We Have to Talk

The Ex and I started marriage counseling in January.  In a way, it was very much like how you see it on television.  We came in and sat down next to each other, facing her.  She asked us about our hopes, our expectations and what we thought our problems were.

The hope was to keep the marriage intact.  The expectation was that counseling would provide us with a neutral arbitrator and medium through which we could express things we were incapable of saying directly to each other.  The Ex thought our biggest problem was this massive communication block we were having; I wasn't so sure but hoped that if we could finally learn to talk to each other again we could talk about what was actually bothering me.

It's no secret that I am more emotional and expressive than the Ex.  I cried for the first three weeks of therapy, apologizing between sniffles while the Ex watched, not unsympathetically.  It was so much easier talking to the counselor about everything.  I felt like I could finally lay all the cards on the table without feeling cowed.  She was a safe zone; my hackles weren't automatically raised when she asked me a question.  There was no sense of needing to immediately defend myself.

I tend to avoid conflicts where I can.  I would much rather agree on some minor point than to have a long drawn out battle.  I don't care where we sit in the movie theatre.  I don't care which appetizer you want to split with me.  It honestly doesn't matter whether you want to open the bottle of Cabernet sauvignon or merlot. Whenever the Ex wanted to talk about our problems, it was like he was assailing me.

Part of the reason why I'm reluctant to argue with people is because people disregard my arguments because they seem emotional.  People try to beat me down with LOGIC.  People have made me feel like a child sometimes, telling me they won't talk to me until I'm no longer heated.  Meanwhile, I think my points are clear and thought out, if a little passionate.  I've always been ashamed of my feelings and my general sense of intuition.  It's difficult to tell coldly rational people why something "just feels right."  I've definitely gotten the impression that some people think I'm flakey.  Is it because I'm a girl? A pretty girl?  Do you not take me seriously because I wear make up and heels?

Sometimes I just feel a certain way and I don't know why.  Sometimes it will upset me when the Ex doesn't do the dishes when he says he will.  He would always have a good reason why: tired from a long day at work, big project coming up - and rationally, I know having dirty dishes in the sink for one more day won't kill either of us.  So why does it make me so unhappy?  I have felt so guilty for being angry that I either tried to completely disassociate myself from my feelings (thus becoming withdrawn) or berated myself until I was even more upset.  I needed to be punished for being upset when somebody else did something that angered me.

Take that, logic.

So it was a very big step forward that I could admit I was not happy with some of the things in the relationship.  It was extraordinarily helpful that the counselor simply acknowledged how I felt without passing judgment.  See - emotions are just this thing, right? They are there and it's okay that they exist.  Ultimately what matters is what we do with them.

I think we were probably this counselor's most insightful couple.  There was no screaming or name-calling.  We walked into her office knowing exactly why we were there.  We knew why we had the communication habits that we did.  What we didn't know was how to become unstuck from these destructive patterns.  The counselor gave us homework.  She made us roleplay.  She had us guess at how the other person felt.  Through all this, it dawned on me that any improvements in our communication style was largely up to me.  After all, I was the one not speaking.

It took a lot of courage for me to start telling the Ex how I felt, particularly when it was negative.  It seemed so counterintuitive to me.  We were having problems; I felt like I should be smothering the marriage in nothing but love and praise.  Instead, I told the Ex everything that made me unhappy despite the sensation I was sabotaging the relationship.   I had so much invested in this, so much to gain and one wrong word felt like I could be dooming it all.  My greatest fear was that I would ask for something and the Ex would be incapable or unwilling to give it to me.  Better not to ask at all, was my thinking; better not to want something that could be ruinous.

But he listened.  I was heartened. 

I wrote a note to the Ex one night and vowed to do what it took to save the marriage.  I left it on his keyboard, where I knew he would see it.  For the first time in months, I was feeling completely optimistic about things.