“What is the One Negative Experience in Your Life from which You Extracted a Positive Lesson and Used it to Shape Your Life and Self for the Better?”

This week the @ecoTrain passengers were asked to answer the question stated above as the ‘question of the week.’

We encounter many experiences in our life, some of which are good and bad. If you analyze the many experiences in your life, you will realize that most of them are caused by your own actions and reactions. Putting aside unexpected and sudden death and a few other experiences beyond your control, most of what you experience is a manifestation of your thoughts, feelings, attitude and actions.

The negative experience that I am going to talk about today was certainly an extremely painful experience in my life. I wouldn’t be wrong in saying that it was the most excruciating episode I have ever been through and when I analyzed it when I had to make a decision regarding my life, I realized the major reason it happened because I had become really negative. So here’s my story. Please bear with me as I fear it will be a tad bit long and it is this experience that has made me build a happy life for myself now.

credits

---

I married the love of my life almost 5 years back. We were madly in love when we got married and the love part really blinded me to his flaws like lack of responsibility, procrastination and not working hard enough. However, to make a marriage work, you need all these 3 elements along with others. Our first year of marriage went by quite smoothly. My husband quit his job right after we got married because he wasn’t happy with the job requirements so it was me bringing in all the money. He had some funds so we relied on that and the income I earned for a few months. He found another job after a month but left that too after doing it for 2 months.

I had conceived by that time so we knew things were going to be harder for us but our faith in each other kept us strong and we somehow kept moving forward happily. My husband came across a good opportunity to home tutor a few kids and got on board with that. So when our son came into this world, we were earning a little less than we needed but somehow we managed.

I was working part time when we had our son but soon I realized that I needed to make more money. My husband wasn’t really pushing himself as he was in and out of jobs due to one excuse or another so I knew I had to push my limits. I started working full time as a content writer and started earning better. Things got a little better financially but my husband was again out of job and had plans of going to Dubai in search of a better job. I supported him once more but sadly he didn’t find a good job there. The good part was that he realized the value of being around his family and started loving us more.

However, the worst part was he still hadn’t become responsible enough and wasn’t earning at all so the whole burden fell on my delicate shoulders (lol, they aren’t delicate really but I like this phrase) so it was me working hard, raising my son without any emotional or physical help by my husband and managing the house too. I barely used to sleep for 4 hours a day and worked like a donkey.

All the hard work that I did, not having any time for myself, seeing my husband lazy almost always and having to bear a colicky child started making me extremely frustrated and ill-tempered. I was slowly turning into a monster whom hardly anybody liked being around. I was always getting into fights with my husband and even my mother and sister, and was honestly a nightmare to be around.

My husband and I started growing distant to the extent that we would sleep in separate rooms. He hated seeing my face and my feelings for him were mutual too. All of this was affecting our son. Although he was just a little over 1 year at that time but he was surely being negatively influenced by this.

I was always criticizing my husband for bringing home hardly any money and for wasting whatever I earned and was hardly nice to him. He showed patience in the first few months of me changing colors because he knew how hard I was working and since he wasn’t earning enough, he felt ashamed to speak in front of me. However, his patience had a limit too. So when one day when we got into a colossal argument over a really petty issue, he plainly told me he didn’t want to live with me anymore and that we should part ways.

credits

That was honestly the most painful moment of my life. My parents are separated so when their separation took place, I was devastated but hearing my husband say he didn’t want me in his life anymore was more excruciating than that. I was crushed and honestly as I write this, I have flashbacks of those times and it is killing me inside but being honest is open and honesty is quite liberating so I know I have to keep going.

I didn’t respond to him immediately and took some time to think. I went to stay with my mother for a day but did not tell anyone in my family what I was going through. It was better to be silent until I had made a clear decision. Also, marrying my husband was entirely my decision so I didn’t want to involve others and bring them pain until I had made up my mind about what to do with our marriage.

I thought for a long time and to make a good decision, I began analyzing our relationship over the past few months to figure out what had just happened. The more I dug deeper into it, the more I realized that I was quite at fault too. Yes, my husband was lazy and a procrastinator and he didn’t realize his responsibilities but he wasn’t a toxic person. He wasn’t a controlling freak and he wasn’t someone you shouldn’t live with. He has a heart of gold and is extremely honest which were two of his qualities that drew me towards him. Also, the behaviors he was mostly exhibiting at that time were there when I decided to marry him. It was my love for him that blinded me to those shortcomings so it wasn’t really him who had changed, it was me.

All the responsibilities and hard work had changed me into a bitter person and because I couldn’t handle the pressure, I spewed it out on him and everyone else too. I also asked myself repeatedly if I wanted to leave my husband and I couldn’t bring myself up to say ‘yes.’ It was then that the negative episode I was going through made me come across a really positive lesson: take accountability of your decisions and change yourself for the better first to change others.

Marrying my husband was solely my decision so whatever I faced after that, I was accountable for that. Yes, he was too but here I realized, I was majorly at fault so I had to be accountable for it. Secondly, if I wanted my husband to become more responsible, caring, supportive and hardworking, I had to be nice, kind and supportive of him as well. I couldn’t expect him to behave like an angel while I was the exact opposite of that. So when I returned home, I told my husband to give our relationship some time and let’s see where things take us. Halfheartedly, he agreed to staying with me but didn’t speak to me much.

Over the next course of months, I was sweet, kind and loving towards him. I wasn’t mean to him and neither called him a loser and was more patient with him. When he came home from work every day, I used to greet him with a sweet smile and used to politely ask him about his day. I started encouraging him to be better and was there by his side all the time. I made sure to control my temper whenever I felt it going out of control and became an extremely nice person to be around.

Within a few days of my improved behavior, my husband started becoming more responsible and kinder too. Honestly, I was shocked. Even though we didn’t have a talk about his finding better sources of income, he had started that search on his own and was getting good results too.

In a month, our relationship was better than ever and we were happily in love with each other. Both of us were elated with the improvement and I was over the moon when my husband said, ‘You are the queen of my life.’

Just by bringing positive improvements to my behavior and by taking accountability of my actions and decisions, I was able to save our marriage. That lesson helped me in other areas of life too and slowly I found myself becoming a better daughter, sister, friend and most importantly a mother. I conceived with God’s will but bringing my child in this world was a decision I made. I could have aborted him but I chose not to so now that he was in this world, he was my responsibility and my husband’s and together we had to raise him in a healthy environment. I started being more patient, loving and caring towards him and started spending more quality time with him and my son started becoming a happier child too.

credits

By the time my son turned 2.5 years, my life was in a much better state. I was happier with myself and more content with my life and most importantly, I loved my family. That one huge negative experience in my life changed me in a lot of ways and helped me become more accountable for my life. Also, it taught me that if you want to melt a heart, you need to become a candle yourself.

If you are going through a rocky phase in your relationship, please think a lot before parting ways with your spouse/ partner. Analyze their personality and behavior as well as yours and if your relationship with them isn’t a codependent or a toxic and abusive one, do give your relationship another chance. This is just my viewpoint. Obviously, I am not in your shoes so I don’t know what you are going through so I am not judging anybody here just saying what worked out for me. :)

---

Thank you so much for going through this long post. I hope it didn’t bore you much and was of some help to you. Lots of love for you,

Sharoon.

---

If you like reading great content, head over to the @ecotrain.