What is difficult about living with me?

Well. Deep breath.

I’m prone to taking the moral high road. I read so much that I use “experts” to guilt Rich into doing what I want him to do instead of just asserting my desires out right. I often have specific expectations of how I want a day to look, an outing to look, or our parenting to look, and when those expectations aren’t met, I have been known to act like my 4 year old- pouty, full of blame, prone to eating cookies for dinner and so forth. Also, I can be judgmental.

I could go on, but I’ll stop there before you feel the need to reach through the screen and start stroking my hair in consolation of my imperfections. (although the effort is appreciated).

I dislike thinking about this question of what is difficult about living with me, but I find the exercise crucial to this ‘becoming a better spouse’ goal I have.

So this whole month, every post is dedicated to self-confronting with love.

So far we’ve established that
1. we absolutely need to self-confront if we want a better marriage and
2. we absolutely need the tool of self-love while doing so.

And now, in this post it is time to get to the meat of this self-confronting business.

How do we self-confront? What does that mean and what does that look like?

Self-confrontation is going to require us to be absolutely honest with ourselves. No hiding, no sugar-coating, no defenses. Just honest self reflection.

What should we be reflecting on?

I’m going to suggest 15 questions to reflect on. I really, really recommend journaling these out instead of just thinking through them in your head. There is just something about writing things down that gets our brains going, makes the lessons stick with us and heals us at the same time.

In fact, I’m going to recommend writing these out so much that I’m making journaling these questions this month’s marriage experiment!

Now, try your best to limit the shame (that pesky shame is always getting in the way!). Use the exercise to increase empathy for your spouse and to notice areas you could improve on.

Ok. Deep breath.

Are you ready?

Let’s do this. Self-confronting-ho!

15 Relationship Self-Evaluation Questions

1. On a scale from 1-10, how happy am I with my marriage as it is right now? Why?

2. What is difficult about living with me/being married to me?

3. Is there something I can do to make being married to me easier?

4. Is there something I need to ask my spouse to do to make being married to them easier?

5. What barriers are keeping me from loving my spouse unconditionally? How can I deal with those barriers in a healthy, productive way?

6. How do I react when my spouse brings up something I disagree with?

7. How accountable do I hold myself in our disagreements?

8. Do I project my feelings onto my spouse? How can I better deal with my negative emotions on my own?

9. What demands do I make of my spouse?

10. What specific things do I do to show love to my spouse?

11. How well does my spouse know what is in my heart?

12. How do I respond to my spouse’s bids for attention?

13. Do I focus more on my spouse’s flaws or attributes? 

14. Am I doing things to regularly take care of my self and fill my own love tank?

15. What personal areas could I improve so that I can give my best to my relationship?

 

This whole exercise is going to be really difficult if we are prone to shame, which is why in my next post I am going to be talking all about the critical difference between shame and guilt (all hail Brene Brown!). Stay tuned friends.