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Yesterday was a little tough, but productive. Sneppers and I had a few conversations about where we are and where we'd like to be that left me feeling a lot more aligned with him.
One thing coming out of that is the recognition that I only really mention him in a problematic context, which leaves one with a skewed view of the relationship looking back on it. I never mentioned the three-pint-sampler of Salt and Straw he bought for me one afternoon on a lark, or how he's taken up cleaning the dishes, or how wonderful our last "staycation" in San Francisco was.
A lot of that is on me and what I use this space for right now -- a way to untangle all the tangled thoughts and emotions in my head. I don't have a lot of trouble expressing the positive and joyful stuff, because that's easy to spread around. I thought I was letting go of the more difficult emotions, like anger and fear, but really I was just stuffing them down and doing my best not to feel them. But the thing about that is emotions don't just...evaporate. In my experience, the more unresolved stuff you have circling around an emotion, the stronger it gets whenever it arises. Fear isn't just fear about the thing in front of you, it's fear about everything you haven't acknowledged yet.
But maybe that perspective is wrong and I'll think something different later. For now, it feels like I have a lot of unresolved issues to work through and...without a therapist...I'll have to do it here.
That would be one thing if this were a truly private journal, but I don't want that. I like having a place to talk about this where people can read and react. To be honest, it feels more comfortable having the space to complete the thought, or follow where it goes, and face down what I've written. I don't feel I can do it anywhere else, really. I'm not looking for...privacy. Just a place where I can have a more open thought process.
But as part of that, I need to talk about Sneppers and how I think of him and our relationship.
Sneppers and I met online a long time ago and hit it off really quickly. A fast friendship blossomed into a romance once we met in real life, and we did the long-distance thing for a while. He had family in the state I lived in at the time, so we got the chance to visit with each other once or twice a year. Over time, the parting got harder, and eventually we made the decision to move in together. I'd head out to California, where we would be careful about how we progressed. We'd both had long-distance relationships fall apart at this stage, and we wanted to adjust our expectations. Two years later, and around eight years after we first met, we were married.
That will be 16 years ago this September, and our relationship has changed a lot in the 25 years we've been a part of each other's lives. How could it not? We've both grown and changed as people, and no matter how far our experiences take us we always come back to each other. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and our marriage is the best thing I've ever had a hand in creating. I mean that.
We've both been brought up in rough childhoods, though he doesn't see it quite that way. From my perspective, he's been through enough traumatic situations that have been persistent enough that I see CPTSD thinking and behavior. I know where his actions come from, and I know the kind of damage he's working with. Our baggage matches, let's say.
One thing I never expected in a long relationship is how...close you feel to your partner on a daily basis. My adoptive parents divorced when I was 9, and I never understood why my mom regretted it until she died. But now I get it. Losing Sneppers wouldn't just feel like losing a part of myself; it would be losing a part of myself. I'd miss that every day, until I die. I've never felt so certain about a relationship, or the idea of it lasting. I'm in this for the long haul.
Of course it's not always easy. There are spots where our damage causes friction with each other, and sometimes we need to recalibrate the ways we communicate. In any long relationships, we develop blind spots and find ways to take each other for granted. Sometimes, when we regress in the lessons we learn, we frustrate and disappoint each other. And when that gets left unsaid for too long, I think our idea of our partner gets a little distorted.
I know I have a tendency toward the melancholic, and the negative things stick with me way more than the positive stuff. That's all wrapped up in my toxic shame, this idea that I'm fundamentally wrong and it's only a matter of time before everyone finds out. I don't feel like I deserve to take space for myself, so I cede ground as a reflex and don't allow myself to feel tough emotions about it. But they're still there; hiding isn't the same as letting go I'm learning.
I don't doubt my love for my husband. <3 But I know that I have to reckon with a few things that have lead me to sandbag myself, the things I've been holding on to, and how to *actually* let go of them. It's tricky doing that in a relatively public forum, but it's important for my...sense of honesty that all of this be, you know, available. You can point to it. On this day, I said this. And knowing that means there's *some* level of filtering, but that's *also* good. It's a great way to examine my thoughts while I'm writing them.
