A few days ago, I was vacuuming and cleaning my front room, and there, right next to the couch, was a plastic tote filled with my husband’s things. When I saw it, I thought to myself. 

He shouldn’t leave his things there. Just yesterday he got on my case about leaving my things out, and there he is leaving his own out! And my own things aren’t ever right in the front room like these are. It’s not very considerate of him to just leave them here, and worse than that, he really is being a hypocrite. The way he is always lecturing the kids and me about picking up after ourselves, but he puts on this air that he doesn’t. And what’s worse? He gets upset if I try and move his things when he leaves them out. It’s always ‘different’ for him -- they aren’t really left out because that’s where he wants them. As if I didn’t want the things I left out yesterday, right where I left them. 

What this really shows me is that he doesn’t actually respect me as much as he respects himself. My needs, my time, my preferences are nothing compared to his. And, in spite of the disrespect I get from him, I treat him with so much respect. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have me, and how I put up with his disrespect. I’ve really been disrespected as a wife from the very beginning -- that’s 30 years! That’s why he’s so critical too, because he doesn’t respect me. 

This morning, there was an example of how he was critical of the way I was parenting! The other night, when he got home...another example of how he didn’t respect me. I’m the one who has to teach the kids the right way to treat people. If it wasn’t for me, they would think that’s the way people are supposed to be treated. But it’s not enough. 

Our children are going to grow up and not know how to treat people with respect. They won’t get married, and they won’t be successful at work, and who knows what kind of issues they’ll have all their lives…

And the thinking continues to spiral. I begin to feel very mistreated and disrespected and hopeless that my life and my family’s lives are doomed!

When we see people as people, we see them as human beings, like us, with feelings and goals, hopes and fears, problems and desires. I mean; feel, sense, care, resonate with, and appreciate the reality of that person -- the inherent worth of their individualities, and an understanding that, just like me, they also have problems. In this state, our heart is full of gratitude for the people in our lives. We are happy for the good and success in other people’s lives, rooting internally and externally for their rise. Without need to defend, we can easily be honest in our own self-correction and repentance.

When I see a chair, I don’t have any need to consider it’s experience, I only see it for what it is to me. If I want something to sit on, or if I need to change a light bulb, I am glad it’s there. On the other hand, if it is in front of the door I’m trying to get to, I don’t really want it there. If it is wedged in the doorway that I’m trying to get through, I’m going to be really unhappy that it is in my way. However, if a chair is on the other side of the room with nothing to offer and no problem to me, that chair will have no relevance to me at all. Too often, I see people this way. I have no connection to them for their reality as human beings, but only consider them for what they can do for me, or for the problem they are to me. (Notice the focus on me in this?) I’m ‘seeing’ this person more as a tool than as a person. When I see a person as a problem to me, without resonating to their own experience and thoughts and feelings, I’m ‘seeing’ them as an object. 

The disconnected way of being goes against our true nature. We feel blame and that we are being mistreated. Feelings of blame give rise to feelings of being mistreated, and victimized, which invites irritation and anger. 

The answer begin with a little thing we call a judgement. It usually starts out something like this: “He shouldn’t---” We almost immediately (and usually subconsciously) move from a judgement to a conclusion that he is a problem and/or less valuable or worthy than we are. As soon as we buy into a thought that another person is a problem, our brain begins collecting evidence. The question we find answers to is, “How is this person a problem?” And we are very good detectives for finding our collection of mistreatments. We start making the list and add to it vigilantly. 

In our effort ot justify ourselves, we begin creating a world that makes the wrong seem right. In our minds and memories, we tweak everything that builds our story. We begin conjuring up images from the past to provide us with the evidence. We beign predicting examples of mistreatment in the future. We magnify the other into a horrible monster, and we exaggerate the crime and its consequences as well. We see ourselves not just as victims to this perpetrator, but martyrs suffering nobly, minimizing our own faults and excusing our ill deeds. Interestingly, our own value also becomes a casualty, so we begin harboring a fear that, even after all we are trying to do, we might also be a failure or horrible person.

Notice that by the end, I am no longer very concerned about just moving the bucket out of the living room. In fact, if David had walked in the door right at that moment just for the purpose of getting the clothes, I wouldn’t have been satisfied in the least. For that matter, I would have felt a little pang of disappointment. Is this because I want to be miserable? Of course not. What I want, is to be justified. 

Notice how my world has changed. That morning, I had even been feeling grateful for him and the way we were as a family. I had been feeling appreciative of how much he cares about his children, and also for some things he had offered to do for me. Now, because of a tote in the living room, I am feeling just the opposite. And everything about my feelings is telling me that my problem is David. But, my feelings can’t be trusted. This is, minus one pile of things, the David I felt care, appreciation and gratitude toward; and, moving the pile of things didn’t solve the problem. Because the problem doesn’t lie in David, it lies in my choice to stop seeing him as a person.