Compromising (Mostly Myself)

One of the things I always prided myself on is my ability to compromise. I could always see the other person’s side of any story, and it meant that I was good at acknowledging that they had a valid point of view. I used to pride myself on the fact that *I* was the only person in my family who could still talk to everyone. With eleven children who are VERY different politically and in many other ways (often divided on gender lines), I was the one who could listen to and talk to everyone. I was, as my father used to call me when I was a child, “the peacemaker.”

Only it isn’t true anymore. I don’t speak to everyone in my family anymore. And I’ve begun to question the value of the position I once considered the highest of all of them: the compromiser. Because what I see when I look back at my life is a history of me compromising myself so that I could allow other people to have space to tell me I was wrong. It is quite painful to see how many times I kept silent about what I really thought, or even worse, gave up things that I wanted and even needed, because I was convinced that other people were more important than I was.

Oh, I wouldn’t have said it that way. I’d have said something about how I was strong and didn’t need much. Or that I enjoyed helping other people more than I enjoyed getting what I wanted. I thought of myself as morally superior to others, and convinced myself that was enough.

But it wasn’t.

Sometimes people have to actually remind me that it isn’t my job to tell other people’s stories anymore. It’s not my job to make excuses for them and to diminish myself. I don’t win any prizes for being the one who sacrificed the most and who got the least. That may once have been my religious ideal of womanhood, but it isn’t anymore.

Unfortunately, it’s a habit that’s difficult to unlearn. I think part of the problem is that I have to admit I got a sense of purpose and meaning from being the one who always put others first, who was able to be understanding and empathetic enough to deal with difficult people. As a writer, I got plenty of practice seeing things from other people’s points of view, being able to tell the narrative from their own side. But I practiced much less at letting my point of view matter, at least equally.

So this leaves me with the problem of being frustrated when other people suggest that the solution to all my struggles is to see other people’s points of view and to empathize more. I don’t need practice in empathizing more. I need practice in advocating for myself, in not compromising my own positions constantly, in choosing to be selfish now and again (even writing that down makes me cringe because I’ve spent so long telling myself that I’m never ever allowed to be selfish). I need practice in speaking my own truth aloud and not pulling punches. My agent for many years kept telling me that I was pulling punches and it’s only recently that I’ve begun to understand what he meant.

A man told me recently that I needed to stop being angry and listen more. This is what men tell women all the time, so I internalized that and I’m sure that for many men, they’ve also internalized the message that the problem when a woman gets mad is that she should stop being mad and listen to other people. But what if that’s not the solution? What if I need to let myself be angry, and demand better, if only from myself?