More later, probably. For now, time to settle into the work of the afternoon
One thing coming out of that is the recognition that I only really mention him in a problematic context, which leaves one with a skewed view of the relationship looking back on it. I never mentioned the three-pint-sampler of Salt and Straw he bought for me one afternoon on a lark, or how he's taken up cleaning the dishes, or how wonderful our last "staycation" in San Francisco was.
A lot of that is on me and what I use this space for right now -- a way to untangle all the tangled thoughts and emotions in my head. I don't have a lot of trouble expressing the positive and joyful stuff, because that's easy to spread around. I thought I was letting go of the more difficult emotions, like anger and fear, but really I was just stuffing them down and doing my best not to feel them. But the thing about that is emotions don't just...evaporate. In my experience, the more unresolved stuff you have circling around an emotion, the stronger it gets whenever it arises. Fear isn't just fear about the thing in front of you, it's fear about everything you haven't acknowledged yet.
But maybe that perspective is wrong and I'll think something different later. For now, it feels like I have a lot of unresolved issues to work through and...without a therapist...I'll have to do it here.
That would be one thing if this were a truly private journal, but I don't want that. I like having a place to talk about this where people can read and react. To be honest, it feels more comfortable having the space to complete the thought, or follow where it goes, and face down what I've written. I don't feel I can do it anywhere else, really. I'm not looking for...privacy. Just a place where I can have a more open thought process.
But as part of that, I need to talk about Sneppers and how I think of him and our relationship.
Sneppers and I met online a long time ago and hit it off really quickly. A fast friendship blossomed into a romance once we met in real life, and we did the long-distance thing for a while. He had family in the state I lived in at the time, so we got the chance to visit with each other once or twice a year. Over time, the parting got harder, and eventually we made the decision to move in together. I'd head out to California, where we would be careful about how we progressed. We'd both had long-distance relationships fall apart at this stage, and we wanted to adjust our expectations. Two years later, and around eight years after we first met, we were married.
That will be 16 years ago this September, and our relationship has changed a lot in the 25 years we've been a part of each other's lives. How could it not? We've both grown and changed as people, and no matter how far our experiences take us we always come back to each other. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and our marriage is the best thing I've ever had a hand in creating. I mean that.
We've both been brought up in rough childhoods, though he doesn't see it quite that way. From my perspective, he's been through enough traumatic situations that have been persistent enough that I see CPTSD thinking and behavior. I know where his actions come from, and I know the kind of damage he's working with. Our baggage matches, let's say.
One thing I never expected in a long relationship is how...close you feel to your partner on a daily basis. My adoptive parents divorced when I was 9, and I never understood why my mom regretted it until she died. But now I get it. Losing Sneppers wouldn't just feel like losing a part of myself; it would be losing a part of myself. I'd miss that every day, until I die. I've never felt so certain about a relationship, or the idea of it lasting. I'm in this for the long haul.
Of course it's not always easy. There are spots where our damage causes friction with each other, and sometimes we need to recalibrate the ways we communicate. In any long relationships, we develop blind spots and find ways to take each other for granted. Sometimes, when we regress in the lessons we learn, we frustrate and disappoint each other. And when that gets left unsaid for too long, I think our idea of our partner gets a little distorted.
I know I have a tendency toward the melancholic, and the negative things stick with me way more than the positive stuff. That's all wrapped up in my toxic shame, this idea that I'm fundamentally wrong and it's only a matter of time before everyone finds out. I don't feel like I deserve to take space for myself, so I cede ground as a reflex and don't allow myself to feel tough emotions about it. But they're still there; hiding isn't the same as letting go I'm learning.
I don't doubt my love for my husband. <3 But I know that I have to reckon with a few things that have lead me to sandbag myself, the things I've been holding on to, and how to *actually* let go of them. It's tricky doing that in a relatively public forum, but it's important for my...sense of honesty that all of this be, you know, available. You can point to it. On this day, I said this. And knowing that means there's *some* level of filtering, but that's *also* good. It's a great way to examine my thoughts while I'm writing them.
More later, probably. For now, time to settle into the work of the afternoon
