Safety
This is a hard and yet honest post to write. One that may be hurtful to many...but it's not intended as such. It's just my heart on my sleeve. So please...if you feel this applies to you, it's not meant as an attack. It's my perception of my life experiences and how my perception has changed in the last year.
As a kid I never questioned my parent's love or support for me. My family (including extended family) was always one of if you do something stupid, they will make you take responsibility for your actions, support you through your idiocy, and then good-naturedly laugh at you for eternity over your idiocy. This was never really an issue for me. I knew that this was a sign of love from my family. That may be a bit twisted, but it usually has us laughing at ourselves in hindsight. It's good to be able to laugh at yourself.
I am a people pleaser. Always have been. On some level I always will be. I never wanted to be judged by others for my actions or opinions, so I rarely shared them. Especially if I knew they were contrary to what someone else's opinion was. I couldn't always explain myself, but my gut was telling me what I felt. So I didn't want to begin a conversation or become part of a conversation if I didn't think I could say more than "I feel this about X, Y, or Z". So I censored myself. Over the years I began to rely on others to make decisions for me. I deferred to what they thought best or just went along with what was felt I *should* do. I did this consistently throughout my childhood and into my marriage.
Now let me talk marriage for a minute. There are soooo many young people who believe that marriage is the end-all-be-all level of happiness. If I just get married, I'll be happy(ier). If I have kids the circle will be complete. Hurry up and grow up. I will say that I never had the hurry up and grow up attitude. I enjoyed being a kid. There were parts I wanted...to have my own place which meant a job. But what job would that be? Oh, I know I'm decent at math and science, I'll be an engineer like my dad. (Insert the thought that this would make my dad proud of me.) Huh...math sucks at college pace...I'll try a different major. Wait...that was fun for a while, now I'll try this major. Wait...that sucked at this level too. Oh look! I wasn't expecting to fall in love. Dammit! I was doing okay in school and on my own. Stupid heart. Insert life happening, and I dropped out of college. I wasn't really happy there at the end and felt like I was floundering and wasting my parent's money every semester. I disappointed them greatly when I dropped out...especially because I moved back to home to be with the ex. We got engaged. I remember my mom being excited but wondered if I was rushing into it. I told her there was no date set and it would be a couple years. I remember telling my dad. His response was less than stellar. I remember him basically telling me I was too young, and even at his age he thought he was still too young to get married. (Mind you I was 19 and he had been married to my mom at the time for 25 years ---they are still married at 41 years.) I was upset that he couldn't be happy for me. But took it with a grain of salt. I *was* young, but I also wasn't rushing.
In this last year I have had many people tell me they were surprised when I got married (friends and family) but they knew that trying to talk me out of it would have been futile. And they were right. I was positive I was doing the right thing for me. Even though my marriage has ended, there were many facets of life that lead to that. One of those was the continuation of self-censorship. This wasn't fair to my marriage. I wasn't a "quiet, obedient wife". I wasn't naive. I never felt like I didn't have a say in things...but what continued was the feeling that my opinions weren't important enough or valued enough to be spoken. So I didn't voice them a lot of times. This is the major portion of how I failed my marriage. And because of my actions over 15 years of being together, we had a rhythm. But as time wore on, I didn't like what had become an off-beat rhythm and tried to change it. Obviously, since I'm now divorced, the attempts to find a rhythm together failed. We were both beating to the rhythm of our drummer...and those drummers weren't even in the same genre of music.
Right now in my life I have found safety. I've never had safety before in my life. At points in time I had love, support, and protection, but I never felt safe with anyone with my feelings, my opinions. I am dating someone who provides that to me without any effort. The sense of peace and safety I feel with him is indescribable. There is zero judgment. We have too-many-to-count differences of opinion on so many different topics, but we respect the other's opinion and experiences in life that lead to that opinion. It's a bizarre and yet amazing feeling. It's also the yin to the yang of all the negative that has been experienced in the last almost 18 months. So much loss. So much pain. But through most all of that, I've had someone who when I'm around him? I can breath and relax.
