I'm learning lots of things about myself being close to this wonderful man.
* I'm learning just how very hard I have been/am on myself. * I'm learning how much extraneous 'chat' there is going on inside my head (the kind that is taking away from your focus and therefore also consuming your time and energy). * I am learning just how much of this 'chat' has been negative. * I am learning that I have not been my own best friend in the past. * I'm learning how important it is to let people in. * I'm learning how important it is just to let things be as they are and not try to make them perfect. * I'm learning how important it is to be open and willing (and not defensive and closed). * I am learning that I don't have to always carry the whole burden. * I am learning what companionship actually feels like.
I could just cry with sheer relief at all of this.
I think I've learned to be that way as I've never really felt safe in my life. Which ultimately really means I've never felt really safe in myself.
The last one, the companionship one, last night really brought that one home: we did some household chores together.
That never, ever happened when I was M. I asked my XH to help me, many, many times over the years. He maybe did some superficial helping occasionally, but that's all. And we certainly never did any together, at the same time.
Last night felt companionable. I didn't have to suggest or ask, he just started sorting some things. He wasn't trying to impress me, or to be his best self for me, he was just doing what needed to be done. I joined in without thinking, it just felt like the most normal thing to do.
We sat down and started playing Scrabble. And then it dawned on me, about the companionship thing.
Looking back (almost 20 years now...blimey!), my R with my XH was much more flashy. There was lots and lots of going out, parties, dinners, drinks, late nights out. Initially, a lot of it was together. I guess we were both young, in our 20s. And also after a few years of being together, XH started to become very successful at his job, and then very well known after that. So there was a very outward facing, public element to our R. And it maybe masked a slightly superficial element in our R, and a lack of intimacy.
Some of it was certainly to do with being young(er). But I think some of it was to do with XH's inability to talk about certain things (his feelings mainly). We also didn't really talk about what we wanted from life in general before we got married.
A recipe for disaster really, thinking back. We might just have been really lucky and wanted the same things. But what are the chances of that really?
This R feels very different. It feels very, very private, and also much, much more intimate. Much more quiet and peaceful as well. Which makes me see very clearly just how much drama there was in my M. Our time together now is spent going on walks, climbing, on new experiences for both of us. And then there is an occasional night out for drinks, or even more occasionally dinner.
He doesn't get drunk. He maybe gets a little tipsy, and just once or twice a year, but certainly not the fall down drunk, or do stupid /risky/dangerous things drunk that my XH used to, **a lot** of the time (talking multiple times a week, if he was going through one of his heavy drinking phases).
We can share a drink together in a pub and leave together after one or two at the most, or maybe have a glass of wine over dinner, and that's it.
I've never had that experience before, and I can't being to describe how just plain lovely it feels. My XH used to come to bed at the same time as me not really very often at all. I'd say most of the time he was up very late into the night, watching TV and quite probably drinking as well, or he'd be out very late into the night (or early morning). I used to ask him often to come to bed at the same time as me, not all the time but just occasionally, just so we could be cosy and chat and fall asleep together. He never really did. I often woke up in the middle of the night, in bed alone. God, it was a lonely life.
How much must I have been wound up by all of the drama and 'excitement' in my M? I was feeling the difference after only 2 weeks that he had left. So how much more of a difference am I feeling now? I realise by being close to this wonderful man that I still have a good long way to go, in unwinding further from the drama of it all.
I got bored of waiting for XH to updated his relationship status on FB. He still had that he was M to me.
So I went a little against the grain of the philosophy that I've had for the past few years, of doing nothing to sort stuff like that out. I felt that my feelings of being with this wonderful man, and his feelings of being with me, deserved a little something...a little respect if you like. So right before Valentine's Day I updated my status to 'In a R with...' and added a couple of funny pictures of us, on a rare night out at the pub together.
