I wish I had learned that it’s not important to get the last word in much earlier in life.
As a child I ALWAYS had to get the last word in. And this continued through my teen years and into adulthood. But in the last 5 years, I have learned that it’s actually not all that important and rarely does it change what the situation is. More often than not, it made things worse for me. As a child/teenager, it generally increased the amount of time I was grounded for or got something else taken away that I really wanted to do. As a young adult it cost me friendships more than once.
As I try to reflect on why it was so important to me to get the last word in, I realize that it all comes down to wanting to be heard. My parents never wanted to listen to me and never tried to understand where I was coming from. They definitely wanted to tell me who I was, what I was going to do, and who I should be in their eyes. They had no desire to let me develop my own talents as I saw fit and always tried to mold me in a way that was not consistent with who I actually was.
One of the guilt trips they used on me when I argued with them was that they would never speak to their parents the way I was trying to speak to them. They both claimed that they never dared to defy their parents and they always listened to their parents when they spoke. My mom, yes, I do believe that’s probably true. Her mother was scary and very controlling. My dad is quite another story.
My dad was a “bad boy” and proud of that. He started smoking cigarettes at 11, skipped a LOT of school, ran around with a bunch of different girlfriends, and never really had many rules. But if I dared to call him out on his teenage bad behaviors, he was quick to tell me to do what he said and not as he did. I never could be as compliant as they wanted me to be. It was like I lacked the ability to just say yes and go along with anything they said.
I’m not really sure why and to this day, I still find myself feeling the urge to get the last word in, particularly with my dad. He acts like he’s the expert on who I am, what I feel, and is responsible for the things I have done well over the years. I don’t think I will ever get him to understand that he doesn’t actually know me and he’s consistently wrong about who I am and who I was too.
Leave a Reply