no matter what. But I then posted what I was really thinking and quite honestly started to think this cannot be the case 100 percent of the time in the human experience and other people can trigger our feelings. In most cases I totally agree with this and I am learning from it and it is logical. On the other hand I still believe that in many ways it is almost impossible to say to oneself, “Okay, I don’t want to feel hurt because that doesn’t feel good, so I’ll make myself believe his comment does not bother me and let it go in one ear and out the other and feel fine about it.” But having said that I did what you suggested (childishly not wanting to because your response was not making me feel any better…when I knew it wouldn’t anyway. The toddler in me wanted you to say, “YES ROBIN you are RIGHT. YOUR HUSBAND IS A JERK LOL!) and pulled all my thoughts about my daughter and husband out of my post and modeled each one. So I’ll give you this one lol!
This is what I learned.
1. My daughter is who she is and I cannot change her.
2. I can tend to act like a child around her by pushing her buttons as opposed to acting like an emotional adult because I want her to respond and act towards me in a certain way.
3. It doesn’t matter how she responds because I know she loves me and just because I would behave a certain way doesn’t mean I can expect her to behave the same way.
4. I really need to learn to hold my tongue more and remind myself that I am an adult and not to allow myself to fall into the part of acting like a toddler not getting what she wants.
5. I don’t believe my husband truly meant what he said about me being the cause of all the family confrontation.
6. He said that out of frustration because I would not let up on him with accusations and all the ways he should act. It was his way to shut me up.
7. My husband has never been confrontational his whole life, except when running his own business. Why would I expect him to be confrontational with my daughter even for me (I wasn’t going to die because she angered me and because he wasn’t confrontational with her)
8. This is one of the big reasons I married him because we balance each other. (They say the thing that attracted you can sometimes be the same thing that drives you apart…UH OH!).
9. I absolutely was expecting him to behave from the manual I want him to conform to
10. Not coming to my defense doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me. He shows me in other ways
11. Most of all I need to work on myself to be an emotional adult and therefore will not tend to even get in these emotionally exhausting situations and watch myself grow into an even better person (someone I will like more than I do now).
Thank you,
Robin
