Am I a Bully??

Bullies are usually typified as people who pick on others because of their own securities, and while I normally wouldn’t see myself as a bully I certainly found myself feeling like on the other night.

As my husband washed the dishes he was remarking about how he could do something different to aid our house cleaning efforts. In my head I heard “because you’re not doing it right.” - That’s the perfectionist in me. Immediately I became over reactive and everything my husband said, no matter what it was became a shot at me. And I fired right back. Of course he had no clue why I was so bothered and like the amazing husband he is, apologized and said he realized how much I do for the home, yet even in that sweet moment my mind was unbelieving.

Through the years I’m learning to put things into perspective even if it is after the fact. I’m a work in progress. I self assessed {is that a term??} the situation and took a moment to step back and figure out what I was feeling and the REAL reasons why.

Then it came to me, like a ton of bricks falling on my head, I was nit picking my husband’s efforts to clean because of my own insecurities on not feeling like I am the “perfect” wife, mom, house cleaner, what-have-you. I know in my mind that I do not need to be June Cleaver or any of the other iconic models of motherhood, but it’s something I find that always bubbles to the top of my mind and haunts me.

Because I have such high expectations for myself, another issue is my expectations for others. In my brain I have ideals of what roles others should be playing in my life and how they should act, and it’s nearly impossible for people to measure up. I’m setting us all up for failure.

It’s not fair to any of us to have such high expectations on ourselves or anyone else, and not very nice of me trying to subconsciously pick a fight with Hubby, even if I didn’t realize quite what I was doing at the time.

My goal in the next few weeks is to know and believe what I always tell my girls, “you dont have to be perfect you just have to be you”.

Anyone else struggle with this issue? I know in the bigger scheme of things it’s mommy guilt and in the even grander version it’s my brains need to be “perfect”

What tips do you have for feeling adequate and ditching the “I must be perfect mentality?? I sure could use them!!