Without going into details, my husband recently had a very upsetting conversation with someone with whom he is close and for whom he has done a great deal, including supporting him financially.
Over the years he has made huge allowances, bitten his tongue, forgiven and I suppose I thought he would continue doing this forever. There was a situation a few years ago where he had had enough and he told that person that he wasn't going to accept his accusations and his sharp tongue but over time they got over that fairly well. They were never as close but they weren't distanced either.
Very recently, there was another very difficult telephone conversation. The other person rang railing for a fight. In fact, he rang to ask a favour, if you can believe it, but instead of simply asking nicely (and my husband would have given him what he wanted willingly) he was accusatory and implied that my husband was holding back information. He seems to think, as well, that my husband has control over how a particular company in which he is invested fares, when he has no control over it whatsoever. The whole tone of the conversation was very confrontational.
It's not something that my husband hasn't lived through before with this person but for some reason it was yesterday that he chose to snap. He told the person that he wasn't ever going to allow him to speak to him like that ever again and he told him a few home truths about his attitude and his behaviour. It was not before time, I assure you.
We didn't sleep well because both of us loathe upset and today as we debriefed a little in the car I said,
"You felt that he didn't trust you and that your integrity was being questioned."
I could see him thinking about that.
"Yes! I felt that my self had been attacked."
We can't and should not tolerate that. There must be trust and a strong belief in the integrity of oneself. It is perfectly right that we should be angry if this is compromised when our intentions are good and we only mean well. If that should occur, we need to hear an apology because when something becomes this personal, a line has been crossed and it must very definitely be put right if we want to heal that relationship.
In a power exchange, trust really is everything. I feel very confident in saying that now and nothing really good will happen until that trust is water tight. Sometimes, you have to step away to see that with open and clear eyes.
Over the years he has made huge allowances, bitten his tongue, forgiven and I suppose I thought he would continue doing this forever. There was a situation a few years ago where he had had enough and he told that person that he wasn't going to accept his accusations and his sharp tongue but over time they got over that fairly well. They were never as close but they weren't distanced either.
Very recently, there was another very difficult telephone conversation. The other person rang railing for a fight. In fact, he rang to ask a favour, if you can believe it, but instead of simply asking nicely (and my husband would have given him what he wanted willingly) he was accusatory and implied that my husband was holding back information. He seems to think, as well, that my husband has control over how a particular company in which he is invested fares, when he has no control over it whatsoever. The whole tone of the conversation was very confrontational.
It's not something that my husband hasn't lived through before with this person but for some reason it was yesterday that he chose to snap. He told the person that he wasn't ever going to allow him to speak to him like that ever again and he told him a few home truths about his attitude and his behaviour. It was not before time, I assure you.
We didn't sleep well because both of us loathe upset and today as we debriefed a little in the car I said,
"You felt that he didn't trust you and that your integrity was being questioned."
I could see him thinking about that.
"Yes! I felt that my self had been attacked."
We can't and should not tolerate that. There must be trust and a strong belief in the integrity of oneself. It is perfectly right that we should be angry if this is compromised when our intentions are good and we only mean well. If that should occur, we need to hear an apology because when something becomes this personal, a line has been crossed and it must very definitely be put right if we want to heal that relationship.
In a power exchange, trust really is everything. I feel very confident in saying that now and nothing really good will happen until that trust is water tight. Sometimes, you have to step away to see that with open and clear eyes.
It does sound upsetting. It really throws us off balance to have a conflict like this. Wouldn't it be great if people could get humble enough to say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong."? Why is that so hard?
ReplyDeleteMick: It seems to be impossible for some people to say "sorry" and I am inclined to think that happens when the person has no self awareness of how their behaviour and words affect other people. They can't say "sorry" because they are too wrapped up in how they are feeling to consider how the other person is feeling.
ReplyDeleteI have my faults but I feel confident in saying that I am able to put myself in the other person's shoes and thus saying "sorry" isn't something that I find onerous.
The other thing here is that some people have an ingrained tendency to have a "glass half empty" view of life and thus they spend a lot of time complaining. In families, that can leave the rest of them trying to make that person happy when decades later it becomes crystal clear that that eventuality will never take place. If they are not complaining about one thing they spend their time complaining about something else. Lately, this inability to grow, to mature, to become more empathic or to ever be grateful has got on my nerves. We all have our worries but we can't live well until we look on the 'bright side of life'. I'm losing patience with those refuse to acquire this skill.