Sunday, November 27, 2011

Who is right, and who is stubborn?

I may have said this before, but I thought when I was engaged that marriage wouldn't be hard and that those people who said it was just had the wrong mindset. Well, I was partially right, but partially in lala-land and head-over-heels excited to be marrying Mr. Right. Marriage is a TRANSITION, and one that takes a lot of getting used to and a lot of realizing you need t work on yourself. I certainly thought that after a year things would be a breeze and I would REALLY know Mr. Right by now. I mean I know he has a favorite color of Scooby Snacks, so surely I know everything right? Not so much... We are still going through the "what to buy at the grocery store" struggle, and let me say, this can be quite the struggle. I would pour out details and all the things that go through my head, but I will spare us all.

But I will have a little reflection and processing time. Because of different things in my life, I taught myself to be hard and tough and that is was good and it was ok. But it wasn't. What it taught me was to ignore everything I felt for years and pretend that things that happened to me weren't a big deal, when in fact they were. We all do this, but some of us do it a little more, or maybe I should say a little worse than others. Everyone in my family told me one day the cork was going to pop off the bottle that I stuffed everything in and I was going to spew. But I said no not me, I'm tough, I'm fine, I'm strong. Well when Mr. Right came along a funny little thing happened. I started to let myself feel again and I let my walls start coming down that I had put up to keep people out. And that was a good thing, I just didn't know what the outcome of that was going to be later on down the road.

So now we are happily married, but I have all those years of emotions and feelings I stuffed that are continuing to slowly trickle out of my bottle. And on top of that, I am still new at this whole experience of letting myself FEEL. And so what do you have? Mrs. over-emotional, super-sensitive, and needy. I am the person I couldn't stand just two years ago. I think I over-feel now, if that is even possible. And I am married to Mr. Confident, who loves me dearly and also loves to pick on me dearly, because that is what he does to those he truly cares about because he can be himself with them.

So if it isn't obvious enough, let me point out the problem here. Mr. Confident picks on Mrs. Emotional, which leads to Mrs. Emotional getting upset and getting her feelings hurt. So naturally in my emotional state, I just want an apology for his being insensitive and to be held and cuddled and told I am right and I am the most wonderful thing on the planet. But Mr. Confident just wants me to have fun joking with him and to stop being so sensitive all the time. So, who is right and who is being stubborn and doesn't want to admit fault. I am going to say both of us are guilty of each. I might want my apology, but maybe I am demanding an apology for something that really doesn't need one. And he doesn't see why he needs to apologize, but maybe he needs a little more understanding. And maybe I need to apologize for getting offended so easily, and recognize that I may have over-reacted due to my current state of learning how to feel again. I may know his favorite color of Scooby snacks, but with my frequent over-reaction to things, I realize I certainly don't know him perfectly yet. I am still learning what he means by things he does or says, and so I am having to learn to be more conscious of how I react to what he does.

So I am learning. Learning so much. Learning how to feel. Learning who I am. Learning who he is. Learning I am not always right. Learning how to admit when I am not right. Learning how to face myself and my emotions and learning how to handle them correctly. And I can only pray that God continues to give me humility to see when I am wrong and admit it, and that He continues to help me learn how to correctly handle this new thing called feeling. Not only that, but that He helps me better understand Mr. Right who I am so blessed to have, so that my lack of understanding and then overreactions does not drive a wedge where one does not need to be.