Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I'm Back!

I’ve decided to resume my writing after too long, and it just so happens that at this time, my husband and I are going through a hard time so I guess that’s what I have to write about.  He’s preoccupied with his issues and not able to be there emotionally for me, and has acknowledged that although we’re in a familiar place that our history shows will change, it s not in the process of changing back to ‘normal’ yet.  Funny thing is that yesterday, as I went for a walk to remove myself from thinking about and reacting to my loneliness, I ran into an old acquaintance, and we stopped to talk.  In the ‘how are you?’ beginnings of our conversation, I acknowledged that I was in the middle of dealing with some annoying relationship issues.  My friend, in a relieved way began to share some of the same feelings that he was also going through with his guy, and that he was out walking for the same reason.  So, since we were both were feeling lonely and had gripes that we really wanted to share with an empathetic ear, we decided to go have a ‘happy hour’ glass of wine so we could commiserate. 

Not surprisingly, his story was the same as mine, different version.  We both complained about temperamental traits and behaviors in our spouses that we’ve been dealing with for years, him for 41 (!), me for 15 (second marriage).  We reminded ourselves that we love our partners and they us, and that we’ll all get back on track as we always do, but that, although these disconnect patterns are familiar, they’re still infuriating and hard as hell.  As a result of the disconnect with the ones we love, here am I, a psychologist practicing couples therapy, and he, a writer whose books deal with consciously maximizing one’s potential, both experiencing a loss of control over our internal well-being.

Update:  It’s a week later and my husband’s slowly come back.  Boy was it hard to let go of my self-protective behaviors so I could also be there.  Now that I’m more at ease, but with the reminder that we’re all in some version of this relationship struggle together, I’ll get this blog going.  Hope to have you as a regular reader.