In a moment of weakness and stress I did something awful. I put my husband down because he was afraid of doing something new. He is a lovely man but fears what he doesn’t know and in order to avoid doing it will be aggressive, dismissive, argumentative and difficult. It’s not nice and in my feeling of anger towards him I find myself mocking him, which clearly doesn’t help. In a gap through my annoyance I realised what I was doing and was appalled. I tried hard to stop what I was doing, despite his railing and attempting to hide his fear in anger. I encouraged him to do something. I couldn’t do so by being nice, it was too late for that, but I managed by reasoning it out – I can’t keep doing things he is capable of so that he can keep avoiding them. For the first time ever my husband booked a holiday. I thought that buying a holiday as a birthday present for me should be something he does with his own fingertips. He was so pleased with himself when he’d done it I felt sad that I hadn’t handled it better in the first place.
Next time I promise I will try and spot the fear and avoidance earlier and be more encouraging before he starts being a yob. Who’d have thought booking a holiday would be so enlightening.
