Marriage Musings - Navigating Issues

I don't like friction or confrontation. Unfortunately, I'm constantly rediscovering how good I am at fostering both. And even as I'm being frictional (with hubby), I'm mindful that I don't want to be dealing with the situation like this. Sometimes it's enough to help me to take a deep breath and try another gentler tactic. And rarely do I ever completely ignore that little voice inside of me telling my BIG voice to stop...usually I do a little bit of both. One more shot, then gentle up. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like the way I speak to him sometimes, yet at the same time, I DO understand the "why" behind my angst and anger. It's a legitimate anger, and it stems from wounds that still haven't fully healed yet, but that doesn't give me carte blanche to unleash it in whatever destructive way it wantonly wants to leak out. I want to admit that it's there, recognize that it often undermines any attempt to deal with issues in a sane, rational, calm matter, and then I REALLY want to be able to resolutely STOP that angry behaviour and change over to a more sane, rational, calm demeanor.

I've been working on that change for a long time. And thankfully, hubby understands where I'm coming from and how hard I'm working on moving us beyond the "why" and into new, higher ground for our relationship.

It's still so very frustrating. Sometimes I just want to scream, but not here, and not in front of him. I want to climb a mountain, scrabble my way through the rocks and dirt with my bare hands, then get to the top all dusty and hot and sweaty and just scream until there are no screams left inside of me. Here, now, in this place, I'm too civilized to allow myself the luxury and release that a really good scream would give me. So I suspect that those unexpressed screams are leaking out in smaller doses in other ways when the issue-at-hand gets too frustrating for me to handle with my nicer, civilized self.

Sigh. I'm glad we're still so much in love with each other that we're able to eventually move on beyond the confrontation and actually learn lessons for when the next issue arises, because if there's anything I've learned about marriage it's that there will always be "next issue".

Still evolving...