It is dinner time. My husband and I quietly prepare everything while waiting to see who will kick off the topic or check-in first for the night. We sit down at the dinner table together and after a few bites, my husband states, "I want you to know that while I understand how difficult this year has been for you, I do hold onto hurt and pain, I just do not feel allowed to express it because of how much grief you have been going through". I soak this in and acknowledge his perspective, knowing the flood of emotions I have been sailing through recently are significant. I thought to myself, "I have kept him from his own growth in relation to me by closing off the faucet to my care". I then find the words to say, "I do honor this and while I am struggling to be empathetic toward your pain or ask you kinder questions around your experiences, I am realizing I have been in relationship with a person for eighteen years and all of a sudden am paralyzed in this". It was in this moment I believe a heavy wall shattered. My husband recognized how far removed I have become and I recognized how I have prevented him from being the man he wants to be in this relationship. I not only removed myself from intimate connection, I was also removed from myself...and no one can be in your presence when you do not have two feet on the ground. Further, while I have been outwardly expressing emotions, my husband has been inwardly holding onto emotions. While both our experiences are true, it has created a lot of confusion for each of us in regards to how we become soft and inviting again.
I started this article off today with a short story because it shows how hard it is to be vulnerable with someone, even after years of being together. It also speaks to how simple it can be to gain clarity when each person lowers their voice and sets their swords aside. A common theme in our relationship was, "feeling like we had to gear up for war when entering into a deeper conversation". This was the first time where we did not put armor on and chose to soften our tone and body language in a way that brought more sadness than frustration to the table.
Personally, after being in relationship to someone over the course of eighteen years (this speaks to a couple long-term relationships in this time frame), I am learning that the relational grief is a lot of grieving past versions of yourself while trying to see a better person within yourself and the other. I have found the difficult piece is "trying to see a better version of yourself", while "trusting the new person you are with is not like another". This is really difficult to do, especially if you have been mistreated in previous relationships. If you are like me and people pleasing developed as a way to cope with your childhood, it makes boundary building and setting extra difficult. It is hard to reverse what you use to think "being good" was as you practice "being honest" now. I have to intentionally practice following up each honest statement and boundary I set with a self-affirming thought that I am compassionate and care because "I no longer allow others to feed off my kindness".
Naturally in relationship, I made sure the other person or anyone for that matter around me was okay before myself. I have had to work through amplified anger in the last two years that to a significant other "looks like I am upset with them", when really, I am trying to be comfortable in my own skin again. The tricky part in this transformation is while tending to your own self, you can feel like you are abandoning or avoiding the person you love. This is incredibly uncomfortable. At times it truly feels impossible to give the same amount of love to someone when you are shifting back into a romance with your own self and life. I have read for years online and in books, "put yourself first and everything else will fall back together". While a small part of this is true, no one ever shares the raw truth of pain and discomfort you will experience while tending to your own heart and having to sacrifice ways in which you use to show up for the people you love. Right now, I am learning it is lonely. I am also learning how you love someone future forward will just be different.
It is not my husbands job to fill the gaps in my loneliness and it is not my job to heal all the unspoken emotions he has held onto. What is our job is for me to trust a new relationship with the silence and for him to trust he is worthy of saying an emotion out loud. It is also our job to notice when we act differently and invite each other into a better way of nurturing a conversation, rather than, sabotage one another's words out of fear the other will misunderstand. This is the work before the faucet of care can be turned back on. The beauty is gifting yourself and the other softness that the heart can receive.
Our couple's therapist, Todd Thillman, said a phrase to us this past year that is written on our wall at home.
That is:
Invitation over Demand
ART
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