Perception is Reality

I never wanted to get married. My parents were volatile verbally and the banter made me nervous. I often felt pending doom and sick at the stomach. My emotional state was harmed greatly by their seemingly natural hate for each other. Although both were very ambitious, and money making minded people, they were on two different paths from the beginning.

They never learned the techniques I learned to use to learn to live with the man I chose, after he chose me. I asked my husband to marry me, so right off the bat I'm sharing with you that I am holding myself accountable for much of the heartache I have suffered living with him over the past 25 years.

The joy I experienced being marriage came a surprise to me. Because we both had some pretty set ideas about family, we could not see ourselves staying together if we were not married. I know my husband married me because he didn't want to lose me, and that is okay with me. I don't want to lose him either. Being able to express the need for each in a safe way has allowed us to be more loving towards each other.

I have learned to become more agreeable. As I searched to find what I thought it really was that kept me from being close to my husband, I found it was the unwillingness to let him have the right to his say and let it be right to him, if that is how he sees. Early in the relationship I was trying to be images I saw around me. It was exhausting and an empty way of live. The movie Revolutionary Road really show how we conform in this country and lose ourselves. I wasn't going to stay on that track.

I was never really on it. I was just "trying" to be an failing miserably. I had to stop and look at me. Most of my misery came from wanting him to be more like me. Admitting this to myself took years, but when I finally stopped it. My life changed. My need to know lessened greatly. I was able to focus on what I needed to do for me, my goals, my dreams, my wishes, hopes, and desires.

You may not believe this, but you can stop some of the things that are holding you back, from holding you back, by simply changing the way you view them. Perception is reality in many ways, especially for women. Sometime just they we think something is, is, until we find out different. When it comes to men, we need to accept we don't know them. They are not like us and thank God! The day I began to perceive my husband as undiscovered territory, someone to watch grow, instead of telling them where to go, someone to share time with, instead of dictating how time will be spent, someone who can tell me something, instead of someone who is incapable of sharing. We get what we look for, every time.