That’s how our best most honest (and HARD) conversations start. I hate starting them. I feel like I’m holding my breath and shaking my head, trying my hardest to NOT have them. But they are literally essential to having a relationship.
With everything nutty town, I think both of us have been avoiding them, afraid to put even one more thing on each other’s shoulders. We’ve been turning blue in the face and feeling like we were suffocating in hopes that everything would just get better. But it never does. It just gets worse.
I went to IKEA yesterday and bought a king sized duvet cover because our queen size was too small. We would both end up with too little covers. I woke up this morning with plenty of covers but felt like I had been pushed off the bed and was laying there, cold on the floor.
That’s when I knew the conversation had to happen.
It started out horrible, as it always does, standing five feet apart with emphatic voices, just a touch too loud, but ended with both of us sitting close together in front of the fire place pouring out our frustrations, worries, fears, confusions and ultimately our faith in each other.
My friend a few weeks ago said about her husband, If I feel like we have each other’s back, I know that we can get through everything. No matter what comes at us, we can get through it together.
It seems like such a no brained that married people have each other’s back, right? Like, isn’t that why you get married? To have someone at your back so you can get through anything?
The thing is, that person at your back, sometimes you need to turn around and face each other and remember why you’re defending each other. That pressure behind you, holding you up, is someone awesome and worried and scared and fierce and amazing. Doing that requires getting into a space and time that’s safe enough to put down your swords, and these days, who isn’t fighting literally every single minute? Shesh.
Today, all day, I waited until the dinner was over and the kids were off doing their things. No one was coming over and we didn’t have anywhere to go. So I turned to him, braced myself, and said, Let’s have a conversation. In translation, let’s face each other, put down our weapons and be vulnerable and look at each other in the eyes and remember why we’re a team.
It’s brutal. I don’t know why. Are we so used to fighting and defending our selves and our positions that we forget that there is a safe person who we don’t have to be anything but our raw selves? Maybe. We forget so quickly and so well. But if you don’t give up and you lay down your fear, your pride, your sense of fairness and rightness like stupid armor you’ve built around yourself, you just might get to sit on the fireside and remember that you’re a team first and foremost and that all this stuff, it’s totally ok. You’ve got it because you’ve got each other. You can get through anything.
Plus, you’ll sleep so much better and wake up feeling like you’re ready to face the fiercest challenge—together.
So . . .don’t wait as long as I did to have that conversation. Take a breath and let out the words you’ve been holding in for too long. It is scary, but it feels . . .like being able to breathe again.
Here’s your Easter Egg
Comments
Post a Comment