Heartfelt Reflections: Our Shared Stories
The journey of the heart is often the most intricate. My recent reflections on a personal relationship—one marked by deep love, stark differences, and the poignant dance of connection and release. It's an invitation to reflect on our own stories of love, loss, and the lessons they bring.
First I want to say that I am not perfect in this either and that is why called this blog “Heartfelt Reflections”. He was the love of my life, my best friend.
Well where do I even start with all of our similarities, differences and where it lead us. Let’s start 6 years in. This was the turning point of our relationship. It was a year after we had broken up and it was a year of us being together, going to couples therapy, breaking up and doing it all over again. It was me deciding to get my dog Confucius to help me through Covid and companionship and my ex falling in love with him as his own and it only complicated things.
You see, I always knew we were a lot a like but grew up on different sides of the track. And believe it or not, our families (parents) crossed each others paths, too. It was like we were destined to be together or meet in some way, somehow. And despite where we were in the current day, I still believe this.
In 2020, I started to learn a lot about my own mental health and diving deep into the whys and how I reacted the way I did. Trauma therapy and self reflection among a lot of books helped. It wasn’t until later that I started to understand him. Guys, this is 6 years into our relationship. We never really had the hard talks. Yes, we spoke about having kids or not, we spoke of marriage and protecting ourselves around that but that was really it as far as the conversations you should be having. I started to learn that my reactions were my way of communicating to him for the things he did to me or for him never really showing affection or never saying I love you.
Let me give you context here, imagine never hearing that you are loved, that you are enough, that they even want a future with you and the actions aren’t really there either. You are probably wondering why I didn’t leave. Good question. I didn’t leave because for me, I loved him unconditionally and it wasn’t like he was never there, he just wasn’t there the way he should have been. As I have set with this over the years, weeks and days. I have realized that he reminds me of my mom. I was seeking validation from him, I was seeking to be loved by him, I wanted to be enough for him, enough for him to bring me home to the family and the more he pushed me away or didn’t show it, the harder I tried. Most of you know, my mom chose my step dad and chose to keep me in group homes/foster care instead of bringing me home. Even as an adult, she hides me. (And so does he) Every time I would be on the phone with her and if he (my step dad) came home, she would scramble to get off of the phone with me. He didn’t know we spoke, he didn’t know we would spend time together. And in turn, he, my ex, did the same thing and I was okay with it. Why? Because it is what I knew. It was what I was taught as a child and I carried it into adulthood.
You see, we all have our own parts in our relationships. Had I realized earlier on what I was doing and why I was doing it, I could have saved myself 9 and a half years of heartache and emotional abuse and or, I could have learned to communicate to him why I was asking him to do certain things for me in my life. I needed validation and reassurance due to my abandonment issues. Again, that is for me to work through. Not him. Though where it is on him, is he knew how in love I was with him and wanted a family and life with him. But he didn’t know how to give me that because of his upbringing and now I know he never actually wanted it. That doesn’t excuse his actions either but it gives context and reasoning for why he did what he did or didn’t do for that matter.
Now I understand where all of the emotional abuse was coming from and I understand why. In his world, there isn’t affection and communication. The two things I needed from him. I over shared and he held everything in. I wanted to spend my time with him because tomorrow isn’t promised and he would rather be with his friends or family, I wanted to cuddle and he just didn’t. This would cause the push and pull in our relationship. It would cause a trigger response in my nervous system. I would go into the Fawn, Flight or Fight response. I may not have all of the answers from him and that is okay. He was the avoidant and I had a trauma bond. I have had to work through my own mental barriers and come to terms with knowing the unknown.
I learned so many things in this. I learned that we are responsible for ourselves, our own actions, beliefs, morals, etc. It’s when you can come together and work through the triggers, traumas, and differences together as a team and apart. That creates a harmonious, loving, abundant, caring, vulnerable (in a good way) relationship. And this is what I have been working on with myself so I can see it in my person in the future. So I could give them the love they deserve and need. It isn’t that you can’t be with someone that has past triggers, traumas, etc., you just should be willing to love yourself enough to be able to create boundaries for yourself within a relationship so you both can come together and love each other the way you need to.
As I have read many things from psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera, there are some key points she points out to couple who “make it” and they are:
Having boundaries with family: They put the relationship first and had clear boundaries with family. Didn’t vent to family or make decisions based on what their family wanted.
They were friends: Friendship was the basis of their relationships.
They had been through really dark time together: They were at crossroads and had 2nd thoughts about the relationship but chose to stay together and work through and establish trust between each other.
They were able to be themselves.
They had difficult conversations.
They fought: But also knew how to navigate the conflict and move forward.
Made fun of each others quirks: Acknowledged and appreciated each other’s quirks.
The funny thing about this list is that this was him and I but we didn’t know how to navigate conflict and he always brought family and friends into the relationship. As did I, though my family and friends accepted him and were understanding. I was only able to share because of the type of people in my life because of who I am. I am a loving, caring, understanding and vulnerable human and I choose the same type of friends in my life. Knowing who you are as a person, knowing what effects your reactions, what effects your mental health is a key element to a lasting relationship with yourself and your partner.
Even though he and I are no longer together and we aren’t even close to being friends anymore, I have learned many valuable lessons because of him and from myself, by putting in the work for many years. Thank goodness for the many years of therapy, trauma therapy and couples therapy. I can’t speak for him, but I value what we had and will always have love for him but I chose myself in order to break the cycle. It takes two to break cycles, to work on a relationship and I just couldn’t do it by myself anymore.
With Love,
Kass
P.S. All is not lost, I promise you!
