This morning my husband and I had a disagreement. Definitely not one of our most intense disagreements, but a disagreement nontheless. As I sit here binging on blue chips and hummus because I am feeling so uncomfortable (ok it could be fruit, but come on at least it is not doughnuts!), I am thinking about the last thing that was said last night at my conscious parenting meeting. . .my friend Jayme who is leading the course said, "The next time you are triggered, try to think about it from a fresh new perspective, like you have never seen it before in your life."
Of course, that is a total invitation for discomfort to come knocking, right? And it did. But here I sit, an attempt to erase memories and emotion from the past and look at the situation from fresh eyes. Here goes. . .
We were sitting around the breakfast table before school, the whole family. I was feeling so grateful that we get to do this often, and that we would all be heading to school as a family to an event that my son's class was having to display and present their dwelling projects that they created last week. We had so much fun as a family learning and making this project together that I was thrilled at the opportunity to experience Brady and his other classmates talking about their proud creations. Mostly, it was wonderful to see how excited Brady was that Brian would be able to join us in this exciting event.
We were giving Brady $5.00 for lunch and had decided to give him $10.00 to bring to a Christmas event afterschool he was attending with a friend. Brian was explaining this to him and what I heard him say was, "You have $5.00 for lunch and $5.00 for the christmas festival."
I didn't give him a chance to finish when I said, "You mean $10.00 for the festival." I wanted to make sure that Brady knew the correct amount of money that would be in his backpack since I wouldn't see him later.
Brian immediately said, seemingly annoyed (at least that's what I thought), "That's what I said."
"No," I responded. "You said $5.00. . .", questioning myself as I always do when I meet disagreement, but sure of what I had heard.
"That's twice in the last few days!" he responded, his voice growing, clearly upset. It felt like a switch had flipped inside of him. Up went my protection. My chest tightened. My breath grew short. I didn't want to move. I didn't know what he meant. He went on to explain how the other day I pointed out that he had misspoken about something that he thought he didn't.
At this point, my son got involved. "Mommy, he did say $10.00, you're wrong." This boiled my blood even more. First, because my past story about how a couple is not supposed to let their children see them fight let alone be involved in them was on high alert. The other reason that triggered me was now I had two people telling me I was wrong and I wasn't being heard. I wasn't sure of what to say or do. But I was mad. Really mad. I felt my temper flare.
"Why is it so impossible that you might be wrong?" I asked my husband, nervous, but angry as well.
Now, my husband and I could not be more in love with one another. I am so fulfilled in the relationship we have created and am so incredibly grateful for the abundance of opportunities that have come into our lives to allow us to create the marriage we have always wanted. That said, it is definitely not easy. Consciousness in our relationship is a choice we make over and over again, sometimes moment by moment. At times it can feel like so confronting and difficult. And by no means are we perfect at it.
As Brian is working more on letting go of his need to control everything, and simultaneously, I am working on being courageous because I want to be seen and heard, a dynamic is changing in our relationship. Often in the past I would agree with him more than I wanted to about things. At the time I thought it was because I really didn't care about the topic. But as I delve more into my own personal stories, I realize it is because I have such a need for human connection. I was never willing to risk going against his need to control. So if it meant I had to keep quiet about my own opinions and agree with him about things like this to keep our connection going, then so be it.
But things are different now. I have so much faith in our relationship and what it can withstand. I have learned so much more about who I am and give myself permission to unmask the authentic me and be more self-expressed, even if there is a potential of him or anyone else getting angry. I find myself able to let go of what people think more than evern now. However, in those moments when I know that it is time to be seen and heard, it is still very uncomfortable. My biggest fear continues to loom, "What if he gets mad and I end up alone?"
So at this point in our discussion, so many emotions were coming up for me that I couldn't really see. . . was I having to be right? No, I thought! I know better! I kept going. "Why do you really need to hang on to being right that much?" Typical coach in me, right? A fine strategy to avoid stopping and looking at myself. Manipulate with the new age lingo.
"No, he said. That's not it. I don't have to be right, Brian said. "But Brady heard you too. So that must mean that you heard me wrong." In my mind, all I could think about was how inauthentic he was being. That thought should have been a big old neon light red flag to me. .Hello??? What about YOUR inauthenticity Amy?
I looked at Brian with a look on my face like, "Come on. You know Brady idolizes you. And he is 8 so any opportunity to prove his mother wrong is going to be golden to him." Thank goodness I didn't say that. Although, as I sit here and write it, I know that it doesn't matter that I didn't say it. Brady is intuitive and I know that he could sense the ickiness even though the words were absent. Kids just know. At this point, I was far from the authentic me. Very far.
