What do you think, has driven you to these types of behavior ?
Why do YOU think that you are judgmental ?
Getting ready to take a short family vacation and I got a book to read on Patience for the trip! Hopefully it's a good one.
With regards to listening, I've been trying more to listen as we learned in retrovaille. I'm typically a 'fixer' so I'm really trying to avoid coming up with solutions unless specifically asked to do so. This takes focus at this point, but it does make you really think about what's going on with your spouse. Instead of fixing, I ask about her feelings toward the topic.
For the judgmental piece, I didn't really think I was like that until I took a hard look at myself. Turns out that I was...big time. I think I've done a 180 on this one, but I haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about where it came from. If I had to answer, I'd say three things drove it:
1) I came a long way from my where my family was so I did have a bit of a superiority thing going on. I was the first one in my entire family to graduate from college, did so on my own dime, and got a good job, which I excelled at.
2) Kinda tying in with #1, I think I had to build myself up when I was younger to get thru some of the hardships. Clearly, it got out of hand.
3) Insecurity. I think I constantly put other people down in order to make myself feel better. As I've gotten older, this took on more of a logic based judgement, but at the end of the day, it was still judgement.
I remember my wife and I having a discussion about beer. We both enjoy craft beer and I'm a bit of a beer snob. Whenever we had friends that would drink bud-lite, I'd always say something nasty about it, like "you didn't have to bring bud-lite, we have water." She really didn't like the judgment and in hindsight, it's pretty ugly to be like that, even when it was in a joking kind of way. I think I've made good strides on this one though, whether it's about beer, or marriage, or whatever.
Thanks again for the thought provoking questions and help. Enjoy the 4th and I'll post an update when I get back!
