Partnership is hard. It’s even harder when one partner struggles to let go and move forward (I slowly raise my hand). Take this conversation that took place last winter as an example:
Wife barges in on husband in the bathtub.
Wife: “Hey, remember that mistake you made?” Wife continues
to elaborate on mistake in painful detail.
Husband (covering his exposed body) gives a blank stare. There’s a
brief, tense pause.
Husband: “That was 6 years ago.”
Wife: “Yep, that’s the one.” Wife continues to ramble about something long buried.
We all make mistakes, some worse than others. We make decisions that may not be the best for our partners. Whether we recognize it or not, our choices affect the ones with whom we build our lives. Together, we carry with us separate baggage and we adopt new baggage together. We have to learn to help each other carry that baggage or drop it and move forward. We have to learn to forgive.
We develop habits and behaviors, some born before we met our partners while others grow in the partnership. Some are harmless weeds that can be cleared with a quick yank and some are the strangling, deadly kind that have to be pulled from the root. Some grow and spread and choke growth. And some end up being beautiful (like dandelions, in my opinion).
While we rehashed mistakes, my husband kept reminding me he wasn’t perfect. The thing is I don’t prefer perfect people. Actually, I loathe perfection. I gravitate toward the messy moms who, like me, do not have their shit together. I prefer villains to heroes all day every day. When I write and read fiction, my favorite characters are the ones who make mistakes but mean well. I root for the flawed individual. So why can’t I accept that my husband and I are flawed too? Why do I have to hold something for an achingly long time before I can drop it, before I can let it go? I obsess. I fixate. I belabor. It’s unhealthy and it’s exhausting. In my head, a tangle of torment grows, becoming more and more entwined, and it eats all that is good and spares all that is bad.
The only remedy for all of this is communication and dedication to the partnership. But there’s a difference between helpful, productive communication and the conversation at the top of this post. In retrospect, I know that it wasn’t beneficial to unearth and drag that decaying corpse into the light. I brought up a mistake he made six years ago because I was fighting insecurity. But what purpose would that conversation serve? Could his response make me feel better, six years after the fact? We were different people six years ago. Hell, we were different people last week. We’ve both grown as individuals and as a couple. I should have yanked that thing from its root and expelled it from life. Light that shit on fire, bury that rotting corpse, and move on.
And let’s not forget forgiveness. I have been struggling with something I have been unable to give voice to to anyone other than my husband. This has resulted in exhausting, sometimes never-ending conversations that have no answer, no good solution. He has listened for months, mostly patiently, and worked really hard to improve our partnership. For this, I am grateful. But still, I have struggled and obsessed, often silently. I find myself repeating these lyrics from Florence and the Machine’s song “Shake It Off”:
And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way I’m always dragging that horse around.
Some days, I honestly feel like I’m dragging a dead horse with me everywhere I go. And I can’t talk about it, and I can’t fix it. It’s there, and it’s so heavy. In desperation, I reached out to a friend who always seems happy and positive. She gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. She told me this, and I cling to it every day–nobody ever regrets forgiveness. What a beautiful, powerful sentiment. And she encouraged me to forgive myself, something I hadn’t realized I needed. In fact, I think it’s what I need most.
These last few months, I’ve been working really hard on self improvement. When I start to fixate on something in the past, I try to ask myself–what purpose does this serve?–and that helps me keep my head on straight. I’m also attempting to be careful about communication and over-communication. There is a time to discuss and there is a time to let go. Some issues are best left buried. I hope something beautiful will grow in its place.
I am being kinder to myself as I work through some of my issues. I’m trying to be less critical of myself. I want to find the good living among the bad. The same friend pointed out that I tend to obsess and fixate because I’m a deep thinker and because I care very deeply about what is important to me. I don’t think I could be a writer without this quality, and I don’t know that I’d ever want to sacrifice that aspect of my being. In some of my darkest moments, I longed to be the kind of person who doesn’t care much or care very deeply. But as my husband always reminds me, he wants me to be me, even if that means I’m a little bit crazy some of the time. This is who I am–a passionate sometimes obsessive thinker–and I’m trying to embrace it.
Slowly, I think, I am untangling the mess in my head, and I’m relaxing into my life and my marriage. I believe with all of my being that Rob and I are growing stronger even though this has been a difficult phase of our lives. Our communication has never been better, and our devotion to each other and this life is deep. Though it’s painful, our roots are growing stronger and healthier.
Sometimes it’s easy to see the good. I married a man who lets his toddler paint his toes (literally his toes since she doesn’t distinguish the nail from the skin) hot pink. I married a man who tells me daily that we’re all in and he loves me. A man who has worked tireless to take care of the girls and me in every possible way. Our home is noisy and busy and full of love. When I look around at what we have and who we are, I cannot imagine being tangled and rooted with anyone else
Sometimes, when I am really struggling, I focus on existing in the moment, and I move through my day moment-by-moment: smelling Ivy’s freshly-washed baby hair, reciprocating Ember Eve’s toddler giggles, reaching for my husband’s hand and pressing mine into it with all I have. Man, I have it good. And the moments pull me through.
