Institute of Step-Family Dynamics

Category: Keeping the Love Alive

  • No Shortcuts in Step-Family Dynamics

    No Shortcuts in Step-Family Dynamics

    Recently I have been in the middle of setting a lot of new technology for my business.

    Recently I have sworn a lot and cried more than usual.

    Those two things are directly linked.

    The big problem, as I eventually discovered, was that I wasn’t following the steps I needed to in order to achieve my goal. I thought I could just wing my way through. I thought I knew what the different bits of the site did. I thought wrong.

    It’s been very hard to have to go back to basics, to start right from the very beginning.

    I’m not going to lie. I don’t like it!

    I’m older now, I know a little about a lot of things, and usually this knowledge is enough for me to fumble my way through things.

    This time it was not.

    So I started at the beginning. I watched YouTube video after YouTube video. I had to go back many times and rewatch, because I had zoned out or played with my phone, or otherwise disengaged. I’m not used to have to pay that much attention to get the gist of what I am watching. It’s a source of great amusement to my family that I listen to movies while I play games on my phone. This time I needed to really pay attention and focus on what was being offered and taught.

    Coming into a new family dynamic can be a similar experience to learning a new skill.

    We think we know what we need to know. I mean it’s family, right?!? How hard can it be?

    Turns out, it can be very hard. It can take us to the point of swearing a lot and crying more than usual. It can be very humbling to discover there are many things we didn’t know we didn’t know.

    There are some statistics floating about that state it takes about 5 to 7 years for a step-family to integrate and form a new, functioning family unit.

    It will surprise none of you who have read this far that I thought I could take short cuts and make it happen a lot faster.

    Spoiler alert: it did not.

    No amount of me deciding it would be different made it happen.

    There were no shortcuts.

    People need time to adjust. People need time to grieve for what they have lost. Step-families are founded on loss of another family unit. It takes time for people to get to know each other and find common ground, then appreciation, and finally sometimes even love.

    And just like I am having to accept when it comes to grappling with unfamiliar technology, maybe there might be some new learning and doing involved to get to a place of it all functioning well…there is also some new learning and doing involved in establishing a new family culture that works. Sometimes we need to bring in some expert help, sometimes we need to reach out to a support group. Sometimes we just need to accept that things are not going to happen on our arbitrary timeline.

    Is it time for you to reframe your expectations about how your step-family is evolving? Is it time to reach out for some professional help?

  • Giving Space – Relationship Tip

    Giving Space – Relationship Tip

    So often I hear from clients – s/he was not happy when I expressed my boundary, or s/he gets so mad when I say what I need. My answer is consistently – well of course!

    Who likes being told no or that something that works for them needs to change, or that they have disappointed their partner. Absolutely no-one – that’s who!

    One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is I have learned to give space to my hunny when he is not feeling the love. He hates upsetting or disappointing me and when he hears something that indicates that, he will often shut down and seem really grumpy.

    Today is a case in point. I bought a caravan/trailer to be converted into my office 6 months ago. The plan was for it to be done in a month. My husband got really sick, we moved house. Six months later I’m close to the end of month 3 of working out of our bedroom.

    My darling had grand plans for how he would build everything from scratch for me. He has completely gutted the interior, insulated it, relined it etc. We are now down to the wire and I have a goal of being in by the end of next weekend. His goal is to paint this week and be making shelving and a desk next weekend.

    I have been reading articles on home offices and scrolling pinterest for months. Today I saw an article that was a game changer. Track shelving!! Why didn’t I think of this before? Mainly because I associated it with dodgy commercial building outfits and thought it looked cheap and nasty. My eyes were opened to the possibility. My brain went – this doesn’t require much building and zero painting. I could be moving my stuff in next weekend!!

    The response from my darling was muted at best. I had, quite frankly, pissed on his parade. His vision of what he was creating for me just got shoved sideways in a big way. I asked, far too many times, if he was ok. He said he was fine in the ‘I am not fine but please just leave me alone’ way I know too well.

    So I did just that. I gave him space. I researched and found the best place to go and look. I went to go call him about desk leg options and saw I had missed a call. It was a call asking about where I wanted to go to buy shelving.

    He had taken the time and given himself space to process the change in plan and was ready to show up and support me. Giving him space to do that gave him time to get there without us experiencing a disconnect.

    When we change plans suddenly or switch up what we expect, it’s important we give our partners space to process and adjust. If we make a request that isn’t their favourite, we need to give them time to feel angry or upset or hurt. Expecting someone to jump for joy and be immediately on board is not only unrealistic, it’s also unreasonable.

    PS – this approach also works well for boundary setting! Just rinse and repeat.

