I started The Love Dare. At first I was reluctant to do it. I’m not a big fan of self help guides. Plus years of being a New Yorker leaves you skeptical of anything especially if it isn’t written by an ‘expert’.
But I felt a little anger brewing within me and I knew I needed to not let it fester. It made me feel terrible that I felt that anger and I wanted to clear it. After speaking to a few folks, I started thinking doing the dare would be a good exercise.
I still was apprehensive especially since it would be a one sided exercise but I knew I had to do something so I dove in.
I’m not sure how this will turn but I’m going to try.
Here is where I write my experience.
Today, I was angered at two things that I let out at my husband: 1. His lack of time management and 2. His desire to sign up to a social network especially in the light of several of his ex-girlfriends contacting him and admitting they have been searching the net for him for some time.
This wasn’t a fun exercise. I failed miserably.
The first I felt could have been handled more patiently. I was a bit tired and was looking forward to DH arriving home to help me out. He had said that he’d be home at 3pm. I thought I could dress BG up after her early pm nap and take a walk outside and greet him as he rode up in his motorcycle. At 3pm, as I finished changing a rather messy diaper DH called and said that he just made it to the gym. I didn’t give him a chance to explain nor did I give myself a chance to breathe and I made a comment that he texted me an hour and 15 minutes ago that he was at the gym.
It turns out he texted that he was heading to the gym but that still left me pondering why did it take an hour and a half to get to the gym?
I suppose if I wasn’t so tired and didn’t have my preconceived notions of surprising him I wouldn’t have lost my temper so quickly. The weather was beautiful so an extra long leisurely ride wouldn’t be uncalled for. But I overreacted and I let it stew.
The second is not so much an insecurity I have but more of an insult that I felt after the first ex-girlfriend contacted him. I’m used to having his past stop us unexpectedly. It happens a lot to my husband but when this happened his ex noted that she had been periodically searching for him for some time. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve never felt the urge to search for my ex’s nor have I physically searched periodically for them. Sure I wonder what they are up to but not to the point that I need to actually hunt for them.
Then there was the fact that he wrote back to her before telling me. Usually he tells me before he does things like this. This time he did it before telling me.
Finally there was his statement, “What can I say, I must be such a good boyfriend that they just want to look me up.” That pissed me off because I felt one it was a selfish statement and two it was a slight to me. Does that mean he thought I was a bad girlfriend? He didn’t know my past relationships. He didn’t know my history. I didn’t flaunt anything from my past to him. I would never do that to hurt him. Why would he do that to me?
Then he comes home and tells me that another ex-girlfriend contacted him and he plans to keep in touch with her as well as the other one. He feels it’s the right thing to do.
I’m not a big social network fan. I just don’t have the time or desire to keep them up. I signed up for a few for family and work reasons but haven’t kept them up since I originally signed up for them eons ago. Now my DH wants to sign up for it and I suppose I’m wondering, how many more items from his past will float into our lives?
It’s not even as if it’s the communication that I worry about. I’m just really hurt by what he said to me and if I bring it up I know he’ll pass it off just like he passed off my comments on how my feelings were hurt when I expressed my concern of him putting BG in front of the TV so often.
At this point I can try to be more patient for #1 but I’m still very hurt by #2.
