A Martyr No More

I read a book that had me identify a situation where I felt resentment or stress and repeatedly ask myself, “if true, what does that mean?” This is my journal entry from that.

Situation: My husband gets upset because I didn’t do something the way he wanted, or I have a different opinion than him.

Example: Putting the seats back in the van. He wanted to keep one out, and I didn’t, but I was willing to try it. However, I didn’t understand which one he wanted in and which he wanted out, so I wasn’t sure which one to pick up. His demeanor toward me was that I was stupid for not understanding it. I resent that. I feel stressed. I’m afraid he will give me the cold shoulder all night because I shared that I prefer to have all the seats in.

If that’s true, what does that mean? If what’s true? If he thinks I’m stupid? If he gives me the cold shoulder? It means that there is something icky going on inside of him. I’m not stupid and I don’t deserve to get the cold shoulder because I expressed a differing opinion.

If it’s true there is something icky going on inside of him, what does that mean? It means he needs to resolve that. It means his inner turmoil is spilling over outside of himself. It means that I’m not psychologically safe.

If it’s true that I am not psychologically safe, what does that mean? It means I should protect myself and get out of harms way. At the risk of gaslighting myself, I’m going to ask if I’m really in harms way. Does feeling threatened and afraid really mean that I’m in danger? There are people with phobias that have unjustified and irrational fears. My fear is rational based on my experience. Maybe I can practice expressing my fear? Perhaps that can be effective in diffusing the situation? Or relieving my feeling threatened? In the case of the seats in the van, I felt fear that it put my husband in a bad mood which can have negative repercussions for the next several hours. That was based on his body language and lack of communication. He grumbled about my lack of understanding how he wanted the chairs. When I expressed my differing opinion, he didn’t say anything. Then his faced was scrunched up with annoyance. He stopped talking at all. There was tension in the air. I tried to change the subject and get him out of his funk. I asked what more he’d discovered about things to do in France. He could hardly talk. I watched him struggle to shift gears into sharing that. If he was in a good mood, he would have talked easily about that and been excited to share. I appreciate that he got the words out. He still stayed sullen though. When we got home after dropping off Garrett, he sat out on the couch looking at his phone. I was leaving for Serbia in a few hours and needed to pack. If I had been in his good graces, he would have been kinda following me around and chatting with me while I packed. Instead, he stayed away from me. Maybe that was conscious, maybe he was tired. He didn’t get back to himself until later that night.

There are little things I do that seem to make me fall out of his good graces and put him in a sullen mood. When he’s in a sullen mood, he is much more likely to say something mean to the kids and me. His sullen mood creates a tense atmosphere.