What do you WANT?

I ask myself,  "What do you want?"  I can never put my finger on this question to myself - of what do I want for myself.  I realize that I have not "wanted" for decades.  OR better said, I WANTED my family to feel taken care of and to have a nice home and a loving family.  THAT is what I wanted.  I worked like crazy and sacrificed gladly.  I was empathic and saw my role in life as someone who supported my husband and 2 sons to achieve in what THEY wanted for themselves.  I supported my husband even more than my sons toward what HE wanted and with what HE could handle.  It is my belief that if everyone gives, the family as a whole unit thrives.

When I think back to what I wanted as a younger person, There was a time when I wanted my husband. I was a young romantic. I GOT him.  I liked the idea of living near a lake, near my mom and sisters.  I GOT that.  I wanted to travel.   I DID that somewhat.  

What had me so full of discontent and annoyed?  There are fears and disappointments in life.  I have been focusing on those things and they have been driving me crazy!     

An attitude I am trying to change inside myself has to do with the difference between SHAME and GUILT.  I don't think I really understood the difference.  But, this is what I am getting to know about myself.  I have been SHAMING MYSELF!  Whenever I would make a mistake or when I didin't know what to do, I would ponder how I got into such a mess and what was wrong with ME that I was miserable and was not able to figure out how to fix things.  So I felt SHAME and blamed myself over and over trying to make things different.  

What I CAN do is to say, "Jenna, you are smart and good.  You made a wrong choice. It didn't work out well. What did you learn?"  Instead I was saying, "Stupid, stupd, stupid.  Why can't you figure this out?  What is the matter with you? Are you immature? Are you emotionally sick? Are you ugly or unpersonable or unloveable?"

ACCEPTING that I made bad choices decades ago.  That I made wrong decisions years ago. AND I WILL KEEP MAKING MISTAKES....because that is what human beings do.  We make decisions and half the time, the decision is not the best one.  BUT that is where we get to forgive ourselves for being a human being.  Decisions must be made daily by us all.  I have been stuck and unmoving in my bad situation because I have become afraid to make more bad choices.  Yet not making a move or a choice has been the great undoing of my life.  My life has become stagnant while I wimper and have my emotional pity parties.   It doesn't have to be like that.  

NOT DARING TO RISK a wrong choice has kept me small and not too proud of myself.  

I have stopped the emotional tantrums.  When I start getting worked up, I say, "I made some bad choices. Ugh!"  Yet, I got pretty much what I wanted out of life - (other than feeling unloved and insecure in my marriage).  If that is what I want now {love and security), I can find ways to make myself feel loved and secure.  That is where I am right now.  

I realize I must accept H the way he is.  It does not help me or him for me to be angry or resentful.  I don't have to try to FIX things with him.  He does not want or is not able to LOVE ME (for whatever reason).  I don't need to figure him out.   I DO want to have love and security.  I get to work on that now.