Mompreneur Success: Lose Your Ability To B.S.

Last night I’d had it.

After spending about 30 minutes in total silence sitting across from my husband, I finally unleashed the 7-year flood I’d been holding back. I ripped him a new one and was probably a bit more harsh than I should have been. Perhaps.

But maybe not.

See, in my estimation, he’s not been pulling his weight in the family. And yes, this is a pretty public forum for airing that kind of dirty laundry. I also don’t pretend to be blameless in our marriage. And when he calls me on something, I work hard to correct the issue. But I’m bustin’ my butt on a daily basis to try to improve our lives, where often, I feel like he’s doing “the minimums” just to shut me up.

In full disclosure, nothing I’m revealing here is some kind of secret. Everything I share he already knows. I’ve just lost my ability to B.S. my way through this situation any longer.

In part, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to one of my coaches: @SandyGrason. Her “Jerry Maguire Manifesto” took a while to marinate in my brain, and even as her student, I continued to marinate, because I thought I was “different”.

Somehow, I thought that I – all knowing, all powerful being that I am – could somehow change the course of another person’s life by being less than who I am.

• By pretending that things are great, when they’re not.
• By acting like nothing’s wrong in public, when my friends know differently.
• By doing everything I know how to do to “work on me” when that wasn’t the issue.

Now in all fairness, I love my husband and we’re nowhere near divorce. That would be too easy, and I learned long ago that easiest isn’t always bet. And yes, I do stupid stuff too, and I’m sure he’s gotten angry with me more times than he’s ever let on.

And that’s the problem. He doesn’t let on – about anything. And it’s reached colossal proportions.

So last night, I let him have it. Big time.

I had about 2 hours before my Direct Sales 101 class, and our house was child-free for the evening. Hoping to have some quiet time with my husband, I suggested we have a conversation about anything (really, anything. I’m not picky, just talk to me!).

He chose instead to stare out the window in silence for 22 minutes.

I, being a do-er, am not good at sitting STILL for 20 minutes, let alone sitting in SILENCE for that long – it was like water torture or something.

I finally lost my ability to B.S.: the ability to pretend and keep up appearances for the sake of others.

I called him on the carpet for a lot of nonsense in our marriage. We disagreed (he actually SPOKE a couple of times – and yes, I let him get a word in edge-wise), and for two hours we finally had an outpouring of honesty in our marriage.

For those that didn’t notice, a couple of months ago, I changed my facebook marital status to “it’s complicated”. Not because I’m not married, but because I don’t feel like we have a marriage right now.

For too long, we’ve been two people co-habitating, and not building a loving relationship. And while I acknowledged my role in everything, I also held him accountable to “man up” and own his portion of the responsibility too. That means letting me in through the wall he’s built, and making me the partner he says he wants in this marriage.

Here I am, trying to put on a live workshop for mompreneurs, who THINK I’ve got it all worked out. I’m talking about the importance of balancing family and work demands, and I’m sitting in a room with a guy who’d rather stare out a window than look me in the eye and have a conversation with me. There’s something not quite right about that.

Now, I’ve never claimed that my marriage was perfect, nor did I expect that marriage was some rose-colored adventure that would always have a happy ending. I grew up in a reality far-removed from that. My expectation was that marriage takes work – lots of it – on a daily basis, but that if you truly love each other, you do what you can and you don’t quit just because it gets hard.

And lately, it’s been hard. I’m off building an ark that he’s not too excited about. There’s friction there. But where I choose to face an issue head on and deal with it, hubby prefers avoidance. Perhaps because I’m prone to sharing the gory details of my life in social media?

Well, if he knows I’m going to blab about it, he should have seen it coming.

So last night, the gloves came off, and I let it all hang out.

Today, I know there are ramifications, calls from in-laws, posts from people who think I’m stupid for sharing this publicly, comments from people who’ll say that’s what I get for “emasculating my man by working”, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I’m ready for them. I don’t back down from a confrontation, and even if it’s hard, I’ve been through scarier stuff than this. In fact, this doesn’t scare me at all. Because, for once, I actually feel like I’m doing the best possible thing for everyone concerned.

And you know what? I’ve never felt better about myself.

There’s an empowerment in being true to yourself. We all deserve to live our truth – including me.

Including you.

So lose the ability to B.S. your way through life. Life gets better, the less B.S. you’re willing to tolerate.

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Sandy’s re-launching The Fabulous Formula soon. If you’re ready to make that shift, you might want to check out her program. My affiliate link is above, but I would promote this program even if I didn’t earn a little something for promoting it. She changed my life. That’s why she’s coming to The Renaissance Mom Experience in August. If you’re there, she might change your life, too.