Accountability Is Not a Life Sentence

I’m irritated today.

Actually, irritated probably isn’t even the right word. I’m hurt. And when I’m hurt, my first reaction is usually anger. I know that about myself, so instead of writing this exactly the way it sounds in my head right now, I’m going to try to say what I actually mean.

I have made mistakes as a mother.

Big ones.

I have never pretended otherwise, especially over the last several years. There are things I wish I had handled differently. There are times I reacted badly. There are things my children deserved from me that I probably didn’t know how to give them at the time.

I own that.

But here is something I am finally learning:

Accountability is not a life sentence.

Owning the things I did wrong does not mean I have to spend the rest of my life accepting behavior from other people that hurts me. It doesn’t mean everyone else gets a permanent pass because Tammy screwed up years ago and still screws up on occasion.

At some point, respect has to go both ways.

And that word — respect — gets thrown around a whole lot in families. We want people to respect our boundaries. Respect our feelings. Respect our marriages. Respect our decisions. Respect the way we raise our children.

And we should.

But we cannot demand respect while refusing to give it.

One of the things hurting me the most right now actually isn’t even about how I am being treated.

It’s about my husband.

This man stepped into a family that was not biologically his and loved my children anyway. For well over a decade, he has shown up for them. He has helped them. Supported them. Celebrated them. Worried about them. Done things for them that he was never obligated to do.

And he did it because he loves me, and somewhere along the way, he loved them too.

So be mad at me.

Disagree with me.

Think I’m difficult. Lord knows I can be.

But what I cannot understand is treating someone who has been nothing but good to you as though he is somehow guilty by association.

That hurts me more than being angry with me ever could.

And then there are grandchildren.

This is where my heart gets really tender.

Adult relationships can be complicated. Parents and grown children disagree. Feelings get hurt. People get angry. Sometimes we need space from one another.

But I don’t believe children should become collateral damage in adult disagreements.

I love my grandchildren beyond words. My husband loves them beyond words. The time we spend with them isn’t an obligation to us. It is one of the greatest joys of our lives.

So when plans don’t work out, I understand. People have lives. Families have schedules. Not every day we ask for is going to work.

But there is a difference between saying, “That day doesn’t work, but let’s find another one,” and simply allowing the relationship to disappear into whatever disagreement the adults are having. Specially, when feelings aren’t involved this doesn’t happen- Days are found!!

That’s where my heart hurts.

There is another part of this that I need to say because it may be the biggest change happening in me right now.

I am done apologizing for every reaction while everyone ignores what caused it.

That does NOT mean every reaction I’ve had was appropriate.

Some weren’t.

I can own my reaction and still ask someone else to own their behavior.

Both things can be true.

I can say, “I shouldn’t have handled that the way I did,” while also saying, “You shouldn’t have treated me that way.”

That is something I wish I had understood years ago.

And apologies matter to me.

Not because I need somebody to grovel. Not because I need to win. And not because I think I’m always right.

An apology says, I understand that what I did hurt you, and I care enough about our relationship to acknowledge it.

Pretending something didn’t happen isn’t an apology.

Sending a picture isn’t an apology.

Waiting long enough for everyone to forget about it isn’t an apology.

And sweeping things under the rug has never actually fixed a family. Eventually, there’s so much under that damn rug everybody starts tripping over it.

I don’t want that anymore.

I don’t want screaming matches. I don’t want scorekeeping. And I definitely don’t want another family war.

What I want is something much simpler.

If I hurt you, tell me.

If you hurt me, let me tell you.

If I owe you an apology, I need to give you one.

And if you owe me one, I am allowed to expect the same.

That is not unreasonable.

For a long time, I think guilt made me believe that because I had made mistakes, I had less of a right to boundaries.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I wake up every day genuinely trying to be a better human being than I was yesterday. Do I still fail? Absolutely. Sometimes spectacularly.

But I am trying.

And I will continue trying.

What I will not continue doing is carrying responsibility for every broken thing in every relationship simply because I have things in my past that I regret.

Everybody in a family has a responsibility for what happens next.

Including me.

Including them.

Maybe that’s what growing really looks like.

Not pretending the past didn’t happen.

Not punishing somebody forever because it did.

Owning your part, expecting other people to own theirs, setting boundaries where they are needed, and still leaving the door open for people who are willing to walk through it with love and respect.

I love my family.

That hasn’t changed.

But loving people does not require me to abandon myself.

And maybe one of the hardest things I’m learning at this stage of my life is this:

I can be sorry for the woman I was in certain moments without allowing those moments to determine what I deserve for the rest of my life.