Why Do We Do What We Do?

Sometimes there’s a part of us deep inside that reacts and does things that we never meant or intended to do. I’m an over-thinker and analyzer, and there are many times I’ve had to question my behavior.  I used to look at the behavior itself and then judge because of the behavior, but I’m learning now to not just “see” what is being done, but try to understand the why behind it.  I believe with all my heart that our actions are not the true representative of the good or evil within us – but the WHY behind them. 

Why do we smoke? Why do we cheat? Why do we lie? Why do we feel the need to rescue? Why do we care? Why do we sacrifice? Why do we hurt others? Why do we protect? Why do we risk our lives? Why do hide in fear?

The things we do reveal our true selves more than anything we say, feel, or think.  I’ve discovered on many occasions I am not always as I think or believe I am. Sometimes I am stronger and better. Sometimes I’m weaker and worse.  But, I can only see that truth when I question the ‘why’ behind my actions. 

I’ve been cheated on, and of course the first question I want to know the answer to is ‘why’ and then immediately feel or think it’s some sort of deficiency on my part.  How could he do that or hurt me that way? Didn’t he love me enough? Was I not what he wanted? How could he want someone else when I gave him everything? Was I not pretty enough, smart enough, independent enough, or dependent enough? Am I too smart, too short, too fat, too demanding, too …anything?  See how the cycle goes?  But those are not the questions we should be asking.  It’s more about the ‘why’ behind his actions – what was going on inside him that he felt the need or want to go outside the relationship?  What need wasn’t being filled or met within the relationship? Where was the communication breakdown that didn’t address the problem? 

We are all responsible for our own actions.  The man that cheated on me (no, this hasn’t been recently, just in my past) was the person responsible for checking himself and his motives before acting on his impulses.  The only responsibility I had in the situation is to make sure open communication was present to help identify the problems.  In that, I failed.  I let assumptions, fears, doubts, and suspicions guide me.  They may have been true, but that’s no excuse for not communicating before things got too far.  I’m not responsible for him or his actions – only my own.  But what I do know is that relationships are HARD.  They take TWO people who are willing to fight.  Sometimes one needs to fight harder than the other for a period of time if they’re going through something, but eventually both need to come back in balance and be there for each other, and keep those lines of communications open.

I have lost relationships due to pride, shutting down when the pain came, and judging my partner because of their actions and not trying to understand their motives. Understanding a motive doesn’t excuse a behavior, but it may help us understand how frail, complex, and weak we are as human beings.  “Judge not, lest we be judged.”  Before we act, let’s put ourselves in their situation and see if we can understand the problem, we might just find a solution. Cheating isn’t the sin – the betrayal of intimacy and trust and not communicating is the real sin.

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray

Touch

I have a great imagination and can picture many things.  I’m not an introvert, but I live the life of a writer which finds me reclusive in many ways much of the time.  That’s really hard sometimes for an extrovert like me, who loves interaction.  But, I now wonder if I’m as extroverted as I think, or if perhaps I’m mistaking an intimate need for a personality trait. 

It’s become obvious to me these past few years, really more so this year, of an act so simple, yet so complex, that has affected me in such a deep way in my life, and it’s turned it upside down.  That act is - touch.    

For years I had fantasies, some of which I was taught to be ashamed, that involved touching.  I have a certain dream of touch for so long I can’t remember when it first began.  It’s nothing dirty, but every time I have this dream, I wake up and can’t stop the tears.  I never really understood what it was about this dream that affected me so much, until recently.  In my dream – I see a pair of hands, strong male hands that reach out for me.  The backs of these hands lightly brushes across my cheek, touches the tendrils my hair, and then runs down the sides of my face, over my shoulders, and down my arms, to interlock with my own small hands.  When I see our fingers together, I can’t stop the tears. 

I always thought that dream was about finding love, and in a way I’m right.  But I’m discovering there was so much more to it because it involved something completely missing in my life. I didn’t realize it was missing until recently, and that is touch.

Touch has been the foundation of my nightmares.  Most of the touch I’ve experienced in my life has been the wrong kind, inappropriate.  I grew up with the absence of hugs and the violence of abuse.  I hated for people to touch me. 

I remember when I first started going to church with my husband and everyone always reached out and hugged me, how it bothered me and I felt my personal space invaded. I hated hugs, and living in the South where everyone hugged drove me crazy.  

My husband rarely touched me.  I don’t know if that was his doing or mine.  Did I set a precedent at the beginning of our relationship that ultimately led to its end?  Or was it something he did and I easily accepted until not being touched was no longer bearable?

When my children were younger, I purposefully covered them in hugs and kisses and told them I loved them all the time, not wanting them feel or experience that lack as I had.  But as they grew older, perhaps being more perceptive to how being touched made me feel, their hugs and kisses stopped, and even more so the ‘I love you’s’. Why?  My children don’t even understand why they do this.  They’ve made comments about how they don’t like to be touched, they don’t like to hug, and they feel uncomfortable saying ‘I love you’… not just to me, but to anyone.  Children are often a mirror of their parents.  Is this my doing?  Even now I tell them ‘I love them’ often, yet they still act uncomfortable and rarely say those words to me.  I know they do, but sometimes I need to hear it. 

I walked away from a twenty year marriage because of a lack of touch.  I wish I could say it was for much bigger reasons, but that’s really as simple as it gets.  I just want to be touched, to be loved. It really hurts that I walked away and there was no hand to reach out and stop me, to pull me back, or arms to wrap around me, to know I was worth fighting for.  …Maybe someday.

I do know the beauty of touch.  I’ve experienced what it feels like to be wanted, to be cherished, to be desired, to be held …even if but for a brief moment.  I may never experience that moment again, and perhaps that’s my greatest fear.  Will it be enough?  It may have to be.

To those in your life whom you love, please, with all heart-felt sincerity, don’t withhold your affections.  Hold them, touch them, and tell them you love them.  

Till next time,

~T.L. Gray