Because yes, last night’s inner child temper tantrum wasn’t just exhaustion, or a case of the Hormones. I was Having Issues (yes I like emphasising important words with capitals, get used to it). I realised this when I burst into tears at the table, and had to choke my way through the food (because he’d gone to the effort to make something really nice as well, and was being such an angel, I couldn’t just leave it) before getting up, giving him what must have been a pretty gross kiss, and saying “I love you but I need to be alone for a while,” and half-running to the bedroom to cry my confused little heart out.
I found myself thinking not of the events of the past few days, but of other, more on-going things, things that had to do with our relationship. I’m very, very good at lying to myself to “protect” something, which it inevitably doesn’t. This is basically a conflict avoidance technique. I pretend I’m ok with the situation so I don’t have to tell my partner/friend/coworker/boss (God forbid) that I’m not.
There were three things. The first was sexual, and was the fault of both of us. I’m not going to go into the details, but after close analysis, the root of the problem turned out to be psychological – and the same for both of us. I suppose I should have realised this, but Honey has the same problem with walls that I have: he has trouble letting them down, ever. His looks more like a laboratory than a grey veil of thoughts – rather than distance himself from a situation by thinking of a million other things, he distances himself from his feelings so that he can analyse the situation coldly and logically. You can imagine how this is not conducive to good sex, for either of us.
So we agreed to work on that by continuing to see our shrinks to learn how to let our walls down.
The second problem was sort of linked to the first one and sort of linked to the third. I’m non-monogamous, I’d almost say by nature, and over the past few months of us living together for the first time, we’d decided to have a monogamous phase. At the time of the decision, both of us needed it. But now I think I need to go back to having a lover. At first I thought it was mostly because Honey simply has less libido than I do and putting pressure on him to be ready every time I want it would be counterproductive. But I’ve realised that this is more linked to the third problem, which is that I’m way more independant than I ever thought I was.
To be clear: I have always needed solitude. I was a total introvert as a child, and even now that I’m an adult with actual social needs, I do need quite a bit of me-time. But what with me being jobless and therefore alone in the house most days, I didn’t think this would be a problem now.
But there is a difference between independence and solitude. I’m alone in our flat, with our stuff, and we’re connected through facebook most of the day anyway. We still do everything together, it’s like we’re fused at the hip. And I need to de-fuse from him. I need my own space – we do have a second bedroom that we currently use for storage – somewhere where I won’t have to compromise on the space allocated to me, on the colours, on what I do there. Somewhere that is mine.
And I need more than that. I need my own friends, because the only friends I’ve got here are either his friends or our friends who were once just his. I need to be able to jump on the train and go see my friends back home, and my family, without him. I need to be miss him, so that I can be glad to return home.
When I realised this, crying into (and occasionally punching) his pillow on the bed, I was overcome with a sort of flat elation followed by calm. I missed living alone. I’d only done it for a year, but it had been great, because I’d been it total control of my life. And when I live with someone else, I stop controlling my life and let the other person do it. I automatically abandon ideas that the other person wouldn’t like, or isn’t enthusiastic about, again, to avoid conflict. I adapt to their needs, to the point where I neglect my own.
This isn’t their fault. It’s the way I am, and I need to be aware of that, and keep a certain amount of independance. It only becomes their fault if they try to prevent me from doing this, and Honey has been doing the opposite. It’s a bit frustrating trying to accuse him of stuff that is actually my own fault.
So we agreed that the second bedroom would be mostly mine, but he is allowed a zen corner to write in with his laptop. And I’m seeing friends who are “mine” from my evening class this weekend, and he has agreed not to come. I feel a bit mean about this because Honey doesn’t have any friends in this town either, they’re all back where he used to live, and he has no evening classes. But he has reassured me saying that he makes friends way easier than me anyway, which is true. I’ve never seem him act shy.
The only thing we haven’t agreed upon yet it when we’re going to open the relationship again. It sort of worked long distance, and even then we had problems. Will living together make it better or worse? Either way, I have to wait until he’s ready, and he doesn’t feel ready yet. So that’s still in limbo.
And then we had the best sex we’ve had since the beginning of our relationship (so just over a year ago) because we were both There.
The point is that both of us thought we’d gotten over our ability to lie to ourselves. Honey thought that he was reaching the end of his need for therapy. And then I had a temper tantrum and proved us both wrong. And instead of making me feel daunted by the task of learning to be present with each other, and learning not to lie to ourselves, I feel relieved because we’ve figured out what the problem was, and it’s the same thing for both of us, which means we understand each other better. The problem is named, now we can solve it. It’s like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Which is a very nice thing to feel when you’re depressed.
Mayri Grace 