Podcast: https://bit.ly/4nWZm5U
This weeks topic is ‘It’s your life now‘.
Lori and I keep seeing folks who are not living their life. They are copying someone else’s life or are trying to live the opposite of how someone else lives. Others are living the life someone else wants them to live. Or they are living in rebellion to the life someone else wants them to live. Even more common is living the life one has fallen into, as if there is no choice.
When you were young, it was not your life. Your parents had a great deal of control, and you had few rights and little say. But when you became an adult, it became your life. That means if you don’t like the life you have, that’s your fault. That sounds harsh, I know. But that means you have the power to fix it. If it were someone else’s fault, you’d be helpless.
I know that doesn’t sit well. There are all these things that are out of your control. There are so many things you would like to be different, but you can’t change them.
While there is some truth in that, it’s also a big honkin’ lie!
The reality is we have the power to make different choices in most areas of our lives. You could abandon your family, move across the country, and start over. That’s not a right choice, but it makes the point.
For the most part, we don’t make changes because change is difficult and possibly costly. Beyond that, the uncomfortable unhappy life we know seems safer than moving towards the better life we could have. It’s like disliking what’s on TV, but the remote is out of reach and you’re tired, so you watch it anyway. Doing that day after day with a life you don’t like is a miserable way to live.
Given this blog is about doing marriage well, I want to apply “It’s your life now” to your marriage. But most of what I will cover applies to both your life and your marriage.
Before I get down to specifics, I want you to think about your life and your marriage. What do you dislike? What have you been telling yourself prevents you from changing that? What is really preventing you from making changes? What stands in your way? What do you fear?
Then ask yourself how you will feel if the things you dislike are the same in five or ten years. Will you just keep living a life you don’t like, or will you get up, get the remote, and make some changes?
~ This is Paul, and ‘Good Marriage’ looks different for every person.
The wild roses are in bloom!
The orange is Western Trumpet Honeysuckle
Image Credit: © Paul H Byerly created with Nano Banana 2
We’re donation supported Thanks for your help!
This post may contain affiliate links, see my disclosure for info.
For the most part, we don’t make changes because change is difficult and possibly costly. Beyond that, the uncomfortable unhappy life we know seems safer than moving towards the better life we could have.
This hit me in a different place let me explain
First I cannot change my son’s schizoaffective disorder
Se and I cannot change my husband refusal to deal with hus issues or his ED
I cannot change my adult daughter’s schizoaffective or her anosognosia
And Lord knows I would change all those things
And even choosing to leave I would still be a mother to those who have mental illness and a husband still not doing the work
Those things you cannot control and can never control and by saying this is a choice problem only heaps another burden of inadequacy upon those of us who are bearing the brunt of this broken world
For the most part, we don’t make changes because change is difficult and possibly costly. Beyond that, the uncomfortable unhappy life we know seems safer than moving towards the better life we could have.
This is not true in my experience let me explain
How do you change a son’s schizoaffective disorder
How do you change a husband’s denial
And refusal to deal with his issues and ED
How do you change an adults daughter’s anosognosia and her reluctance to seek treatment not to mention her paranoia
And even leaving would not change any of those it would put me in poverty
And by stating this it heaps more burden of inadequacy upon the shoulders of those who are doing the best they can in this broken world with the help of kind counselor, pepto, yums , and sleeping pills .
@almosthopeful820c48f794 – You make some valid points. I address much of this in Wednesday’s and Thursday’s posts.
As for ED, it can be a warning sign of something that can kill a man. So I’d suggest you tell your husband that and urge him to get to a doctor.