The Importance of Communicating

The other night, we were sitting having dinner, and S told me something. And he started with "I know you're going to take this the wrong way, but..." and then he said his piece. And it hurt. And I went numb, because it hurt and I wanted to yell. But L was sitting there eating her meatballs and I didn't want to risk distracting her from actually eating, because she is 2 and to my knowledge and experience, 2-year-olds don't actually eat nutritious food.

It took me a while to gather my thoughts. We were uncomfortably silent. I didn't want to say the wrong thing, but I knew I had something to say. Finally, he said "Please say something." So I said what I was thinking. It sucked and felt messy and awkward. Even after we went back and forth and better understood each other, I still felt hurt.

I hate fighting, disagreement, confrontation...I grew up in a "sweep it under the rug" family. We didn't know how to fight fair, so we'd internalize our thoughts or fears or anger. It wasn't a healthy way of living, especially when those thoughts or fears or anger became so overwhelming that one of us would just burst.

Families & marriage can be messy.

S and I have been together 12 years as of this weekend. We got together when we were kids. We lived long distance for the first four years while we were away at college. When I moved to CT, we broke up. We couldn't handle being confronted with real problems and trying to work them out. We just crumbled. Over time and some long days and nights of learning how to just simply talk, and more importantly, listen, we realized that we do love each other, we just didn't know how to communicate well.

Communication is a hard learning process to learn. It requires trust, empathy, vulnerability, and a whole lot of other feelings and skills. And it doesn't come naturally to everyone, which I think is why a lot of people prefer to just bury their head in the sand, which as I've learned, doesn't make the problem go away. It's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes and yelling "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOUUUU!!"

I'm constantly reminded that even the seemingly healthiest, happiest relationships and families have messes. It doesn't mean they're damaged or broken. What's that Pink song? "We're not broken, just bent."

We're all a little bent, crooked, dinged up and bandaged together. But in our marriage prep retreat, the thing that stuck with me was what one of the retreat leaders said, and that is that there will be days where we just don't like each other. We'll be mad, or annoyed, or just want our own space. We'll fight, or disagree or get pissy. But despite those moments/hours/days of not liking each other, marriage is waking up each day and making the decision to love that person. Deciding that even when confronted with tough, messy stuff, you love them, and will go through the discomfort of working through the bad feelings. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable, to feel uncomfortable, might feel like it's tearing you apart, but is really creating an opening to allow love and grace to pour in, and hopefully hold you together even stronger than before.

September 7, 2014 Lenox, MA