Abuse Hides in the Dark. Turn on Your Light.

Can't We Talk?

There is so much information that would have been nice to consider before my relationship degenerated into what it has become. Unfortunately, I didn’t foresee the day when I couldn’t talk to and be heard by my husband; and maybe he feels the same way (or maybe he doesn’t – how could I know?). So should I spend my time wishing someone had given me a heads up to what was to come?

Is it useful to wallow in “if only” thoughts? And if my romantic notion that “things could have been different” is true, is it solely my fault that it isn’t?

No, it’s not my fault that two young people decided to get married before we were taught “how” to relate to one another and how we, being a man and a woman, may be hard-wired to act and react differently than the other expected.

It’s also not my responsibility to “teach” him a new way of communication. It’s not my responsibility to “make him listen” to me. It’s not my job to be a non-judgmental therapist AND asserter of what’s best for ME at the same time. Not only are those things not “my job” or responsibility, but they’re not healthy and more urgently, they’re impossible.

What I want and what I wish may never be my reality. But it’s time for me to accept a new reality: I am not responsible for him or his behavior. I want to support him, I want to love him, I want to be his wife. I want us both to be happy. But I can’t force it to be so, and no amount of hoping or waiting for it will change what is right now.

“Hope” holds dangers for me. Hope can be unrealistic and changeable, dependent on the hand of God or even my husband’s choices. I am giving up hope for anyone but myself. Instead of living in the shadow-world of hope, I am choosing to live in the bright sunshine – in this reality that I’ve co-created. And I am choosing to create a different reality for myself.

I hope he comes along in his way. But reality is changing for me. I’m going to reserve hope for myself alone, and I’m going to work towards what I hope for myself. He’s out of my hope equation.

I don’t want him out of my reality, but if co-existing in a mutual reality means that I have to hide myself and rely on hoping that he’ll be nice to me, then any mutual reality between myself and my husband is going to end.