Enough Already

I don't know about you fine folks, but I often find myself feeling indignant when faced with new demands on my time/resources/money/energy/effort. I honestly feel like I work plenty hard enough, and that I'm giving everything possible that there is to give to all of my obligations.

One thing that my dear husband has recently asked of me is to spend some time each day exercising. 15-20 minutes would be easy to do, he says. It just takes a little effort, he says, and he doesn't know why I won't even try. At first, I was totally outraged at his audacity to ask one more thing of me, when I already take care of most everything in the house, work full time, take care of the child and family obligations, etc. He is a man with actual free time, so of course 15-20 minutes of exercise is easy for him.

I brought this conversation to my therapist because I was so pissed about it. I felt like I needed a little backup or validation or something.

My therapist asked me what I thought of my husband's invitation. Sometimes, he says, people who care about us ask us to do things that can actually be beneficial for us, and did I think that his suggestion could be beneficial?

OF COURSE, was my answer. I know exercising would be great for me on many levels.

Well, do you want to do it?

OF COURSE I do!

I don't think you do, he said, because if you did, you would do it. You have the power to accomplish anything you put your mind to. If you wanted to exercise, you would build it into your day somehow.

He's really not being a hard ass, he is simply stating the truth. It didn't seem like it at first, but he actually was giving me the validation I wanted and steering me away from anger.

Very clever, he is, because now I am thinking about this in a different way. If I put aside all my outrage about what I think my husband meant by this (you are not attractive you need to be better you need to do more I would like you more if you were thinner I am ashamed of you) and realize what he probably did mean (you would have more energy and feel better if you exercised and I want to live with a happier person), I can actually consider the invitation.

There are still only 24 hours in each day. I am still trying to figure out where the 15-20 minutes would come from, but I'm not ruling it out as a possibility. I have the aspiration to develop the motivation to make this a priority because it's actually a pretty good idea all around. I'm still working through the resentment of the request, because you know I don't like to be judged or told what to do, but I think I can let that go too. Things will sure be a lot easier around here when I do, and maybe it will even free up enough energy to do some sit-ups, who knows?