Coaching: thoughts from the a dark desk with only a small light upon it...

So here's a potentially profound thought:

I'm writing this after trying to go to bed. I had a particularly....irritating encounter with my husband and was left staring wide-eyed into the darkness of our bedroom while he drifted in and out of sleep.

Thoughts swirled around in my head as I talked myself into being more frustrated. And I realized two things:

1. I could choose to talk myself into being less frustrated if i wanted to (but what would THAT teach him? (lol sooo not a productive or helpful perspective!))

and

2. Maybe it isn't my spouse's job to create happiness in my life.

Not that he makes me unhappy because he doesn't. But maybe the fact that 95% of the time he makes me blissfully happy is just a bonus to his personality and really isn't in any way attached to his "role" as my spouse.

Seriously, who said that our spouse is responsible for our life satisfaction? When things aren't going great, who said that it's okay to blink into the darkness and wonder why they aren't doing more or trying more or being better? Who said it's okay to compare them to yourself? I think things like: "I would never just fall asleep if I knew that I had frustrated him this much." Well So what? That doesn't really mean anything does it? He isn't me, he's him. And He WOULD fall asleep because that's who he is. And why isn't that okay?

I guess what i'm trying to say here in my own convoluted way is that my happiness comes from myself and also that happiness is a CHOICE.

I can choose to see frustrating encounters as these big awful situations that rain on my parade and bring me down and cause me to have a sleepless night OR i can choose to see my spouse as a human being, someone who is concerned for his own needs and wants (and not in a bad way, just in a natural way) and someone who is just being himself; a person. It's not his job on earth to make sure that he does every single thing perfectly with me. It's not his place to make me happy 100% of the time. Isn't that MY job? Shouldn't that be my own ambition? (actually, note: no it's not...no one should strive to be happy 100% of this time, our culture has a strange obsession with eternal happiness...but that's something to discuss another time)

Sure, there are places we can ALL improve in life, but isn't that what the whole point of life is? Isn't that the reason to it all? Shouldn't I be focusing instead on my own self-improvements instead of doling them out to my husband? The man who I am supposed to love and cherish?

Why is it that his frustrations and challenges are frustrating ME? Why do I not respond with the same immediate compassion that I think that he should bestow upon me as well? I don't know.

Quite frankly, certification or not, it's not my place to judge whether someone else is improving the way I think that they should be (unless I am hired by them as a professional, and in this situation, i definitely was not being asked my professional opinion). Truthfully, it's not my place to decide how he should act in any situation at all - unless he wants me to. My place is to be on the receiving end and to be open to however he DOES act, my job is to show up the best i can no matter what and to focus on myself and to ask myself if I am being the person i think that I should be - not if HE is being the person i think that HE should be.

Yes, of course when a line has been truly crossed I can feel free to point out the damage that is done and to enforce a boundary upon that situation but in small everyday situations is it really necessary for me to chime in and consider ways in which he could (or "should") handle situations differently (aka "better")? Definitely not. Definitely not at all. (Please note: abuse situations are different than this, do not justify abuse to yourself under any circumstance. but that's not at all what i'm discussing here)

Ideally I should pick to go through with each experience authentically and to show up and handle the information in whatever way is the best for me personally. Kindness and Compassion for all parties involved (including myself) should be my first priority in any situation I encounter and I should move on from there.

Judgment, angst, frustration; those feelings do not really have a place in these situations because they aren't productive, they aren't compassionate and they don't allow the space for my husband to be his own person. And isn't that who I love? Isn't that who I married? Isn't that precisely who I pictured myself being with?

Last I checked I didn't marry the mirror. Nor would I want to.

So i guess the point of this all goes back to that whole, "he who lives in glass houses should not cast stones" thing. I'm not the greatest either, no matter how much I think I am when I feel personally affronted at midnight in the dark and therefore I shouldn't really start demanding things of others that I'm not giving forth myself.

Food for thought. Or for sleep.

Goodnight.