Over the past 4+ years of being sober, I have learned countless life lessons and many simple (and not so simple) ways to make my life better.
The one that stands out the most today is Step 10, in the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous which states:
Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
It was much needed this weekend.
I generally consider myself a nice, easy-going person. I no longer struggle very often with anger or coldness towards others.
But like everyone, I have bad days. Sometimes I have a couple of bad days in a row. This weekend, I had such a streak- and it was a doozy.
No big fight happened and I wasn’t rude to the family that was visiting from out of town. But time and again, I talked to husband with an attitude that didn’t sit right in my heart. It’s that gross feeling when you know you are talking in way that would hurt if someone took that tone with you.
And the problem was I kept realizing it, but didn’t stop doing it.
It was my little cold jabs over and over. But what made it even more difficult was he never took the bait. He remained calm and asked me what was wrong. He wanted to know if he had done something to upset me, but the honest-to-God truth was he hadn’t. It was me. And admitting that was hard.
By Sunday night I finally snapped out my bitchiness that I had been carrying around since Saturday morning.
And right away I apologized.
It was an heartfelt apology. I simply explained what I knew. That I wasn’t sure what had come over me, but that I realized I had spoken to him really rudely over the past two days, and I was truly sorry.
I’m very lucky. My husband is good about accepting apologies and moving on. He said all was fine and appreciated my sincere words.
The next morning, I still felt bad and apologized again, but he was fine. He understood that moodiness happens to all of us, and he was glad I had snapped out of it.
This was a really good reminder for me of how to handle situations when the shoe is on the other foot. When he is in a mood and apologies later on, I’m not always very quick to forgive and forget. My hope is to do better in the future.
Because the truth is, this will happen again. I will have a few bad weeks or something serious will happen in life, and I won’t be myself. That is part of human nature.
But what should also be part of human nature is to quickly admit when you are wrong. No need to continue to beat yourself up time and again after you apologize. But also no need to justify why you are being hurtful to others.
Just own your mistakes and learn from them.
We all know this can be easier said that done. Not only have countless marriages, parent/children relationships, and friendships been broken because “I’m Sorry” is so hard for so many. But there would be no Real Housewives of Any City if forgiveness rolled off the tongue like it really should.
But think about how much easier and more beautiful life is when we make amends with no agenda. No thought about how the other person should apologize as well. No passive- aggressive justification about why we were wrong… but also, really we were right.
