Good Enough...

I am the first to admit that I have a type A personality, characterized by an unhealthy perfectionist attitude. It has been a blessing and a curse to me my entire life... When I was young, it drove my parents crazy to watch me work on homework...I was known to finish a project, decide that it wasn't good enough, rip it up and then start all over. Making myself crazy and holding myself to a different standard has always been the worst part about being a perfectionist. In my academic and work life, being a perfectionist has always served me well...people know that they will always get the best from me, mostly because I won't allow anything less.

When I look at the impact my perfectionism has on my personal relationships, husband and daughter primarily, things are more complicated. I live with two people who don't ever pick up anything and who can ignore a mess forever... I try to hide my inability to live with a mess by picking things up and cleaning on the sly...when no one is looking, or everyone is asleep. The problem is that when you work full-time and have responsibilities outside work and home, there isn't enough time to keep the place clean using the secret-cleaner method. I have mentioned more than once to Little O's Dad that he makes a mess faster than I can clean it up. The bottom line is that I end up frustrated...

Frustrated is also how I feel in my marriage most of the time... I have friends who have been married for a long time, I hear stories about couples celebrating 30, 40, 50 years of marriage, and I honestly wonder how they do it. I wonder if this all comes back to my need for perfection...I thought I had actually gotten more easy-going over the last 30+ years, but maybe not? Do I expect more from people than what is realistic? Are the marriages that last a long time the result of both parties deciding that the relationship is "good enough" and then maintaining it? Why can't I seem to be one of those people that just makes peace with the way things are and then goes with the flow? How do you become one of those people? It is completely against my nature, but the reality is that the only one who is miserable is me...so my options seem to be to try and change my nature, or accept that I don't belong in a marriage and should always live on my own. But how do I make that decision? If only good enough could be good enough...