Monday, August 12, 2013

The Perfect Life?

Do you ever feel like you are spending so much time trying to live the perfect life that you forget to actually enjoy your life? I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, the more you try to be perfect, the closer you get & ultimately the better person you are. On the other hand, if you spend all of your time trying, then you miss actually living.

Sometimes I feel like I'm always worried about what other people think. Not, if they like me or not, but how are they perceiving my actions and words? Then, that leads to if people perceive me one way, then my life spirals in that direction or if they perceive differently, it spirals the complete opposite direction. When I was single, I didn't give it much thought & just "was me". Now that I'm married with children, it seems that my every word and action has to be meticulously thought about before it comes out. Is this a talent that comes simpler to some people than others? This is not a talent of mine. It's not that I can't read people well, it's that it takes me a little longer to process what people say & decide the best way to respond. Now, my husband is very quick to respond. We end up having disagreements end very badly just because of this. He says what he is thinking immediately, & then he's done. I on the other hand, take all of his negativity, ball it up, & internalize it while I think about how I feel about things. It festers in me & by the time I'm ready to respond, he has moved on & is acting perfectly normal. Most of my opinions/arguments are left unsaid because it is just easier to move on, then to rehash it. Therefore, it always seems like he's right. Anybody have any ideas on how to fix this problem?

I know that husbands and wives are supposed to be equal, but after 10+ years of marriage, how do you change? My husband and I are 7+ years apart (him being older) & I was very young (23) when we got married. I went straight from college to married. We were in such different places in our lives when we got married & a lot has changed since then. Unfortunately, the family responsibilities have still remained mainly male dominated. I don't know how to convince him that he can trust me to help. I am a stay at home mom & it was what we both said we thought was best. Consequently, he has a job that is very time consuming. (We didn't know this when we first decided for me to stay home) He is sooo busy at work that he gets extremely stressed & then stresses about things at home that he doesn't have time to do. He feels that the stress he would feel worrying about how I was handling things would be worse than it is now. I'm so worried about making everything seem perfect for him that our relationship seems like it is turning somewhat superficial. I love my husband & I want to get back on a path of growing together. Not only will we be happier, but our children would be too.

So, all of this rambling is much easier for me to get out in writing because I can think about what I'm writing & I can edit as needed. I wish we could stop and edit our lives when we feel like it.

Thanks so much for listening to me vent. I hope to hear back from people & truly learn from others experiences.