  • Thank you for Staying – What to say to someone struggling with Suicidal Ideation

    Thank you for Staying – What to say to someone struggling with Suicidal Ideation

    Separation, divorce, custody battles, step-family dynamics all take a toll on our mental health. They also take a toll on the mental health of our kids.

    Let’s get real, some of us don’t make it out of these situations alive.

    We see posts about mental health – I’m here, my door is open, I’m just a phone call away…

    I think those posts totally miss the point.

    People who are at the point of wanting to escape life so badly they are looking for a permanent solution aren’t going to pick up the phone and say – hey.

    When we know someone is suicidal, often we can feel helpless. We don’t know how to talk about it. We don’t know what to say in the face of our overwhelming fear of losing someone we love.

    I’d like to suggest you say ‘Thank you’.

    Let the person you know is struggling to be here know that you appreciate their efforts.

    Let them know you see the strength of will it takes just to stay on this planet another day.

    Let them know you appreciate the pain they are enduring because they don’t want us to experience the pain of losing them.

    It’s a pretty bloody selfless act for someone to stick around when they really only want to die.

    These people we love endure a hell of a lot to keep it together enough to hang around in the hope of a better day.

    The least we can do is thank them for it.

  • Coupling During Covid-19

    Coupling During Covid-19

    During a recent radio interview, I was asked by the journalist whether I thought the lock downs/stay at home orders were contributing to the break down of relationships. My honest answer is that the conditions and stressors created by the pandemic and various stay at home measure act like a pressure cooker and amplifies what is already there.

    Some couples are thriving. They are finding a new sense of togetherness and cohesion. This time of stepping outside the pressures and busyness of running around for children’s activities, work, social engagements etc has brought respite and a time to lean in to each other and the family.

    For other couples, it has brought into sharp relief the underlying issues around equity, entitlement, and that needs are not being met. It is those couples for whom this pandemic could bring about the end of the relationship. I don’t think the pandemic is the cause or the catalyst, I think it has just brought the disconnect into focus.

    It’s often about competing wants and needs. These past few weeks have been incredibly challenging for me as a therapist. Usually I am able to take competing wants and needs and find compromise and a way forward. The pandemic has created situations where there is no winning for some couples, because of factors outside of both of their control.

    If you have an ex who is refusing to follow social distancing, and immune compromised people in your home, there is no good choice or right answer. You either risk the life of the people in your home, or you forgo time with your child, or you move out of your home in order to be able to spend time with your child. I am seeing people in this situation over and over again. It’s hearbreaking. It sets up situations where the partner feels like their needs are secondary or the ex has all the control. It can lead to resentment and frustration that yet again the new family comes last or is being negatively impacted by the ex and the stepchildren.

    In a relationship that is solid, and each person feels their needs are being met, these events can be discussed and navigated. There will be an understanding that these are extraordinary times, beyond our individual control, and sacrifices and allowances need to be made.

    In a relationship where the relationship is already stretched and one or both are feeling like their needs aren’t being met, and they are not a priority, this can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. To be asked to sacrifice yet again is just too much.

    So what can you do if you are struggling in your relationship right now?

    The first thing is to take stock and dig into what is behind the disconnect, the arguments, the feeling that it’s all too hard. If you look beyond the surface, you’ll find it’s things like not feeling heard, of not being a priority.

    If you’re a stepparent, it may be that you are being expected to take on a greater load of parenting, but are not being given the authority or permission to actually parent. You’re feeling like a glorified, unpaid babysitter. Babysitters would probably have an easier time because they wouldn’t get the same level of commentary about their performance!

    It could be feelings around not being a priority or not being in control of your own home. It could be old wounds from our past that are resurfacing in a time of stress and anxiety.

    The feelings maybe so tangled and overwhelming, you don’t even know where to begin!

    Whatever it is, if you are concerned your relationship is in trouble, now is the time to seek help. Look for a therapist or coach who is skilled in step-family dynamics. If your partner won’t get help with you, get it for yourself. I often start working with stepmums and then this naturally transitions into couple work. Getting professional help is always cheaper than separation and divorce!

    If you’d like some support with your relationship during this trying time, you can email me [email protected]

  • Beyond Repair?

    Beyond Repair?

    We have some dining chairs that have seen better days. I’ve spent months trying to justify replacing them with something new and fancy. Between my scrooge-like and greenie tendencies, buying new chairs when we have perfectly serviceable ones is a hard sell. Too hard, it seems.

    So I decided that I would repair the 17 year old chairs. They are plywood and some of the laminate had begun to lift. Between that and the varnish that was very patchy, some wood putty and a paint job seemed like the solution. They may well last another 17 years and the trials of 7 children and associated family and friends.

