To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love.
Thich Nhat Hanh
I spent a good part of yesterday thinking and not writing. Well… I wrote in the morning, but there was a topic I wanted to tackle all day and wasn’t able to. What that looks like for me (when it’s a trigger topic) is a thousand conversations playing out in my head. A swirl of words and corresponding emotions – anger, hurt, disdain, disgust, righteous indignation. My Enneagram type tries to deny anger, squash it down, reason through it. I believe in trying as hard as I possibly can to show grace, understanding, and compassion. I try really hard to see where the blurry grey is. I don’t always rise above pettiness. I don’t always succeed.
Given my current circumstances, you might think I was talking about my recent job situation, or lack thereof. And yes, that weighs on me. But the day it happened, I had also had correspondence with my ex-fiancee, B’s, most recent boyfriend (unless, of course, there’s a newer one). He shared a number of things with me. He shared, I believe, in an attempt to encourage me to move on from her and in an attempt to share his similar story – misery loves company. I initially included some of the things he shared in this post – I deleted them before posting. I’m not sure they’re relevant – though they do provide some context. As he describes it, she left the relationship multiple times – and he was always the one to reach out and reconcile. I can’t say whether or not this is true. To a degree, I don’t care. I know how he feels – I’ve often found myself looking for behavioral patterns. Has she done this before? How did those past relationships end? Who gets blamed? As we try to make sense of loss and why things end, we look for ways to put our mind at ease. At times I was looking for things that would say she does this to everyone, evidence that puts the “crazy” entirely on one side of the equation. Humans are much more messy than that. We have triggers, we behave irrationally. None of us live in a vacuum. None of us own all of the effort or all of the blame.
I can say that she walked away from or threatened to walk away from me more than once. Knowing that there was something akin to PTSD going on, I always figured these were in the moment things and that patience would win out. It usually did. We were gong to therapy to learn how to short circuit some of these things – to ask each other for time to step away. I remember one therapy session in which we talked about how that pattern of leaving would eventually degrade us, that I would only be able to deal with it so often until I became incredibly insecure in the relationship. B said it’s not who she wants to be – I believed that. Our therapist would also remind us that the first year or two are often the hardest – that these are part of the growing pains… I don’t want to paint myself as some patient saint or her as some irrational flight risk – we were more complicated than that. Our therapist constantly told us that she saw a strong and meaningful connection between us, a deeply felt love and commitment – she encouraged us to continue working. Again, I remind anyone reading this, negative energy takes up a lot more space than positive energy does. We are natural problem solvers. As such, we devote our thoughts to the problems to be fixed. That is the danger of therapy – if it only focuses on what’s not working, you can start to believe that nothing is working – that was far from the case with us. One of our best sessions was when we exchanged cards in which we wrote all of the things we loved about each other. Our last few sessions together were so positive and hopeful for the future we were about to build that we all agreed to stop, and only come back if we felt the need to. We were moving in together, B was leaving a toxic job, we were talking about our wedding. I can’t speak to B’s perspective, in my world, the sky was never falling – until it actually did.
B is aware that her ex boyfriend has been in touch. she wrote to both of us the other night. She seems to feel judged – I can understand why. She’s asserting her right to do what she wants and be who she is – she absolutely has that right, we all do.
The statements that stuck out for me were:
As you know, in consensual modern adult relationships, the why doesn’t matter. I can either be with you or not be with you.
and
I’m in control of my own destiny and you guys can waste time criticizing me or realize that it’s the fucking 21st century and I’m not obligated to please you.
To me, I hear a reactionary callousness in that first statement. I hear an insistence on her right to not commit to any one person or definition of love. I hear a lack of compassion in seeing that other people might really get hurt by this stance – especially if it’s not communicated up front. I hear a lack of understanding that relationships necessarily involve two people, and if you’re not 100% percent clear that you value your right to leave more than your desire to stay you are being, at best, careless and, at worst, dishonest when you tell someone you want a future with them. I know that sounds harsh, or sounds like sour grapes. It’s not meant to be. I don’t have an answer as to how we maintain our independent rights while also honoring commitment. The best I can say is that it requires a leap of faith. It doesn’t sound great to say, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I also reserve the right to leave whenever and however I want – to choose whatever partner I want. Yes, we all have that right. Is that the core value, maintaining the freedom to come and go from relationships as you please? If so, perhaps traditional relationships aren’t appropriate. Which is fine, except for when you pursue a traditional relationship.
***update – 2/10… I was reading my post How to Like It in which I said I’m coming around to the fact that it doesn’t matter why she left – she left… Obviously I haven’t fully come around to that.***
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that fine line – thinking about how we each define (and have the right to define) the word commitment… the tipping point between working and deciding when the work isn’t working, or it’s inverse of working and deciding you’re willing to do anything to make it work. I know B knows it’s not as simple as just her deciding to be or not be with someone. She’s not that simple and not that reductive. I loved that she was complex and understood nuance. I was only starting to see her depths when she ended things. I know that she is willing to put the work in to a relationship. I was there and I was a part of it. We all have moments where we are caught between giving up or leaning in. Despite the many verbal reassurances she gave me, she ultimately decided that our future would be one of constant unhappiness for her. She had and has the right to come to that conclusion. I saw something very different – I have that right as well… and for a long time after, I fought to maintain that vision. I believed it was worth fighting for. I firmly believed it would have gotten easier – we were just getting started, and we had lots of amazing moments together. So it goes.
I’ve had a very hard time writing this post (I’ll probably edit it quite a bit). I’ve spent hours trying to get it right. I don’t think I did or can. I’ve over-written and revised and cut. I’ve vented, and walked it all back. I’ve moralized and judged while trying to avoid moralizing and judgment. I’ve re-read it a dozen times – it is by no means definitive or the final word or all-encompassing. I’ve gone back and read about attachment theory (also watched a video or two). I re-read my personality profiles… thought about why I got stuck on why the statement “the why doesn’t matter. I can either be with you or not be with you.” I thought about why it struck me the way that it did. As an INFJ-A (The Advocate):
Once they’ve found that someone, their relationships will reach a level of depth and sincerity of which most people can only dream…
Advocate personalities are enthusiastic in their relationships. There is a sense of wisdom behind their spontaneity, allowing them to pleasantly surprise their partners again and again. These types aren’t afraid to show their love, and they feel it unconditionally.
Advocates create a depth to their relationships that can hardly be described in conventional terms. Relationships with Advocates are not for the uncommitted or the shallow.
Going in to my relationship with B, I knew who I was. I told her I was intense. I was clear that I wanted a partner, an equal, someone I could grow with, someone who would teach me new things, someone who would show up fully and show me all of who they were. Authenticity, effective dependency, love, trust, commitment… We exchanged these personality profiles. I am not for the uncommitted. In B, I fully believed I found my person – perhaps more so than I had ever believed before. I felt a level of depth and sincerity that I had only dreamed of. Almost a year after she left – I’m not convinced I didn’t find my person… Almost a year later, I still try to see her in all of her complexities. So much of what I’ve written has been an exploration of the spaces in between. I understand the desire to want everything and nothing at all. To be committed yet free. I remain hopeful and fluid and open.