Last week I shared about an unpleasant experience I had, in which someone said some insulting things to me.  (I’ve edited last week’s post to remove any mention of this incident, to protect the privacy of the person involved in case there are any local intrepid sleuths who will work out his identity based on clues in what I wrote. :))

I thought a lot about what was said to me and where it was coming from.  My dh, who is Mr. Wonderful Character, easy going, and doesn’t let things bother him, told me that the person has an ego issue and has shown himself in every conversation to be easily offended and hard to please, and to stop looking for what my part in this was because I didn’t do anything wrong.  But I wanted to clear the air with this  person, and felt I had to honestly consider his feelings in order to do that.

After trying hard to put myself  in his shoes and see it from his perspective, I thought perhaps I could have sounded as if I wasn’t valuing him enough for his efforts.  I decided that when I saw him again in person, I would apologize for any slight and let him know how much we appreciated what he’s done  in a given area.  Today I happened to see him again, so I went over to him and asked him if I could speak with him a few minutes.

I told him that I realized I had said something that might have given him the impression we don’t value his input and help fully, and that I wanted him to be aware that we are very appreciative of his concern and time.  I apologized, then when I paused, he coldly said, “Okay, fine.”  And turned away without a further comment.

I was a little surprised, honestly.  Though I certainly didn’t expect an apology from him for the harsh things he said,  I expected a bit more of a response than this!  In order to keep myself from falling into negative thoughts about him, I had to remind myself of my goal in speaking to him.

The goal wasn’t to manipulate him with kindness and make him like me. It was to take responsibility for my actions, and to be sure to keep ‘my side of the  street’ clean.  I can’t do anything about what he said, how he chooses to respond to me, or if he wants to stew in hostility against me forever.  But I’ve cleared my emotional side of things – I was careful in my original conversation about his feelings, had no desire to be hurtful, and apologized for any unintended slight today.  And now I’ve done my part.

Though I apologized because I thought it was something that would be of value to him, it was really me who benefited from the apology – now I can have peace of mind about the situation.  I don’t want to know that someone bears a grudge against me and speaks badly about me to others, without knowing that I’ve done my best to right the situation.  He can choose to hold on to his hostility (and apparently this is the choice he’s making) but it doesn’t mean I have get sucked into it – now I can let go of this scenario so it’s not taking up space in my head.  Which gets overly crowded without all of this drama.  🙂

Avivah