I wish all of you the sense of safety I have now. I didn't know it existed. I've know love and support but never the peace I have now.
As a kid I never questioned my parent's love or support for me. My family (including extended family) was always one of if you do something stupid, they will make you take responsibility for your actions, support you through your idiocy, and then good-naturedly laugh at you for eternity over your idiocy. This was never really an issue for me. I knew that this was a sign of love from my family. That may be a bit twisted, but it usually has us laughing at ourselves in hindsight. It's good to be able to laugh at yourself.
I am a people pleaser. Always have been. On some level I always will be. I never wanted to be judged by others for my actions or opinions, so I rarely shared them. Especially if I knew they were contrary to what someone else's opinion was. I couldn't always explain myself, but my gut was telling me what I felt. So I didn't want to begin a conversation or become part of a conversation if I didn't think I could say more than "I feel this about X, Y, or Z". So I censored myself. Over the years I began to rely on others to make decisions for me. I deferred to what they thought best or just went along with what was felt I *should* do. I did this consistently throughout my childhood and into my marriage.
Now let me talk marriage for a minute. There are soooo many young people who believe that marriage is the end-all-be-all level of happiness. If I just get married, I'll be happy(ier). If I have kids the circle will be complete. Hurry up and grow up. I will say that I never had the hurry up and grow up attitude. I enjoyed being a kid. There were parts I wanted...to have my own place which meant a job. But what job would that be? Oh, I know I'm decent at math and science, I'll be an engineer like my dad. (Insert the thought that this would make my dad proud of me.) Huh...math sucks at college pace...I'll try a different major. Wait...that was fun for a while, now I'll try this major. Wait...that sucked at this level too. Oh look! I wasn't expecting to fall in love. Dammit! I was doing okay in school and on my own. Stupid heart. Insert life happening, and I dropped out of college. I wasn't really happy there at the end and felt like I was floundering and wasting my parent's money every semester. I disappointed them greatly when I dropped out...especially because I moved back to home to be with the ex. We got engaged. I remember my mom being excited but wondered if I was rushing into it. I told her there was no date set and it would be a couple years. I remember telling my dad. His response was less than stellar. I remember him basically telling me I was too young, and even at his age he thought he was still too young to get married. (Mind you I was 19 and he had been married to my mom at the time for 25 years ---they are still married at 41 years.) I was upset that he couldn't be happy for me. But took it with a grain of salt. I *was* young, but I also wasn't rushing.
In this last year I have had many people tell me they were surprised when I got married (friends and family) but they knew that trying to talk me out of it would have been futile. And they were right. I was positive I was doing the right thing for me. Even though my marriage has ended, there were many facets of life that lead to that. One of those was the continuation of self-censorship. This wasn't fair to my marriage. I wasn't a "quiet, obedient wife". I wasn't naive. I never felt like I didn't have a say in things...but what continued was the feeling that my opinions weren't important enough or valued enough to be spoken. So I didn't voice them a lot of times. This is the major portion of how I failed my marriage. And because of my actions over 15 years of being together, we had a rhythm. But as time wore on, I didn't like what had become an off-beat rhythm and tried to change it. Obviously, since I'm now divorced, the attempts to find a rhythm together failed. We were both beating to the rhythm of our drummer...and those drummers weren't even in the same genre of music.
Right now in my life I have found safety. I've never had safety before in my life. At points in time I had love, support, and protection, but I never felt safe with anyone with my feelings, my opinions. I am dating someone who provides that to me without any effort. The sense of peace and safety I feel with him is indescribable. There is zero judgment. We have too-many-to-count differences of opinion on so many different topics, but we respect the other's opinion and experiences in life that lead to that opinion. It's a bizarre and yet amazing feeling. It's also the yin to the yang of all the negative that has been experienced in the last almost 18 months. So much loss. So much pain. But through most all of that, I've had someone who when I'm around him? I can breath and relax.
I wish all of you the sense of safety I have now. I didn't know it existed. I've know love and support but never the peace I have now.
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