My Husband Is The Most Selfish Man I Know
Yet I still love him wholeheartedly. Here’s why.
We met 11 years ago. He came across as arrogant and full of himself.
Because he really is arrogant and full of himself.
My husband is entitled. He takes what he wants by any means possible. He is selfish in the purest form.
He has and will always stick to this one principle: he will do what he wants when he wants. And if I take personally what he does, it’s on me, not him.
This bred conflict, many times, between us.
But overall, this unapologetic sense of selfishness has got him happiness and ticked all his goals. It has got him success in every area of his life. Because nobody will hand you on a plate everything you could possibly desire — you have to go and grab it, according to him.
Dropping Expectations Is Empowering
I came to love the arrogance and the full-of-himself-ness eventually.
Because those traits taught me that, no matter what, only you have your best interests at heart. He takes his love for himself to an almost narcissistic level if we are to look at the world view of its definition. And I never thought I’d come to admire it.
At the beginning of our relationship, he challenged every conventional rule of couples I had come to know as simple must do’s growing up. He didn’t meet a lot of the expectations I had held for him and this offended me.
For example, he didn’t clean, and he refused to when I complained. I thought he was being inconsiderate, and others would validate this thought. But he just really, really doesn’t like to clean, and he thought it was his right to refuse.
I saw this as a sign that he wasn’t right for me. I wanted to feel like he was doing something for me. But he didn’t want to. He couldn’t bring himself to sacrifice his time to do something he despised.
We tend to hold others accountable when they don’t meet our uncommunicated and sometimes unrealistic standards. When this happens, conflict emerges and one can feel like a doormat. We become disappointed by the other party, and they may feel unworthy or at fault when in actual fact, they are not to blame at all.
The difference with my husband is that he knew he would not meet my expectations and instead of trying to appease me, he was honest from the start.
He broke another expectation — that just because I ask, it doesn’t mean I will get. And again, I was offended. But thinking about it later, I realised that he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He wasn’t deliberately going out of his way to be unhelpful — he just wanted to spend time doing what he deemed as important, which wasn’t the same as what I found important at the time.
When I stopped taking personally his refusal to be one way or another, life got a lot easier.
(And he got a cleaner. Job done.)
There is always another solution that can help solve or avoid conflict. Drop the expectations, and find different ways to meet your individual needs.
Loving Yourself More Is Necessary
“Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect”― George Sand
I decided I wouldn’t give anyone else the responsibility to love me as much as I love me. Turns out, that’s my husband’s biggest gift to me.
And since then, my life has been magical, and so has our marriage.
Of course, everyone needs love. From ourselves and from others. But we can’t depend on others to love us, and we certainly can’t force others to love us.
We can’t depend on others to do things for us all the time. Sure, I appreciate it when someone helps me out, and I love to do things for others. After all, giving is receiving.
But what about how we treat ourselves? There seems to be an element of guilt attached to the notion of giving to ourselves.
When I was 7 months pregnant, at Christmas, I spotted a beautiful jewellery set worth nearly 500$ on a shop window. I had been frantically saving for months to ensure our baby would have everything he needed when he was born, but I suddenly felt the urge to splash out and buy myself the jewellery.
I quickly phoned my husband, whom I thought was going to try to convince me not to buy it. But he said this instead:
If it feels right, just get it.
It felt damn right.
The ring fitted perfectly, and it was the last one there. In addition, there was a 20% reduction on the whole set. I walked out with a matching set of earrings, a necklace, and a ring. It’s one of my favourite sets. Never in my life had I spent that much on jewellery for myself.
You might see a fancy watch and tell yourself you aren’t worthy of it. You might splash out on a new wardrobe but feel guilty.
The world spends too much time cornering you into focusing on their needs and reminding you that they matter more.
In actual fact, you are the first and last person who needs to validate your own desires.
Psychcentral says that to do this, you need to stop seeking approval from others because there will always be someone to point out how their needs matter more or tap into your guilt if your needs aren’t helpful to them. But remember:
“You’re empathetic, thoughtful, and altruistic — three things that make the world a better place. But you need to turn those things on yourself. We all need self-compassion. After all, we each are our own closest confidante.” — How to Be Selfish, Psychcentral.
And since there will always be someone judging you no matter what, it makes sense to simply be selfish and do what you want anyway. Recently, for example, I wrote about my battle with expectations as a woman in the 21st Century, and how I was letting go of the shame I felt of loving the life of a stay at home mom. The first comment to this article, ironically written by a woman, was this:
“The trad wife messaging of this made me throw up in my mouth a little 🤮”
If we let our lives be run by what others think we should be doing, we will never, ever, do what we want.
My husband taught me that love for oneself is the first type of love that matters. And I’m telling you since I started treating myself like the queen that I am, everything else has fallen into place perfectly — and I have also been able to love others more deliberately and wholeheartedly since.
Remember that you deserve everything you could ever want. You are worthy. Sure, appreciate all the romance you may get from your partner or from anyone else — but don’t hold them responsible for your misery if they don’t love you the way you want to be loved. Instead, communicate your wants and needs, and let them decide whether they can meet them while working on their own.
Sidenote:
Loving yourself more doesn’t mean accepting or condoning bad treatment from others. It’s about knowing when you can do something to help yourself rather than putting the responsibility on to someone else to lift you, regardless of whether they have hurt you or not. Practising forgiveness, however, is also more beneficial to you than to those who have hurt you.
Takeaway
It doesn’t matter what you set out to do in life. There is always someone watching. There is always someone telling you it’s wrong or selfish and this only emphasizes further how it’s all relative.
It proves my point further — no matter how much you try to please everyone, it will never be enough for them or for you. Being selfish is not always bad, but it is necessary.
So, if you’re with a selfish partner or around someone who is constantly looking out for number 1, take a moment to consider their intentions. Learn from their selfishness and take advantage of it.
Think about your choices and where you could sacrifice a little less for others and do more for yourself, and see if your view changes.
Think about what you want and how you can get it. Take your desires and needs seriously and work on acquiring them all without exception.
“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sylvia Emokpae is passionate about self-love, relationships, and motherhood. See more work like this.