    Yesterday I broke out the wood putty I’d purchased the day before. I didn’t get the tiny tin because I knew there were quite a few of the 6 chairs needing repairs. I puttied up the first chair. Easy! I then went looking for the next one.

    Nope, not that one. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Wait what? I went round again inspecting more slowly.

    Oh my goodness! The falling apart dining chairs was in fact a single chair. I have spent the last couple of years solid in the belief my set of dining room chairs were on their last legs. This was absolutely a false belief.

    One single chair had 2 areas of peeling laminate. A quick run over with wood putty sorted it out. I have put this off for so long because it seemed like such a daunting job! The sanding and painting will take some time, for sure. But the repairing of the broken chair…quite literally took a couple of minutes.

    It set me to musing.

    How often do we feel something is very broken, or will take a huge amount to repair, or needs replacing, when it is actually a simple fix. I was sorting clothes with one of my daughters, her favourite top had a pull in the fabric, she was about to get rid of it. I said I could fix it. I pulled the threads back through. It was fiddly. I swore a bit, but in the end, she had her top back. A top that previously she had thought was lost to her.

    These simple repair jobs remind me of my work, especially relationship work. People usually wait to seek help when the wheels are falling off. Things are so bad they have come to the realisation they need help. Often the first session is filled with expressions of hopelessness and fear the relationship can’t be repaired. There seems to be so much wrong.

    As we work together and unpack what the issues are, the number of chairs that are damaged lessens. We begin to see the problem is often the same issue, it just wears lots of outfits and manifests itself in different ways. Fixing it is not the huge job it seems, because it is a single problem, not a whole dining suite.

    Focusing on what is broken or what is wrong can lead us to believe things are hopeless or broken beyond repair. Someone with the ability to see the larger picture than the everyday disconnects can see a pattern and identify the common thread. They can see it can be a relatively simple fix. A relationship that seems broken can be mended with the right skills, knowledge, and tools.

    Relationships can be hard work, they can feel unfixable. Just like the top and the chair, very often they can be repaired. If you are wondering how you can repair your relationship, contact me on [email protected] and we can discuss a repair or maintenance plan for you and your partner.

  • Why Step-moms Get Jealous & Insecure In The Most Stable Relationships

    Why Step-moms Get Jealous & Insecure In The Most Stable Relationships

    One of the things I see step-moms struggle with over and over is feeling jealous and insecure when it comes to the ex. We know in our heads it doesn’t make sense. We know in our hearts our partners love us. We know that our partners chose us day after day, but still…the tiny voice in our heads whispers terribly painful things that make us feel crazy and insecure.

    It’s not attractive to feel insecure or jealous. We are ashamed for even having these feelings. Secure, confident women don’t feel like that! Women who are loved and secure in their relationships shouldn’t feel like that! I call bullsh*t. I have seen some of the most secure, confident, successful women I know brought to their knees by their feelings around not being enough in their step-mother roles.

    Being grossed out by the idea of our partner having sex or being intimate with their ex is a congruent response. It’s not about us being jealous or insecure, it’s just icky thinking about the person we have sex with doing that stuff with someone else. Only in a step-family are you expected to interact on a regular basis with someone your partner has been deeply intimate with. Not only are you expected to interact, you’re expected to feel ok about it, and ignore how uncomfortable it makes you feel. If you don’t – there is something wrong with you! You are jealous, or insecure, or lacking something in your relationship. Newsflash – almost no-one wants to be hanging out, making nice, and swapping recipes with the person your person used to love and want to make babies with.

    It’s also congruent to feel off balance when we are faced with or reminded of the experiences our partner and their ex share, experiences that we are not a part of. It’s hard to see there is a wealth of shared experiences, often involving the child we love, that exclude us. That doesn’t make us jealous or insecure, it just means we find reminders of the shared experience challenging and uncomfortable. These feelings will pass more and more as our wealth of shared experiences build.

    Sometimes our responses to situations are not congruent; things like feeling unloved or unworthy because of an event or conversation. If we unpack that experience, we see this single moment or incident does not invalidate the myriad of experiences we have that show us we are loved and valued. We can lose sight of that in moments of being off balance, so it’s our job to look at whether our feelings are congruent with what happened.

    We need to know we will be tipped off balance from time to time, it’s life. No matter how zen or woke we are, life will come along and tip us off balance, usually when we least expect it. Being off balance actually has a very important purpose, it is a learning opportunity. It’s an invitation to unpack more of our baggage, to examine our responses and insecurities.

