This. weekend. has. been. THE. most emotionally draining couple of days in recent history. I'm kind of at a loss for where to begin explaining. I learned a lot about myself. Stuff I never realized and things that scare the hell out of me.
It all started Friday night, with an argument I got into with Kyle. Things escalated pretty badly until we were both screaming at each other, things were being thrown, words were uttered that can never be retrieved. Married people fight. It's, for sure, a thing... We just haven't had a night like this in so long. I don't know if all the pressure we've been under just boiled up and exploded, but it was something that made me double take at what we've been doing. To be honest, it made me question if we would last. I know it's ridiculous for me to say that coming on the heels of the post I wrote the other day about how we are hanging in there and coping, but I've never really experienced this with Kyle. I've always just adored him and our marriage, despite the difficult things. I always felt like we'd come back together no matter what, since we came together so organically in the first place. My heart hurts, though, because ever since the fight, I've felt distant from him... He doesn't feel like mine, he feels strange in my life. It's pretty scary for me because for the last five years, I've had my best friend. We've always been able to make up and get back to our path. This time, I can't put my finger on the wedge between us that is so cumbersome.
Something else that is sort of view changing and telling is the realizations about myself. Without getting into too much detail, I finally understood that the abuse I received my whole life has shaped the way I view myself and my relationships and I am constantly setting myself up to carry other people's crap, be their punching bags, neglect myself and my feelings and just shut up and take it. I never realized that I don't actually deserve that life. I don't want that life. It's possible that Kyle and my dynamic is skewed because I don't ask him to carry much of the burdens. I just assume I'm supposed to carry it on my own. So he never has a chance to grow from it. I'm not saying he's not any to blame for the crap we deal with... there's plenty he could work on. Mainly his minute grain of empathy and his communication skills when things are hot and scary, but if I was the person I'm supposed to be more often, he might be becoming the person he's supposed to be. Something else that I'm sure ties into my warped sense of myself, is how I have developed a very refined flight response to adversity. When things get difficult... I just run. I've been running for so long. The thing about running away is that even though it's easier to do at the time, it never makes me happy. Usually, what I want is just on the other side of the dragon.
Having just written that, I realized that maybe it's not really a wedge between Kyle and I... maybe it's me just shedding some old skin... It's not that he particularly feels strange, but new. Maybe our relationship is heading into something new. Maybe, if we can learn to fight the dragon together (the dragon being each of us working on the respective baggage we brought into our marriage) instead of fighting each other, we can come out on the other side stronger and better for each other. As difficult as it is, I know God wants me to keep loving Kyle, even when I feel sad or distant or like I just want to run away from it all. Love isn't always how we feel about each other, it's sometimes choosing to stay and fight for each other.
I'm scared, but it's time to pick up my sword. Stay. Fight. Conquer.
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