Spiteful

I've been called a lot of names in my 42 years of life, but spiteful was never one of them. Not until a few months ago when John pointed it out. I didn't get it at first, but when he explained it to me it made sense.

Listen, I'm not proud of it, I don't even realize I'm doing it. When he pointed it out back in March, I started to check myself before responding. I'd take little jabs if he said something that upset me, but I never considered that to be spiteful. I always incorporated it with being a jerk. Turns out, I am in fact doing it to hurt him. C R A Z Y

For the last four months I did a pretty good job of being aware and watching my mouth. I haven't said anything that would deliberately hurt him. In fact, my responses were minimal. I can't handle someone constantly negative. Nothing I say or do helps, so I just sit back and listen. Some nights, that's not good enough.

Tuesday night he called and sounded like a depressed walrus. I don't have the strength to take many more calls like that. I listened, tried to give him some advice and words of encouragement and I always get "you don't know what it's like". No, you're right. I don't, but what I do now is GOD has given you in the last 16 months more grace than either of us expected.

He gets upset when I tell him to pray or have faith. "Why the F should I have faith look where I'm at". Again, noted. However, if what you're doing now isn't, nor has worked, why not make a change? Our conversation turns into a disagreement, and I've learned, instead of making him more upset just say "ok I love you call me tomorrow". Sometimes it works, others it doesn't.

That night for some reason he responds, "I'm not going to call you for a while". My thought? Don't threaten me with a good time. I said, "okay well I love you, I'm praying for you get some sleep". He hung up. He sent me a message asking if he needed to call someone else to help him with something and my response back was, well, spiteful.

I told him I would take care of what he wanted but if he wanted to call someone else, he could. The rest of my message was blunt and to the point. I basically said, "yeah I'm done". I explained how I couldn't take the negative BS anymore and that I'm solely relying on my faith to get me through the next decade. I can't be something for him if he won't help himself, right?

I then did the one thing he asked me never to do (although I don't ever remember him telling me). I cancelled my visit for this week. I told him that I was in the message, and he never responded. Imagine how the conversation went on Wednesday when he brought it up.

"Did you really cancel the visit"? My response, maybe cold-hearted, "I sure did". He asked why I would do that and said..... "see this is what I mean by spiteful". Whoa, hold up my lover. I didn't do it out of spite. I genuinely cancelled because I was done. I warned you a million times I couldn't handle the depression, and you do nothing to change, so why should I?

He started crying. That's right, my big goofy, dorky man started sobbing. My heart broke. I tried explaining to him why and he finally opened up. He explained to me the reason he does/says certain things is because he feels horrible, I'm out here doing XYZ for him. That it's hard for him to ask people for help, let alone me. He was devastated over the visit, and I couldn't do one darn thing to change it.

Why, why do red heads go from ZERO to ONE HUNDRED in a matter of milliseconds? Why can't we be normal rational adults and THINK before we react to something. Especially something so detrimental to other people. I'm so mad at myself I want to lay behind my car and put it in reverse!

I swear I'm the only person I know who self-sabotages. I don't know what it is about this man that I love so deeply, but dang he drives me nuts! I also don't understand when things go good for a few days, by day 6 everything falls apart.

I can be on cloud 9 and BAM I'm instantly being attacked and hating life. Like what is that? Can anyone explain how we become negative and hateful in a matter of seconds? I could be living my best life, and the smallest inconvenience will occur and my whole mood shifts. So unnecessary, yet I can't break the cycle. I don't know, it's wild. I'm in my head tonight, miserable and contemplating every decision I ever made in life.

There's zero possible chance I'm this dumb. ZERO!

Matthew 5:44: "But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,"