Last week, ya know, during 2020 (eek), we started describing that first bit of connective tissue, or those relationship situations where we never really learned all there was to know about another human and now we are starting to. In case I didn’t say this very specifically, this revelation doesn’t absolutely mean the end of a relationship. Far from it. Sometimes these are the cues we need to get to know someone in a more meaningful way.
I had a friend recently talk about half brothers and sisters. I was blown away because I didn’t realize the extent of his family. Not even a little. I didn’t think that our friendship was a house of cards or a sham. I just realized that there was more for me to know. It made me want to ask about it, about his life. His family. His childhood. His past.
Now, if my asking about those things led to a difficult conversation or if my queries were met with resistance, I could see how that could become challenging to a relationship. But, in this case, when I asked, I was told new stories. I got to see my friend in a new light. I felt closer to him. I felt like we had established something more meaningful between us. I got to put other stories, other facts into context. The stories I was told shaped so many other bits of information that I had on this man. The way he ate, the things he purchased, the way he engaged with the world and people. It was amazing. I wasn’t pissed at myself for not knowing. I was glad to have the opportunity to now know.
Sometimes our questions are met with resistance and sometimes those walls will come down, but they need time, and sometimes, they never come down. Sometimes those little “holy shit…I didn’t know…” moments are there to tell us that we don’t and will never have a deep or meaningful relationship with that human. We have to decide at that time whether we want to make a shift to something more casual or move that person from our field of vision altogether. I can’t tell you what that looks like for you, the same way that we can’t really tell another person how much pain they are going to experience in any given situation. I don’t know your thresholds or what is important to you in a relationship or friendship, so I can’t tell you that you should stay or run like hell. Pay attention enough to sort that out for yourself. That’s all I’m suggesting.
We good on this point? Good. Now onto the tougher stuff, or at least the stuff that I really struggle with, which is the sleeping with the enemy business. This isn’t the ‘oh I didn’t know you loved oatmeal cookies with raisins the best’ or ‘oh, you like your showers lukewarm…cool, cool.’ This is the man who you love ‘Jekyll and Hyding’ it right in front of your face. This a complete about face by your best friend in the whole world. These are the interactions where you find yourself speechless. You wonder if you are in some sort of fugue state or nightmare. You instantly start convincing yourself that you did not just experience whatever it is that you did because it is too disturbing to contemplate.
I really don’t like to harken back to old relationships too often because I don’t think it productive, but in this case, when it is a lesson learning kind of experience, I think there is great value. So, let me give you one of 750 examples. Let’s forget the fact that there were a million signs and red flags and fucked up things going on in my relationship at the time. Push all of that aside and let’s consider some basic facts and what I experienced. I had been with this human for five years. I had traveled with him, slept with him, exercised with him, ate with him. Our lives were completely intertwined. When he texted me on a Monday morning (after I dropped him off at the train station with a kiss goodbye, an hour or so prior) to tell me he needed a break and then didn’t talk to me for weeks, I casually wondered who the fuck he was. Then, when I saw him for the first time weeks later at a work event and he casually kissed me on the cheek and said hello with a smile like everything was ALL good, I almost had a complete nervous breakdown. Who the fuck was this creepy, emotionally removed, psychopath I was interacting with? Where was the man I had fallen in love with? Is it possible that I had spent five years with a complete monster (yes, but also no, but also, yes)?
I instantly reframed the behavior so that I could attempt to stay in denial and avoid kicking myself repeatedly. He had to be shutting down so as to not face the unreal pain he was in, just as I was, right? He had to be coping with this thing by putting on a brave face, right? Um no. He wasn’t. He didn’t. He was actually well on his way to cementing his next and arguably last relationship (he married the woman he cheated on me with, which is so much goodness in one tidbit, no?). But I packaged the 180 degree change I was seeing so that I could digest it. Someone I thought I knew so well was now something and someone different altogether. How was I supposed to process that information? What was I supposed to do with it? How could I possibly make sense of it all? How would I ever be able to heal from something that monumentally shitty?
Well, I coped. I dealt. I got help. I worked through it all. I forgave. Myself. Him. The universe. I took ownership of all the dumb shit I did to get me there and keep me there. I didn’t necessarily make sense of it, but I learned to heal in spite of that confusion. I healed. I am healing. I am healed. I broke again. I healed again.
On that note, breathe. More tomorrow.
L.
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