The Mirror

I used to look in the mirror and I liked who I saw. Yes, I was overweight and new wrinkles were springing up daily and sometimes I think I only remembered to comb my hair once a day. But I was a good person and that's what I saw. A good mother, a good wife, a good friend, a good daughter, a good employee. Then my husband blindsided me with the 'news' and his excuses and insults were hurled at me with deadly accuracy. They embedded themselves in me and knocked me over in the beginning. I questioned everything about myself.

'You yell at the kids. Why haven't you gone farther in your career? You've made me unhappy for 15 years of marriage. You're materialistic and you've spent all of our money. You bought this house and I never wanted it. You made me feel guilty for being in the military.' His list of insults and accusations went back years in our relationship. My God, I thought, I would divorce me too, I'm a horrible person. I saw myself through his filter and I let myself believe that it was the true me. I avoided looking at myself in the mirror because all I saw were the flaws that drove him away.

Now that the shock has worn off I can see myself clearly without using his distorted lens. All the hurtful things he said to justify what he did are now just words that hang in the air and can't hurt me. I'm strong enough now to deflect or accept them.

Some of the things he said are true and maybe I'll work on them and maybe I won't. I am who I am and you know what? I'm pretty happy with myself as a person. I AM a good person. If he really loved me, he would have saw these quirks and rolled his eyes and accepted them. Or if they drove him crazy, he should have said something instead of letting these things fester inside of him. I never kept a mental list of my husband's faults that I let build up inside of me until they exploded. If you love someone, you sigh when they leave the dresser drawers open but you walk behind and shut them if it really bothers you. You don't let their faults take up residence in your mind, because you're too busy doing the simple little kind things. At some point my husband stopped doing the simple little kind things for me and I never even noticed because I was too busy giving to be worried about taking.

I look in the mirror now and I once again see myself. I wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror?