Last night I was feeling really insecure about my ability to parent and I spoke to my fiance about it as we laid down in bed. However looking back I realize I was not intentional and direct in my communication. I was not clearly asking for what I needed. I explained that I felt like our daughter acts out with me and not as much with him. Then I asked the rhetorical question, “what is it that you’re doing that I’m not?” which led him to go into answering the question (because men are very much into solving problems). What I should have said is I am feeling really insecure about being a parent right now and I need you to tell me that I’m a good mom. I need you to hold me and tell me that I am doing the right thing. I need you to tell me to stop being hard on myself.
That is not what happened though. My inability to communicate what I needed in that moment gave me what I did not want. Instead of love and encouragement, I received a bunch of things that he was doing better than I was, which only added to my insecurities. The he also threw in a comment about how he feels like every time he leaves the house I call him because I can’t handle the situation whereas he just handles it. This resulted in me becoming extremely upset and angry. I rolled over, silently cried, and had to breathe myself to sleep because I felt even more insecure than I did before.
This situation really highlighted for me how important the words that come out of your mouth are. Sometimes we don’t get the results that we want because we don’t ask directly for what we want. I am not saying that it is always the way that we communicate that causes the problem, just that we are more likely to see what we want to see when we are bold enough to directly ask for it.
Now that I am removed from last night, I can see some of the reasons why the situation went South. As he was explaining his approach with our daughter I started becoming frustrated and snappy, which led him to find something that he doesn’t like about me so that he could snap back. This was an immediate case of you reap what you sow.
Why is it when we are at our most vulnerable, that we have the hardest time asking for comfort, love, and support from those around us? I think it is because we fear rejection and are afraid that if we allow someone into our most vulnerable moments that they won’t treat them delicately. So instead of admitting what we feel, we beat around the bush and we say things in misguided ways so as not to reveal our “weakness.”
This is especially true in those of us who learned at some point in our lives that feelings were not safe. For people like us it takes tremendous courage to step up and speak our hearts to someone else. We are not good with vulnerability because we have had our open heart trampled on in the past. I am slowly learning that when we close our heart because of this, we prevent ourselves from becoming fully ourselves.
In order for us to be shaped by life, we have to leave ourselves open. We have to trust that those we choose to let in will handle us with care. If we do not take this step, then we never learn to see wolves in sheep’s clothing early on. The sooner we can take a leap of faith and share our true feelings with someone, the sooner we can learn whether they can be counted on, whether they can nurture us the way that we need to be nurtured so that we may grow. Delaying our exposure only prolongs the falsity of life. If we want to live an authentic life, we must learn to be fully real with ourselves and with those around us.