Day 4! Welcome back. I know what you must be thinking. Why do we need this giant back story? Will it ever end? Will we ever get to the what the actual epiphany is?!?!?!
Well folks, its my story. It will end. And we will get to the actual epiphany….at just the right moment.
So settle in folks. Part 4 is set to begin.
So where were we?
Ah yes. My husband accused me of being lazy, during one of my busiest weeks of the year so far. We broke all 5 of our unspoken marriage rules 2 days in a row. Oh and he bravely texted me that he was not going to apologize even though he knew I was hurt.
My response?
Well. I could either attack back angrily and escalate the entire situation in to outer space.
OR. I could take a deep breath, and calmly respond to him, hoping that one day he will say the wrongs in his perceived rights.
Basically. I had to pick between last decade me, who desperately wanted to be let loose and battle. OR the new decade me, who was courageously trying a new approach.
I hit reply. And I started typing: ARE YOU EFFING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?
But before I hit send, I took a deep breath, I corralled last decade me, got her back in her cage, and let new decade me take control.
New decade me erased what last decade me had written. And wrote her own message:
“Did you know that when you called me lazy, I had only been home for less than 3 minutes that day? That I had been running around all afternoon and that work has been shit?”
Maybe he didn’t know how I have been doing. Because our relationship hasn’t had the time to connect on that level lately.
He replied: “I didn’t know. But I had a shit day as well. I’m sorry I had to say it.”
Ok…..So clearly I was ALSO missing something. I did not realize he had a bad day. But that STILL isn’t a true apology.
I replied back “I’m Sorry.” Because at this point, I felt terrible for holding a grudge for the past couple days and passively aggressively getting him to come to his senses first.
“I’m sorry you had a bad day as well. I shouldn’t of taken it out on you,” he genuinely replied.
But my brain didn’t approve of this apology. It wasn’t completely genuine. We both had to give each other a guilt trip to get the damn apology.
Remember when I said we were expert guilt trippers?
I typed: “Its been a shit few weeks and it’s not gonna get any better. So you don’t have to apologize [to] me if you don’t feel you need to. That’s fine. You’re an adult. But I was deeply hurt and it will take me a couple of days to shake it off.” And I pressed send at 1227P on 2.12.2020.
Last decade me, would have escalated and escalated and escalated. It is what I do best. Or rather, DID best.
I have been doing a lot of self care, self talk, self love, and mentally working thru ALOT of my mental BS. Which has consequentially, positively spilled over in to my every day life.
And that last response, was one I needed to send. For my sanity. I would have laid on a guilt trip. But instead, I gave him the ability to stand strong with his conviction to not apologize.
In that moment, I did not expect anything more from him. And I was at peace with that. In that moment – I realized that I was going to be OK, no matter what his choice was. I just needed a few moments.
Because we were both hurting. In ways that neither of us knew.
And with that new information, I am pretty sure Thursday did not actually happen that week.
The bombshell from Wednesday afternoon, completely blurred Thursday.
So that brings us to Friday. Aka, Valentines Day. Aka – the day that people in love do something romantic for one another to show their love.
Yeah….I don’t get it either. We don’t do anything for each other for Valentine’s or our Birthday’s or Christmas. Mainly because we do things for each other every other day of the year.
But this year, I was feeling pretty good. Pre-Monday where our lives changed forever.
So on that Saturday, Pre-Monday, I told my husband that I would love to have a date night on Valentine’s, and that I would need him to plan it and arrange it all. Otherwise, I told him, we are just going to stay home.
I was 50% certain that he would not plan anything. And after that Monday, I was 1000000% positive, we would not be doing anything for Valentine’s Day.
Enter Valentine’s Day.
I get a text right before noon. From non other than my Husband. His first message in 48 hours.
He said his brother’s fine wasn’t working. I asked him how he knew. He said that he was trying to contact him the night before to see if he would watch the kids so we could do something.
Let me tell you folks. My jaw dropped and I swear I felt the ground shake.
You mean….we may actually have this thing called a date night….without kids? AND I don’t have to plan everything down to the minute for us AND the kids?
What started out as a dark week….is slowly turning towards the light.
Or is it?
Come back tomorrow to read about our Valentine’s Day plans that I did not have to plan!
