Stop Explaining His Behavior. Start Evaluating It.

Somewhere along the way you became his translator. He would do something that hurt you, and before the hurt even landed, you were already building the explanation. He is stressed. He had a hard childhood. He did not mean it the way it sounded.

You got so good at it that you started explaining him to your friends. To your mama. To yourself at two in the morning. And every explanation you built was one more brick in the wall between you and the door.

I want you to try something different. Stop explaining and start evaluating. Do not ask why he did it. Ask what it cost you. A reason tells you where behavior came from. It does not tell you whether you can live with it.

A grown man is responsible for his own behavior whether or not you understand the origin story. You are not his defense attorney. You are the woman who has to live inside the results.

The day you stop translating is the day you finally get to hear yourself think. And baby girl, you have a lot of thoughts you have been talking over for a very long time.