    It’s ok to tell our partner we are not feeling solid. It’s ok to say – I’m feeling wobbly, I need you to take some time to connect with me to help me feel ok. Telling your partner you are feeling insecure and jealous can immediately put them on the defensive. They can feel as if they are doing something wrong, they are not making you feel loved enough or secure enough. Ironically, this feeling of being wrong can have the exact opposite effect of what we need. They retreat, not knowing how to make us feel better. We feel rejected, and even more insecure. We double down on our ‘I’m feeling insecure I need you to show me how much you love me…’ and round and round the merry go round goes. Except no-one is feeling very merry.

    Finding ways to let our partners know all is not right in our world, without them feeling shamed or blamed is key. Telling them we are feeling off balance or wobbly is a softer way to let them know we need connection. I tell my husband I need pats. It’s a running joke in our house, that started with one of his cats. He knows when I say I need pats, I’m feeling I need some coddling, I need to know he is there and he has my back. Creating a phrase that conveys this to our partner can be a great way to avoid falling down the neediness rabbit hole that ends up pushing our men away.

    You’re not weak or silly for feeling unsettled in your relationship when your partner’s past is so present in your home and family. It’s not weird to feel grossed out by anything that suggests previous intimacy. It’s not wrong to feel sad that our first experience of having a child with our partner is not their first experience. What is important to realise is that for them it is a first. It is their first with you. The experiences they had with their ex will fade, and their focus will increasingly become more about you and the family you are creating together, a family that will include their children from another person.

    So it’s ok to feel those feelings. Just don’t get stuck there, seek out connection in a way that your partner can respond positively to. Join a community of women who understand. I can highly recommend Stepfamily Circle. I see women come in to groups feeling so isolated and alone. The difference in their lives once they realise they are not alone and these feelings are pretty normal is almost miraculous.

    This step-mom gig is not an easy one. Hang in there and know you are not alone in feeling jealous and insecure from time to time.

  • Getting Lost In The Other

    Getting Lost In The Other

    For a long time, I felt I needed to launch this website with others. I needed the support and the validation. What I was really telling myself was that I was not enough alone to stand in this place. In placing myself at the whim and will of others, I felt powerless. I was in a place of constant lack, I needed this or that from someone else. Whether it was help from my husband, or more qualifications, or a business partner, or someone to provide a service…those barriers kept cropping up. They ‘cropped up’ for more than 10 years. In hindsight, it took me 10 years to come to place where I was enough. It took me 10 years to come to place where I felt I was worth spending $100, $1200 or $2,000 on, to launch my website and business.

    Getting lost in the other has been a long time ‘friend’. It was a pattern in my first marriage. I constantly talked about ‘we’ needed to do things, if ‘we’ are doing something there is no responsibility to take ownership. The thing gets lost in the ‘we’ and I get to sit there helplessly playing the victim, blaming the other for the lack of progress and letting myself off the hook completely. It takes time and some uncomfortable reflecting to shift that thinking, to find the strength and confidence to make the ‘we’ into me.

    We all need help and support, don’t get me wrong. I am not able to do everything I need to do to pull this project off alone. It’s finding the line between giving away our power and reaching out when we need to. I agonised over what the call the site, I asked different groups of people over and over. Nothing I got back felt right. It several incarnations till I settled on Step-Family Dynamics. This was something I had to do myself. It was not a group effort gig. There are other parts of this journey that are something that can be a group effort gig. I am incredibly blessed with those I have around me; writers to contribute their stories, a very supportive husband, who has vast knowledge I can tap into. The difference between tapping into his knowledge and expecting him to do this for me is the difference between accomplishing my goal and not. It’s not because he is unwilling to help, it’s because it’s not his dream. It’s not his priority and while he is more than willing to make time to help me, quite understandably, he is not willing to make my dream his.

    When we get lost in the ‘we’, often what we are asking of those we make part of the ‘we’ is to take on our dream, to live by our values, to share our priorities. We get disappointed when they don’t, we feel let down, unsupported, and abandoned. How about we let them, and ourselves, off the hook? What would that look like? How about instead of passively expecting others to come on board with our plans, we specifically asked for their help in areas they feel comfortable helping? Instead of looking for co-pilots, we take control of our own vehicle, steer our own course.

    When we take charge of our journey, we disentangle ourselves from the murky depths of the ‘we’. We stop getting lost in the other and return home to ourselves. We send ourselves the very clear message ‘you are enough, you have enough’. Independence is not about cutting ourselves off from others and becoming like the little red hen who does it all herself. It’s about taking responsibility for our journey, for the route, the provisioning, and the help we need to access along the way.

    What are you currently getting lost in the other with? Where is your ‘we’ crying out to become ‘me’?

