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I was, for a brief time, contemplating being single again. not that I don't love my husband. I do, very much. but loving someone and living at ease with someone do not seem to always correlate. my husband, who I will call JD, and I are very different. he had a horrible upbringing, full of fear and abuse, and it persisted in his life far into adulthood. I had wonderful parents, and I grew up very sheltered and naive.
JD is very negative, and I am almost sickenly positive. my glass is forever half full, JD's glass doesn't even have one damned drop in it. we see events and people in very different lights, let's say.
as an old friend once said to me, "how can you not hurt someone who's always waiting to be hurt?" i.e. "how can you not offend someone who's always waiting to be offended?" JD doesn't like it when I say this to him. I must seem like such a nag sometimes. this is not who I want to be, and I am not happy with the effects of JD's past on my pscyhe, my behaviours, or my life in general.
I like to read fiction; he doesn't (he thinks it's a waste of time). he likes stinky fish, like herring; I can't stand them. I'm a family person; he's not, and understandably so. he wants to party; I want to cocoon. I want to go window shopping; he can't stand all the people. our differences seem to go on and on and on...
yet, we agree on the fundamentals: love, friendship, compromise, commitment, God, Christ. we share an intense love of music and animals. he can make me laugh when I want to be so pissed off. he can make me cry with the sweetness of his soul.
I couldn't ever bear to hurt him.
so I've been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I've given up some pieces of myself to maintain composure, patience, compassion. and I guess that was my most vital mistake, to give up parts of myself to be what he needed me to be. now I miss those pieces, and I haven't felt like the "real me" in quite a long time. so I'm fighting to regain my self, and in the process, I am not quite the woman JD married. the question is, is the woman I am the one he will want in the end, or will he forever miss that other me, that partial me, the me who was blown about by his fears and frustrations.
I hope not, for I was so ungrounded. and as it turns out, even the more whole "real" me is still in love with my husband.
JD is very negative, and I am almost sickenly positive. my glass is forever half full, JD's glass doesn't even have one damned drop in it. we see events and people in very different lights, let's say.
as an old friend once said to me, "how can you not hurt someone who's always waiting to be hurt?" i.e. "how can you not offend someone who's always waiting to be offended?" JD doesn't like it when I say this to him. I must seem like such a nag sometimes. this is not who I want to be, and I am not happy with the effects of JD's past on my pscyhe, my behaviours, or my life in general.
I like to read fiction; he doesn't (he thinks it's a waste of time). he likes stinky fish, like herring; I can't stand them. I'm a family person; he's not, and understandably so. he wants to party; I want to cocoon. I want to go window shopping; he can't stand all the people. our differences seem to go on and on and on...
yet, we agree on the fundamentals: love, friendship, compromise, commitment, God, Christ. we share an intense love of music and animals. he can make me laugh when I want to be so pissed off. he can make me cry with the sweetness of his soul.
I couldn't ever bear to hurt him.
so I've been caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. I have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I've given up some pieces of myself to maintain composure, patience, compassion. and I guess that was my most vital mistake, to give up parts of myself to be what he needed me to be. now I miss those pieces, and I haven't felt like the "real me" in quite a long time. so I'm fighting to regain my self, and in the process, I am not quite the woman JD married. the question is, is the woman I am the one he will want in the end, or will he forever miss that other me, that partial me, the me who was blown about by his fears and frustrations.
I hope not, for I was so ungrounded. and as it turns out, even the more whole "real" me is still in love with my husband.