I Don't Always Need To Be Right

    

 Yesterday was a good day. Reminding myself that my husbands recovery is his responsibility, I did much better.
The next C is:

 6. I can choose to avoid continually focusing on my loved one's recovery journey because it can interfere with my own healing journey

This is so true. If I focus constantly on my husband I can't focus on myself very well. So I'll love him and pray for him, but I'm not going to obsess over it. When I have, all I have done is drive myself crazy and get those unmanageable thoughts mentioned in Step 1 of the Twelve Steps.

I think this goes alone with today's Love Dare. "Love Lets the Other Win"
Day 12 Dare:

Demonstrate love by willingly choosing to give in to an area of disagreement between you and your spouse. Tell them you are putting their preference first.

I'll tell you this used to be so hard for me. I couldn't let him win an argument. My way was better than his. Boy I was prideful. Then one day I read something and I can't remember what it was from but the gist of it was, "You can always be right, or you can be happy but not both."  Well the more I thought about it, the  more I thought it was brilliant. Most of the things we argued over were minor unimportant. It didn't matter whose opinion we took. In the eternal scheme of things it didn't matter. If I kept clinging stubbornly to my opinion, I didn't really listen to his opinion, which deprived him of feelings of worth and also deprived myself of the opportunity to grow. It didn't provide a harmonious marriage or  home. So I stopped arguing and pushing my opinions on my husband. Was it hard? You better believe it. It had become a habit. That was how my parents communicated about everything. It was second nature. Was it worth it? Oh, a million times over. Since I'm not always pushing my way all the time, he is listening to me now. What a bonus. The peace level in our home has gone up dramatically. Do I slip up? Yes, but I catch myself much faster now. I've learned that I'm not always as right as I thought I was. Go figure.

Prideful, Me?

I've been thinking about pride alot lately. I've decided it may be the key to any healing in either ours or our spouses recovery. Think about it, as long as we are prideful we can't be humble. If we aren't humble we can't honestly admit our thoughts and behaviors have become unmanageable. We can't honestly evaluate what we need to change about ourselves, because we aren't honestly looking at who we really are and what we have become. Maybe we are seeing ourselves better than our spouses. After all we aren't the one with that awful addiction. We must be better then them. Well that is pride.

I honestly don't know what I found so appealing about pride that I held onto it for so long. It isn't comforting. It didn't bring me peace, joy or happiness. It actually caused anger and frustration. I'm wondering if it can be a little addicting itself?

It was so painful for me to admit my faults to myself let alone anyone else. It took me a while to come to terms with who I really was as opposed to who I thought I was. It hurt. I mourned and then I started getting help and healing. The good new is that it gets easier and easier to admit my failings and that I don't know everything and that I need God. He knows me better than I do and it's time to let him take the lead.