"You two are unbelieveable!" was the last thing that I was going to say. Nope, of course it wasn't the last thing I said. "Listen it doesn't matter what was said. But the point is that you are teaching your children that there has to be a "right" and a "wrong" which doesn't allow them to listen to any other perspective. Now who was right? It was just ickiness iced with more ickiness.
"You're right, you're right." he conceded. At this point though it was too late. My passive aggressive temper was driving.
"Don't patronize me!" I boomed. I was officially completely unconscious. And pissed. And all that was going to feel good at this moment was to prove him wrong. Irony is a cruel thing sometimes. . .
"I'm not patronizing, you are right." Brian said. I was so foggy in my head at that point, I didn't know whether I could believe him or not. My trust was gone in him and he had ruined my morning, damnit!
Quietly I said to Brady, "It doesn't really matter what was said, Brady, just know that you have $5.00 for pizza and $10.00 for the fair."
I tried to go on with my morning, but it was difficult. I had such an uncomfortable feeling in my chest and felt kind of numb all over. Brian stopped talking as did I. There was a lot of tension in the air.
After busying myself with getting the kids into the car, we all just sat quietly. Brian grabbed my hand in the car, which I held, hesitantly. He asked me if I was ok and I lied and said yes. He said he doesn't like when there is a disconnect between us. "How could he expect me to hold his hand?", I thought. He is the ENEMY right now! I can't just get past being treated like that, it is not ok that he talked to me like that! He made me look and feel so stupid! Especially in front of the kids!" Oh my mind was wandering far. . .the stories so creative and good.
I, of course, needed to have the last word. "I just wish that you could possibly entertain the idea that sometimes there is just a miscommunication and it can be left at that."
He smiled and said, "but there wasn't. We both heard the same thing."
"Exactly", I said, but you are still doing it. You can't even fathom a world in which you are not right and I am not sure why you are holding on to that so tightly." Seriously, why did I care? It really was not my business what was going on with him. Boy do I wish I could have seen that in the moment, but I didn't.
He stopped. "Could it be possible that you misheard me?"
"Of course! I completely think that is possible. We will never know and that is fine with me." I said the right words, and truly believe them. However, my being at that point, was in the crapper.
He thought about this for a moment. "I see what you are saying." Something seemed to change in him. A few minutes later when I asked him if he was ok, he said I am just trying to take a few cleansing breaths to bring consciousness to my frontal lobe."
Can you tell that he is an engineer and relies heavily on science? Can you see why I go crazy sometimes? Just kidding. . .
At this point, I knew something had shifted in him, but I still didn't feel better. I didn't want to talk to anyone, I was mad that this took as much time as it did, and the whole thing seemed ridiculous. I know that there was a part of me that I couldn't let go of being right either. . .ugh the exact thing that I was all over him for. And on top of it, what if now I would be wrong and his anger would cause me to alone too? How hopeless is that?
After my son's event, we drove home in much silence. He tried to talk, but my mind was still foggy. He asked me what I was thinking about and I lied again. "Doing gingerbread houses with the kids," I said. How random is that? I just didn't know what to say I was so uncomfortable.
"How are you?" I asked, being polite.
"Just thinking about work stufff." he said. I thought about how fake this conversation was and withdrew even more. Ridiculous.
We arrived home and he got ready to go. I of course, busied myself with the dishes. We acted like strangers for the remainder of his time home. Until a few minutes before he left for work.
Maggie, my 1 year old, and I were playing on the floor. She kept climbing on me and laughing, while I was trying to get a picture of her first ponytail. I couldn't help but laugh. . .for she has a dynamite and infectious smile. She started giving me kisses and Brian began taking some pictures of us. Then he held her and she began kissing him and I took some pictures of them. For the moments before he left, she gave us the gift of forgetting our past and becoming present to our love for her and for each other.
As I sit here and think about this situation, still quite uncomfortable, and realizing that I have some cleaning up to do later with Brian and Brady both, it really is a gift to look at things freshly. I got wrapped up in something that could have ended abruptly if I would have recognized in the moment what stories were being conjured up from my past. If I could have given myself a little space to say, "Oh yeah, I know that story. It is familiar, it has happened before. And it is not real. Our love is real. What we have is real. Although it seems like who is right and wrong is so important, none of this matters. I get to choose love in this moment."
However, I am human and I am imperfect. I have great qualities in me and I also have qualilties in me that are not so great, but I embrace and love them all. That is who I am and how God made me. I make mistakes. I have compassion for myself when I mess up and can admit that I want to try to do better next time, realizing the gift in the imperfect moment. I am grateful for an opportunity to learn how to more freely express the authentic me. Because when the authentic me is leading, maybe I don't get to be right, but what I do get is to feel is love, connection, fulfillment and joy. For me, the choice is clear.
-Amy
