I’ve spent the last three years being bitter and angry and my ex-husband and blaming him for all of the problems in our marriage. However, the more work I do on myself, the more I realize that it truly does take two to tango and that I had to own my share of the blame. It’s taken me quite a while to get here because I’ve seesawed between taking all of the blame to blaming it all on him. I finally had to sit down with a pen and paper to figure out what I was responsible for and what he needs to own.
Truly His to Own
Physical Violence–No matter how much someone annoys you or pisses you off, it is never okay to physically abuse someone with your fists or a baseball bat.
Emotional Abuse–In some ways emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse because it eats away at a person’s soul and causes them to doubt themselves. What’s worse is I know you did it deliberately because you told me that you did it to “take me down a notch.”
Inability to Compromise–Neither of us was truly able to compromise and that hurt our marriage and we ended up in a position where one of us had to win and one of us had to lose. The friends issue was a big one and I was willing to have people over as long as they went home at a reasonable hour and I was always up for going out, but I never wanted to close the bar.
Mine to Own
Not Backing Off–I truly love to have my own way and prior to my marriage, I never learned the art of compromise. My fighting style was to keep badgering someone until they gave in. Sometimes I could badger John until he would give in, but there were also times when he turned violent because I wouldn’t back off. He owns becoming physically violent, but I should have walked away.
Not Bringing My Best Self to Our Marriage–I didn’t always bring my best self to our marriage and one of my ex’s biggest complaints was that I was nicer to my best friend on the phone to him. Yes, it is true that it is easier to be nicer to someone who is not emotionally abusive, but in retrospect I should have treated myself, my marriage, and my husband with more respect by making more of an effort to look nice and take care of myself.
Putting Work Before My Family–I like to think that I worked long hours to provide for my family and that’s what I told myself, but I also used work as an excuse to avoid talking about our marital problems.
Codependence–I learned codependence at my mother’s knee and it carried into our marriage. Since our marriage, I’ve learned to set better boundaries and I’ve learned that we don’t need to be joined at the him and that it really is okay for me to go do fun things without you.
I’m sure there are a million other mistakes I made in our marriage, but it was so helpful for to sit back and think about what I could have done differently. I know that I will be so much better prepared for my next relationship and I’m glad I had time by myself to figure all this out.
Cairn by Cairn 