What I Learned From Our Latest Snuggle Struggle

I got called out.

My husband and I got into an argument last night. He told me I “never” do this, or “always” do that and my ego wanted to jump in and say, “that’s impossible! You can’t use words like that!” I had to try hard to restrain myself and replace “never” and “always” with “sometimes.” I care more about the fact that he was hurt by this than the semantics of the argument. The other urge I had to fight off was the urge to keep score. I wanted to say “you should appreciate me more, I do [this, this, and this] for us and why didn’t you acknowledge any of those things.” But that wasn’t the point of this conversation and keeping score only makes things worse. The point was, my husband was feeling stressed and he was reaching out for help. He maybe wasn’t reaching out in the way I would have liked but I also understand he’s not the most tactful when he’s expressing anger.

Then he said something I was unprepared for. He said that I should stop focusing so much on not making people mad and focus more on what makes people happy. Ouch. I do focus a great deal of time worrying about making people mad or ruminating on whether or not I left someone uncomfortable after an interaction. The funny thing is, those two concepts sound almost like the same thing. I thought if I wasn’t making people mad, I must have been making them happy. I'm a little surprised how long my subliminal justification lasted.

For those of you who are thinking, “well what about his behavior? Are you not justifying his behavior by taking all of the blame? Girl, don’t let him talk to you like that!” No. I’m not taking all of the blame, and I believe he has just as much self development work to do as I and I wish that he had his own blog so you could hear his side of the story. But alas, this is my blog, and I am the hero. This is about my lesson, not his.

So here’s what I realized about trying not to make people mad versus trying to make people happy. The spectrum of emotions is vast. If I’m focusing so much on avoiding one feeling, that does not automatically mean I’m indulging it’s opposite. What’s really happening? By focusing on not hurting peoples feelings, I am tip-toeing around most of the time. And I think that people don’t notice it but they do! It might not be a conscious awareness but subconsciously, at the very least, people pick up on the energy I’m putting out. If feelings are energetic vibrations in our body, what kind of vibrations am I sending out by tip-toeing? I’m sending out anxiety, fear, worry, concern, apprehension, consternation (I just googled synonyms for anxiety). Those are the feelings I have when I tip-toe. Those are the signals I’m sending to the ones I love by “trying not to make them uncomfortable.” And furthermore, if I feel someone is sending me anxious vibes, I get very uncomfortable. Is trying not to make people uncomfortable a self-fulfilling prophecy?

What would it feel like if, instead of thinking about not making people mad, I thought about what makes them happy? What vibrations would I be sending out? If I think about what I believe makes people happy, I feel excitement, anticipation, joy, enthusiasm, elation, and happiness! I would much rather be sending out these vibes. I think I knew this instinctively as a child. I was playful and curious and made people laugh. How did I go from playful and curious to scared and angry?  

The part I love the most about these arguments with my husband (yes, I said love) are the endings. I come out of every argument with a deeper understanding of my partner and myself. We end each argument with a commitment or a realization. After this conversation, I committed to asking myself, “what do I think would make my husband happy, today,” instead of tip-toeing around, anxiously thinking about what might make him upset. He acknowledged his outbursts are a result of not expressing his emotions sooner. He realized this is the current way he expresses himself, and he’s committed to emoting more regularly. Instead of being like a tea kettle -- holding in all that hot energy until it eventually blows his lid -- he will try to express his feelings as the come up. Then he joked, "be careful what you wish for. Eventually, I’ll be so good at expressing myself, it will move you to tears." To that I replied, “well, that’s not saying much” (because I cry at the drop of a hat). Then we laughed, kissed each other good night, rolled over into a snuggle position and went to sleep. Another Snuggle Struggle conquered!

I used to be so afraid of having an argument or a misunderstanding. In fact, I broke up with my husband (boyfriend at the time) after our first big fight because I didn’t know how to argue properly. I think the reason some of us fear heated conversations is because they challenge our defenses. We get knocked down so much from school and family and work and rules and life, so we put up walls. Then, we get mad at the ones we love for not knowing how to take our walls down. But our loved ones didn’t build our walls. They need our help. They need us to reflect and recognize our negative patterns of behavior enough to want to change them. It can be scary to take ownership of our own behavior because that means that we are responsible for changing it; not our partners or our parents or our friends. We have to fix ourselves.

Fights still make me uncomfortable, especially in the heat of the moment, but I am grateful for the resilience that they build. I feel the deepest trust with my husband following an emotional conversation. It’s because we hold space for each other to be vulnerable, which means actively listening, without judgment. There is no better trust building exercise I’m aware of than when you’re able to share your complete truth with someone and know they still love you unconditionally. Our timing isn’t perfect yet, but it’s an ongoing process. What I’ve noticed over the years is the time between the emotional trigger and our conversations about it is shrinking.

The biggest lesson I learned from this argument is that I can spend my energy creating something positive instead of spending my energy on potentially avoiding something negative. I can plant seeds I know will grow into something beautiful or I can stand in front of my plot of land with my arms outstretched, blocking anyone who approaches, yelling, "don't mess up the soil! I'm going to use this for planting (eventually)!"