Be warned... some of these are a little ridiculous. Just goes to show how far I have to go...
Weakness
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Manifestations
recently
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1.
Pride – I don’t like people above
me. I rely on skills, accomplishments, and status to determine my
self-worth.
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11/29 – I determine my self worth
by how good I am and how happy my wife is. If I don’t make mistakes, I am a
good person. If I make a mistake, then I am a bad person. If my wife is
happy, then I am a good husband. If she is not happy, I am a bad husband.
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2.
Impatient with others’ weaknesses
and my own. Have perfectionistic views.
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· 11/29 When I have temptations to lust, i feel that I am a bad person and a bad husband.
11/29 – similar to others mentioned
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3.
I put standard on how other people
should act and expect them to live up to them. Often these standards are
unrealistically high and I do not make them known.
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4.
I mimic everything from personality
to relationship habits. I am not firm in my own. I believe this stems from me
having a very negative self-view.
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11/29 – I mimic my wife’s feelings.
My wife is sad, therefore I am sad. My wife is happy, therefore I am happy. My
wife is angry, I become indifferent.
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5.
I go for immediately rewards
instead of the long-term ones.
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6.
I tend to think negatively about
the future wherever I can.
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7.
Fear that I cannot change for the
better. Also fear that others cannot change.
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11/29 – I feared that My wife will
never be able to get over these things and will always be sad and resentful
toward me. Regardless to how well I recover, I am scared that there will
always be things I do that trigger her sadness/anger that we will always be
dealing with.
· 11/29 - I had a fear that I would never be able to really recover - that I will always have little things here and there that I will do to destroy my life, and that my current success is only temporary and that in time I will just slip back in to addiction. |
8.
Worst case scenario thinking.
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11/29 - I got a 1/10 on a question series,
therefore I can and will probably fail a big test I am preparing for. This
got me sad, as well as made me want to do better, so I spent the next 30-45
min trying to do better instead of studying (#1).
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9.
I value what other people say or
think about me more than I should and am not comfortable with who I am.
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11/29 – If My wife is angry with me
or upset with our marriage, then I must be a failure, regardless to how much
I am improving or how well I am doing.
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10.
I don’t respect God’s will or look
at the bigger plan.
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11.
I have a very negative self-view.
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12.
Wanting to escape reality.
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13.
I avoid direct confrontation, but
am by nature still quite confrontational, just in a different way.
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11/29 – My wife wanted to buy more
things at the store than we had planned. I began to feel upset about finances
and feel slightly resentful because she wanted to buy those things that I
felt were not necessary. I didn’t tell her and rather just kept it in and
shut down.
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11/29 – My wife put more cheese on
my food than I wanted and when I said something about it she made me feel
inferior. I didn’t say anything else about it and was just upset about it.
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Had no idea how many of these have to do with my interactions with my wife. I really need to be a bit more open with her about my weaknesses and how they are being triggered. Communication is vital and it's something I've never been quite good at. I think if I were to be a bit more open with her about these things she could be on my team a bit more and that might solve much of the resultative negative thoughts/feelings.
Anyway, just a little insight into what I'm going to be doing over the next little while as I seek to really implement step 10.
I really like how clearly you've outlined everything.
ReplyDeleteAnd I just wanted to throw this out there -I don't know if it will make any sense:
My husband is confrontational by nature as well, but he doesn't confront me hardly ever. He feels like he's hurt me so much with the porn addiction that he has no right to "hurt" me in other smaller ways (like telling me I put too much cheese on his dinner, for example). After discussing this at length one night, I took him by the shoulders and said, "I have no monopoly on the happiness in this relationship. If you're upset by something and you feel like it should be addressed, TALK to me about it."
Also, in the past when we've talked about his addiction my reactions were hard for him to handle. I didn't yell or scream or hit or anything... I just locked myself in our bathroom and cried. When he tried to comfort me, I'd turn him away. I was at my rock bottom.
Ever since then, he's been afraid to come to me with pretty much anything -addiction related or not -because he doesn't want to see a reaction like that.
And, like I said, he doesn't feel like he has the right to hurt me any more than he already has.
I appreciate this post -I can see a lot of my husband's qualities in it (the perfectionism and the negative views of the future and the feeling like a failure). I appreciate reading your insights. It helps me to see them.
Nate, dang, I related on almost EVERY SINGLE weakness that you list. especially the self-perfectionistic one. I'm also a total people pleaser. I don't directly contront people but then I'm emotionally withdraw from them. And the mimicking of everyone else's emotions!! I may have to send you another email! I've been doing some 4th step writing lately and it is certainly revealing alot about myself. These things are so tough to figure out! we aren't even expert psychologist!!
ReplyDeleteThis was a cool read.
ReplyDelete