That’s Not How I Meant It

He said to me, “You literally have zero faith in me. It’s been like that our whole relationship.”

So I asked him, “If it was like that our whole relationship, then why did you stay with me?”

His response was, “Love.”

Part of this self-discovery and figuring out who I am on my own is also realizing and knowing that I was part of the problem. And I don’t want to be a person who ever comes across like I don’t believe in someone, because wholeheartedly, that’s the complete opposite of what I believe myself to be.

But that doesn’t mean how I come across or how I treat other people is always how I intended it to be.

Just because my intentions were pure doesn’t mean I was doing it right.

And now I have to navigate that and figure out what I was doing, what I was saying, or how I was acting that made someone feel like I didn’t have faith in them. Because that’s not something I ever want someone I care about to feel from me.

And I know this isn’t only something that exists in my relationships. It’s part of the reason I’m terrified to ever have people report directly to me at work. Because I know I micromanage. I know I unconsciously hold people to the same standard that I hold myself to, and that’s unrealistic.

I don’t want to do that. The problem is, I don’t know how to stop.

I don’t know what I’m doing in those moments that makes helping turn into micromanaging, or believing in someone somehow come across like I don’t trust them to do something themselves.

And that’s what I need to figure out.

Not so I can beat the shit out of myself for another thing I did wrong. Not so I can decide that everything was my fault. But because if there are things about myself that are hurting people or making them feel something that is the complete opposite of what I actually feel for them, I want to know.

It’s uncomfortable as fuck to realize that the person I believe myself to be might not always be the person someone else experiences.

I know my intentions. Other people only get to experience my actions. And apparently there are places where those two things aren’t matching.

That’s part of figuring out who I am on my own too.