Can you imagine having an Ebenezer Scrooge in your life? The story, The Christmas Carol, depicts him as a man who was cold and unloving and placed money above all else. Dickens penned this description: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." (Compliments of Wikipedia). What I find interesting is that his emotional demise started with his reaction to his father’s treatment of him and leaving him in boarding schools. I can imagine this little boy with tears in his eyes concentrating so hard on his hatred of his dad and promising himself that he would never be like him yet he may have turned out worse. His father was penned as a cold and unloving man as well and apparently the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
Because of these unsavory attributes, Ebenezer was miserable and he made that known to everyone he came in contact with. The only family he had was his nephew Fred who was the only child of his late sister Fran but his demeanor just pissed him off. That boy’s optimism and enthusiasm was a complete character foil to Scrooge and was a thorn in his side. Despite his uncle’s constant sour attitude, Fred never gave up on him and invited him every year for dinner.
We are not sure of the details of why Scrooge's father had him spend so many years at the boarding schools even during the holidays. How awful it must have been to constantly see his schoolmates leave for the holidays and come back with fun tales of all that happened. Here is a very key point for this is a moment that happens for us all when we experience a painful event. We make a decision on how we are going to respond to this event and that decision becomes the measuring stick for all our future interpretations. The beauty of the Christmas Carol is lost with it being centered around the Christmas season for we have many Scrooges among us today and all year long. He pushed all love and laughter away from his life and found solace in his money; what little solace was there. Don’t lose sight of the powerful message here by being distracted by the presence of money in this story. That was his achilles heel and served him in his misery, we all have our own personalized crutches.
I was in a relationship with a modern day version of Scrooge for he was also miserable. He had a background where he never felt loved and accepted for he was constantly compared and found wanting. With that, there was a deep pit of sadness where no love from the outside could fill. He never showed this to the outside world and only the ones close to him knew or felt his pain. They were privy to dealing with his sadness and whenever anyone behaved in a way perceived as confirming the feelings of that pit, a bitterness, meanness and a form of mind control would appear. The perpetrator would be dealt with accordingly and made understood that it was anyone’s fault but his and he was brilliant at it. You may wonder why on earth I would have someone in my life like that and the answer is simple; my father was exactly like that. When I met this gentleman, I made the decision that I could make a difference in his life since I couldn't’ with my dad. There was a difference all right but it wasn’t with him. Instead I contorted myself in the name of love and became someone I didn’t recognize.
As preached by many self - help books and councillors, I decided to cut out this negative person out of my life. During that process I started to reshape the deformed parts of my life and met my now amazing husband who met the criteria for my dream man. There was always this bone of contention with my ex because of a list I made in that regard. My list wasn’t very long but it held four characteristics that he did not possess and I knew this bothered him for he constantly brought it up.
Enter my handsome hubby who is a complete contradiction of my ex for I wanted to make sure that my history didn’t repeat itself. It was important that I focused on getting what I wanted and this man fit the criteria. Things were going along rather smoothly until recently when suddenly last night a light bulb went on for me. He was out of sorts and when I asked him why he was behaving in such a terse way his response shocked me. He stated that it was because of what I was doing and that he was justified in his actions. Somehow I appeared distracted and wasn’t paying full attention to what he was saying and it annoyed him. All the drama of my previous relationship came flooding back for that was a huge pet peeve of my ex’s and the cause of many of our disagreements. Then a few other minor disconnected events filtered through my mind that also reminded me of my previous relationship. Am I saying that my hubby is becoming my ex? No but it’s been very interesting how some similar behaviors are now creeping in.
This is utterly fascinating to me for these men have nothing in common on the surface. Maybe they share the same hurt and that motivates them to act in similar fashion. Whatever it is it needs to be addressed but not with my husband. The person who needs to be addressed is myself for I am the only common denominator. The Law of Attraction is clear, we only draw people into our lives if we share similar frequencies so both these men are responding to an unpleasant believe I have about myself.
When talking to friends of mine about this situation, I constantly hear that I should give my hubby an earful about his behavior. Why? Again I will repeat, this situation is not his problem; it is mine. If it is still in my life after using deliberate determination to avoid it what good would it do to talk to him? That actually would make things worse for it creates calmness based on a false sense of security. If he decides to work on the behavior then the Universe will send someone else to do the job. The vibration I had that drew him in the first place wouldn’t have been changed just the manifestation temporarily.
I write this article with no answers to give you, all I have is a plan. That plan is to continue to soul search myself, listen closely to his words and observe his actions. Hopefully by doing that he will give me clues to what belief I created with the interactions I had with dad; that is what is responsible for this. Once I change the perception of that belief it will be interesting to see what will change with my hubby. I’ll keep you posted.
Today I will take a small breath when there is an emotional event and try to determine what belief could have caused it.