Building Bridges

This summer has been crazy busy , not just work wise, but life in general. We've spent a lot of time with my brother and sister in law after rebuilding a relationship following a massive blow out, which turns out if people just took a minute to actually ask what the problem was instead of making assumptions, wouldn't have happened in the first place. Husband has started working on the relationship with his father and that side of the family, and clearing the air on things that have bothered him for years. He's also come to realize that some relationships are not necessarily healthy, and is learning to take some things for face value. It's hard to come to the conclusion that the people you grew up with aren't who they appear, and when they start creating a stressful enviornment for everyone around them, it's time to cut the cord and do whats best for you. I'm getting to know in laws that I wish I had the chance to years ago, and gaining the strength to ignore the hurtful and toxic behaviors from others. The funny thing about the whole thing is that I, who grew up in a house hold where you did not discuss your problems or emotions, was the one who orchastrated the whole chat session to address the issues. I felt like it was right in my heart, and faced my fears head on, you never know how strong you really are until you are faced with a problem you have no other choice than to solve.


Growing up in a emotionally handicapped atmosphere has also led me to be weary of trusting people, and I have something of an emotional block, the size of the great wall of china. The only person who has ever been able to break it is my husband and a few select friends that I've had since kindergarden. I'm just always ready for the next blow, and I figured that if I don't let that person in emotionally, when they screw me over it won't hurt as bad. It has been effective thus far, but it also slows any healing process to a complete halt. After starting to reconcile with my sister in law following a massive blow out, I acknowledged that I am a difficult person to get to know and that I was willing to work on that. She admitted and owned the wrong doing on her part, so I have to be able to acknowledge my faults in order to make any progress. No one said that being a grown up would be fun or easy, hell all I cared about in high school was having my own car and no curfew. I have both now and its not really all that special. I guess, what I've learned is that 99.999999 % of all these problems we've had is from a complete lack of communication. If we just sat down and discussed what was going on and bothering us instead of assuming, these big blow outs wouldn't have happened in the first place.