"I will crush him"

I have taken pride for several years in the fact that I am a strong independent woman who can and will steamroll any man that stands in my way.

I often use the phrase "I will crush him" in regards to why I won't date someone.  

I am a strong personality and I know it. I take pride in it. 

I am strong and I am woman and I roar, if you want me to or not. 

But something happened recently, something that has shaken me. 

I work in a retail pharmacy and recently a couple was in and even though they were there to pick up prescriptions for the husband, the wife did all of the talking. 

"Do you want this filled automatically?" She answered. 

"Any questions for the pharmacist?" She answered.

"Verify address." She answered. 

Now before you say, well maybe he has a speech impediment, or maybe his mouth was wired shut, know that he was talking to her when they walked up and he has been in and picked up his own prescriptions before. So I know he is fully capable of speaking for himself. 

I stared at this couple and thought, I don't want this to be me. I don't want to speak for my husband when he can easily speak for himself. 

There is another couple that comes in on a regular basis that because she dominates every interaction he literally has no clue what debt card to use, or how to use it. Today he stared at me like a lost puppy waiting for me to explain to him how to use the chip reader. 

I don't want to be that. I don't want to steam roll my husband to the point that he is incapable of speaking for himself, incapable of functioning on his own. 

I don't want to dominate every conversation because I have steamrolled him and crushed him into a little mold of a man. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am going to need a man with a pretty big backbone. Someone to push back against me, mostly to call me out on my own stuff, but also to challenge and grow me.

But I also need to take a step back. 

Step back and not look at every man as someone who I can potentially crush and destroy, but a man with potential and power and his own strength. 

I'm not going to step off my female empowerment soap box, but I need to work on not being the crusher and instead being the encourager. 

I want to find a balance between being a strong independent woman, encouraging men and not trying to dominate them. 

Work in progress for sure.