Blame Game
Being married to me can’t be easy. I spread myself too thin, I’m always running into people I know and pausing to chat, it’s a guess from one day to the next if I’ll be high or low and I have lofty, often pie-in-the-sky goals. Frequently, those goals are more challenging to meet than I anticipate and I fall flat on my face.
I’m sure years of this has worn on Jason. When I come to him with a hare-brained scheme, he generally asks hard-hitting questions about the minutiae of said scheme. Meanwhile I’m pumped up about the big picture and outcome. Who cares about the pesky details, we’ll figure those out along the way.
He’s seen me take up soap making, sell homemade dog biscuits to school teachers, grow a pickle and salsa making business in our kitchen and front yard, tackle HR roles with abandon and even try my hand at freight brokering for a few months. This doesn’t even cover the volunteer projects or resume/job search assisting I get roped into on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, Jason has worked for the same company for 25 years and is the epitome of stability. He’s paid our mortgage and carried our health insurance for the entirety of our marriage, often working long hours starting at the crack of dawn to make that happen. No wonder he sometimes seems tired when I come to him with a grand scheme to write a blog or start a podcast with a random LinkedIn acquaintance who lives in Fort Worth.
This morning, I realized I’ve been giving him an additional burden to carry which is wholly unfair. When I’m considering a new opportunity or measuring the success of a current one, my thoughts are often shaded by what Jason’s perceptions will be. Will he find my efforts successful? Will he be proud of me? Will he think I’ve come up with another silly idea that will fail?
I’ve fallen into a bad habit of jumping to conclusions that he will immediately think I’m crazy and dismiss my plans. This has given me an excuse to not reach my potential or to blame him for not understanding what I envision. In reality, it’s my responsibility to communicate my goals so he can be supportive. Instead, I’ve taken my self-doubt and projected them onto him so I can hedge my bets. If I fail, or worse decide not to try, I can push the blame to Jason and not own it myself. The worst of it is he has no idea or opportunity to defend himself.
As shocking as it is that my homemade glycerine soaps didn’t become wildly successful, Jason never once told me not to give it a go. While he did frequently bitch about the pickle smell in the house, he never complained about my exorbitant Mason jar expenditures. Now, I’ve walked away from a lucrative HR career and he’s once again carrying the burden. This time I will make sure it is only financial.
