Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Issues

I have issues. I’ve never denied that. In fact, I’m probably more likely to go on and on about them than to deny that they exist.

I have body-image issues. I have an issue with apologizing too much. I’m on the passive-aggressive side of life.

And much to my husband’s disgust, I tend to make HIS issues all about me.

See, he has issues too. He is currently at what we both consider his idea weight. And yet…he can pinch some skin on his stomach and he feels this is ‘fatty’ skin rather than just skin.

But trust me, it’s just skin. He is not fat in any way.

So when he starts going on and on about that little bit of ‘fat’ I can’t help but make it about me. I can’t help but think, “Damn, if he thinks he’s fat, what must he think of me?”

See, even with 34 pounds lost, I’m still tens of pounds away from any sort of goal weight, let alone what is considered a medically ideal weight for a woman my age and height.

So I get frustrated and I get discouraged and I feel awful about myself because he has issues with himself.

But I’m vowing here and now to try and stop that. I’m going to try and stop making his issues about me. Because I know, intellectually, that they’re not about me. It’s about his own need for perfection in himself. And yet, knowing that, my heart breaks every time he mentions how far from perfect he is because it makes me feel like by extension, he’s saying that I’m even farther from perfection and I’ll never, reach it.

I don’t actually want perfection. I want happiness. And I know that perfection is out of reach and so to strive for it, is to give up being happy. And that’s why I can’t let his issues become my own. I don’t want to give up the possibility of happiness in an attempt to attain something that isn’t possible.

So I’ll let him go on and on about that little roll of fat that doesn’t even exist and I won’t listen to the bitch in my head who asks what he must think of me if he thinks he’s fat. It doesn’t matter. None of us expect nearly as much from those around us as we expect from ourselves.

He can get up at 4am every morning and exercise if he wants. That’s his thing. Sleep is my thing and haven’t gotten nearly enough in, oh about nine years so I’ll pass on the 4am workout sessions, thank you very much. I’ll also pass on the peppermint patties, for now. It’s a compromise.

Isn’t everything?

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