UPDATED: 6/1/14 at 10:15pm - just read over, fixed a typo or two and added a couple lines at the end as I've had another day to process over my fuck up.
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I've learned a great deal about myself in the last 24 hours. Almost none of it pleasant.
I never thought of myself as being an unforgiving grudge holder but I am. It takes something particular to bring it out but wow. Basically, if I perceive you as dissing my kids, thats unforgivable.
Now I'm not talking a killing offense like assault or something, in that case I would be justified, but in this case I'm not. Not when I specifically demanded that a situation change, and the individual DID CHANGE. It took a while. There was a serious fuck up or two along the way. Decent sized trust violation in the face of already raw, nearly breaking point wound.
But it has gotten better. The behavior that lead to the dissing of my kids, changed. Help has been sought. Its been MONTHS now of good behavior. And yet I was still explosively angry. I didn't really realize it. But every little thing, suddenly became a HUGE thing. I would just BLOW UP and yell. And I'm not a person that yells often.
I tend to take after my Dad. Dad never yells. Like count it on the fingers of one hand the number of times he actually yells. He might get "tense voice" which is when as kids we would go "DON'T YELL AT ME" and he would go "I'm not yelling" and we would respond "You're doing the voice!! Thats you yelling!" and he would get exasperated. My Mother? That woman YELLS. Screams even. I've always taken after Dad.
In the last month or so I've graduated from yelling to screaming. I've even fantasized about throwing things. Not even as a kid did I ever throw things.
And so I yelled and I screamed and I punished this person over and over and over again. No amount of improvement less than perfection was acceptable. I would thank for the improvements and then berate that it wasn't good enough.
My Dad did the "not good enough" game with me as a kid. I love him and he's a good man but that is one of my least favorite things he does. Its how he proves he's related to his mother. For example: my freshman year of college I had a $2K scholarship that I had to maintain a 3.0 to keep. I came home with a 2.94. Man, was I in trouble. A few weeks later I got a letter telling me I'd been awarded a 1500 scholarship for academic excellence of all things. I was thrilled. Dads response was that, "If you got a 3.0 you would have gotten the 2000 again". A week after that I got another letter, I'd been awarded the 2000 again, in addition to the 1500! I was over the moon. Dad's response? "If you got a 4.0 you'd get a free ride". Apparently he praises me to the skies with his friends but not so much to my face.
I hate it when he does that. Hate. Hate. Hate.
It happened on my mission that one of my poor companions - she had only been in the field 3 months, I was her second companion. I thought she was doing great. My mom asked me just that afternoon in her letter how she was coming along. I said she was amazing! Detailed how impressed I was with her. That evening during companionship inventory my companion tearfully told me how I only ever criticized her and "Am I doing anything right??" And I felt like MUD. I had done to her what my father had done to me. And I've tried very hard not to do it to anybody else.
And now I've done it again.
And whats worse, I've broken this person, who didn't deserve it because I couldn't forgive them. I kicked until they broke. Dear God what have I done? What have I become?
I've forgiven that person many other things. They've broken me once or twice. Its been God awful. But this time its my fault. My fuck up. Because I didn't forgive. B/c I don't know how to forgive b/c it endangered my kids. Nothing happened. It was okay. But it endangered my kids and then when it was raw there was a trust violation. And so nothing less than perfection was acceptable. Reasons but not excuses, b/c there is no excuse for my behavior. None.
If this relationship ends now its because its my fault. I never in a million years thought it would ever be my fault. Clearly. B/c I'm perfect and completely infallible. *head desk. repeatedly*
I've been accused of being an arrogant, narcissistic bitch many times. This is the first time I think I've earned it.
And now its my turn to get to change and realize I'm not a good partner. In fact I'm a really shitty one. Maybe I was good once but I'm really not now. And so I need to fix it. I need to learn again and start over and do a shitload of sucking up to prove that being with me is worth the pain. I've been on the flip side of this equation. I know exactly how much it hurts and how horrible it is and I never in a million years thought I would be the one to do it to somebody else. And I did. And its not an easy thing to fix. God can fix it if they let Him. Only thing I can really do is make sure I never do it again.
And thus we rediscover the repentance process from a whole new angle. Its the ABCs right? A - Admit you did something wrong. Check. B - Be Sorry. Omg am I sorry. I keep sobbing, I'm so sorry. I can't believe I did that. C - Correct it - In progress. I can make sure I don't blow up again but proving I mean it and that its safe will take time. Only time will prove they can trust me to not abuse them again. B/c thats what I became, I reacted to an addiction by becoming abusive. And I have to fix it. B/c thats not who I have been in the past nor who I ever wanted to be. Hence D- Don't do it again. This is the only way I can really prove I'm sorry. So heres to reprogramming my behavior. B/c as much as I don't want to hurt this person anymore, I even more intensely don't want to teach this to my children. God save me I don't want them to learn this pattern.
And in the mean time I'm going to beg God to help me learn how to forgive b/c until I let go of this anger, I'm never really going to be okay. I guess its the mother bear reaction. On toxic steroids. But it has no place here. And its way out of proportion.
In hindsight, I stopped reading my scriptures regularly. Again. Every bad decision or major fuck up I've made in the last 15 years I can trace to a time when I stopped reading my scriptures. Maybe someday I will get it through my thick head that prayer isn't enough and I have to read every single day if I want to be a person I like being.
And wants more I didn't want to read my scriptures b/c I'm also angry at my FIL and I know I need to pray about it and study my scriptures but I don't want to. B/c I'm afraid the answer will be that I should forgive him AGAIN and I don't want to, I don't want to turn the other cheek, I wanna pull a Nephi and take my family and leave. This time I want to be done. I want to never deal with that man again. And so in protecting my anger at him, I inadvertently also protected my anger at another person and became a horrible, bitter person. And thus we see that if you pick up one end of the stick, you also pick up the other one. Suck.
