I thought if he would just do what I said, everything would be great.
I was willing to fight for what was ‘right’ when I thought he was wrong. I was fighting for both of us.
I meant well. I was an idealist, actually, and super committed to figuring it out between us.
Why wouldn’t he just do what I said?
And Michael was trying as hard as I was.
We just had a bad idea of what would be helpful.
We’d apologize after each fight. Say we’d try to do better. We really would try.
But, if I am honest, I thought he was the one causing problems in the relationship. I thought, well, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten angry, but he was just wrong.
I was so disappointed in him. I wanted him to be calm and wise.
But we kept having the same fights over and over!
Hadn’t he just apologized? Hadn’t he just resolved to do better?
Why was he doing it again? It was horribly frustrating.
I tried everything—anything—but nothing seemed to get through!
All the exhausting, disheartening efforts to change the situation, to fix him, DO NOT freaking work.
Michelle Obama said when she first decided to go to couples counseling, she thought it would "fix" her husband.
The problem was that I was putting effort into doing something that wasn’t ever going to work.
Now I am a big believer in Byron Katie's words:
I was trying to manage something, someone, that was not anything I could control.
That’s not how human nature works. Not how reality works.
He had a true life path he needed to follow.
And the further he got away from that truth, the more frustrated, cranky, depressed, and disconnected he became.
