Living Hell -- Are You Living It Or Giving It?
Author: Jan Tincher

Is every day a nightmare? Is the person you are living with finding fault with everything you say or do? Or are you finding fault with everything the person you are living with does? Do you wonder how it got this way?

I used to be that way. I was finding fault right and left. Our baby was a year old, the finances weren't great, I felt like I was being taken for granted, and I wanted more. More from my spouse, more from my life, more from me.

And guess what? No one was providing it.

That being the case, I started complaining about everything. There was nothing I didn't find fault with. One day I woke up and realized what *I* had created. All by myself. I had created a living hell in my own home.

I couldn't believe it. I had always considered myself an upbeat person, but I looked in the mirror and truly did not like what I saw. And I hadn't liked any word, phrase, or sentence that had come out of my mouth for a long time. How my husband was handling it, I didn't know.

I decided if anything was going to be done, I was the person who was going to have to do it. There had been no loving touches for quite a while, and we hardly talked to each other, probably because he didn't want to hear anything I had to say, and who could blame him?

So I started making changes in my life, and ultimately in the lives of my husband and small son. Of course, it didn't happen quickly. I had some issues that didn't go away overnight.

The important thing was, I realized *I* had to change inside before I could change even a little on the outside. I knew my husband wasn't going to trust the fakey nicey-nice approach -- Heaven knows I hadn't been *nice* for a long time.

I had to do something to let him know I knew I had messed things up, AND that I was going to change -- if it killed me. I certainly couldn't go on as I had been. We had grown so far apart, I didn't know if we could ever recapture what we once had.

One night we were driving somewhere, and I cracked a joke. I laughed and laughed, admittedly more than was warranted, but he saw the laughter in my eyes. It was something he hadn't seen in a long time. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and said, "Is something going on here that I don't know about?"

I said, "Yes, honey. I am practicing laughing. I want to bring laughter back into our marriage."

He smiled.

"Uh uh," I said, shaking my head. "I said laughter."

He didn't say too much, and I started to worry. Finally, he stopped at a stop sign and turned to me and said, "You're going to have to tell a funnier joke than that."

I understood what he wasn't saying, but it was the best olive branch I had ever been offered. The next morning, he woke me up with a kiss. It was the first voluntary kiss I had received in a long time, and I cried. He just held me, then out of the blue, he told me a joke.

I couldn't do it on my own, and I think that was his way of telling me he was there for me -- and, unless I did something a lot worse than I had -- he would be with me always. The next kiss was for forgiveness, the next was for love, and the next . . . Well, you get the idea.

If your marriage, your partnership, your love is on the rocks, don't give up. Find a way to make things different. As in every problem, it all starts inside. As with every solution, it all starts inside. Be good to yourself today. If you're having problems, figure out how you can make things better -- inside. I guarantee you, once you feel better inside, your outside starts to change too.

Don't wait for the other person to make the change. Life is too short.

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Copyright 2001, Jan Tincher, All Rights Reserved Worldwide

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