Waiting for the Trouble to Finish
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Of course, my relationships with my loved ones are different from those with the other people I know or meet. My loved ones "love me," and I behave differently with them because of that. I also spend the most time with them, so their roles in my life are "bigger."
My relationships with my family have been and still are, to some extent, the area where I have a lot of my...let's call it "trouble." It's unavoidable, and each person gives me trouble differently. It could be an argument with my wife about jobs around the house, or my kids fighting with each other and me having to get involved.
And I used to just fall into these situations and only realize when I was in them that a time of trouble had started. But now I can recognize when it's starting, and I can get ready for it. One of the most important things about these times of trouble, and how they make them different from other interactions I have, is that they all have one thing in common. They all make me feel horrible, like my whole life is off balance.
When a loved one is making trouble for me, I've learned through trial and error that sometimes I need to act, and sometimes I don't. But definitely, the worst thing I can do is to react. If I react, the situation goes into a downward spiral for me, and I end up having even more trouble. If it's one of those situations with my kids, I have sometimes found that my emotions are stronger than they should be in that situation.
I don't mean I have anger issues or anything like that, it's just that I can feel myself being disproportionately annoyed by the situation, and although I'm thinking, "Why am I reacting so strongly," I can't stop myself. But it's because I've reacted... and that was a mistake.
Sometimes I have to act, and I'll talk more about that in a second, but most of the time what I need to do is to not act at all. If it's a situation where, for example, my wife is complaining about me or another situation where I'm being criticized in some way, I just have to sit tight and wait for the trouble to finish. This includes putting aside what I'm feeling or what I want or what I want the other person to think about me.
Of course, I can't always do this, or I can hold out for a while, and then I just can't stop myself from reacting. Mistake. And so sometimes I do need to act, but it's not what you might think. At those times, what I really need to do is to get busy doing something. But something completely unrelated. Something productive like cleaning up in the kitchen or helping one of my kids with something.
When I do this, after a certain amount of time, the trouble fades away. And I know it's gone because I can't feel that horrible feeling anymore.