    Recently I have come to a place where I am now able to bring others in to work with, not because I need them, but because I am solid enough in my own doing. I’m not looking for them to fill gaps or do things that scare, I have learned the value of trusting my own capabilities and utilising the skills of others.

    We need to get solid in our own sense of being enough. If we gift ourselves that, we are no longer willing to give away our potency to ‘the other’.

  • Is it time to leave?

    Is it time to leave?

    The holiday season can take a huge toll on relationships. It brings out emotions we have buried, and the end of the year is a time of natural reflection about what we want the new year to bring. This can lead to people questioning whether staying in their current relationship is what they want and need. It felt timely to write about the ending of relationships and the decision-making process around whether to stay or go.

    One of the things I tell my clients is that whatever happens with their relationship, I know they will be ok. I will hold the hope for them, while they figure it out. I honestly believe that the end of a relationship can be a positive thing. We have this idea that when a relationship ends, it is some kind of failure. We should have been able to make it work, we didn’t try hard enough, change enough, bend enough etc.

    How about the idea that sometimes we just grow in different directions and sometimes get to a point where we are no longer compatible? I don’t think it’s a question of outgrowing or putting a value judgement on things. I don’t think that’s helpful. I think it’s more accurate to say, we no longer want and need the same things.

    Sometimes this disconnect can be because the relationship was filling an unhealthy need, and as we deal with our challenges, we no longer want or need to fill that unhealthy need. It can be around entitlement. If we came in to the relationship expecting very little in terms of getting our needs met, and then do some work and figure out we are actually entitled to get those needs met, it can cause a disconnect. The person we are with may not be able to meet out newly discovered and defined needs, or they may not be aware our needs and wants have changed.

    It’s very easy at that time to start finger pointing and blaming. You should step up, you should do this or that or the next thing. What we need to remember is that we are the ones who have changed the rules. Our wants and needs have changed, often without consulting or considering our partner. We have contributed to the disconnect. Does this mean it’s our fault? Should we have not grown? Not discovered we want more out of life than we previously imagined we were entitled to?

    Not at all. We just need to be aware that this is not the fault of our partner. It’s not them failing us, it’s a shift in the dynamics of the relationship that is no longer sustainable.

    How do we elegantly manage the transition? How much should we try to bridge the gap? At what point do we accept the gap is too big and we need to leave the relationship?

    There is no singular answer to that, and I would strongly recommend getting some professional help to work through these questions. It’s some of the most rewarding work I do with clients. Sometimes the outcomes surprise us, the couple work on their own issues and find ways to reconnect. They come out the other side stronger as individuals and more united as a couple. Sometimes we work on an exit strategy, find ways to elegantly and kindly end the relationship.

    The question of ‘Is it time to leave?’ is a hard one. It’s not something I recommend deciding without talking it through with a professional. It’s not something to decide after a fight or betrayal. It’s a decision that needs to be carefully weighed, a strategy put in place to make a graceful exit.

    To make a time to talk through your relationship queries, you can email me on [email protected] or get in touch with a local therapist you feel comfortable with.

  • When Being Kind Ends Up Being Unkind

    When Being Kind Ends Up Being Unkind

    My darling and I are generally very easy-going people. Accommodating, understanding that sometimes life gets in the way and people make mistakes. Until we’re not. There is very little space between us being accommodating and then deciding the person we are dealing with is just taking the mickey.

    It’s been an on-going issue for years. When I look over my interactions with people, so often my response to them not following through or doing what they said they would is ‘No worries’. I mean it, I am not worried, I get life happens and things get challenging at times.

    I have also begun to realise this sets up a series of expectations around what I will accept. If I am not bothered by being let down once, I am then often relegated to the bottom of people’s priority list. When there are competing demands, my wants or needs will be pushed down the list for someone who is less kind, more vocal, and who makes disappointing them more unpleasant.

    My ‘no worries’ has a limited life span. This is something I fail to point out to people, when I generously throw around absolution for letting me down or not showing up. My ‘no worries’ sends a false message of accommodation that leads people to feel secure in my never-ending approbation and understanding.

    People are often shocked or hurt when I decide I have had enough and end the interaction, or stop being accommodating. They are surprised when I suddenly ‘am worried’ and hold them to account. They can often end up blaming me for this turn of events, and feel I am being unreasonable. Expecting them to follow through on what they have promised becomes something I have no right to expect, because I have taught them I will accept less than that.

    So, whose fault is that? Theirs for being flaky? Or mine for allowing them to believe I was going to accept flakiness forever?

    I have to believe it is mine. I set the tone, I lowered their expectations of what I would tolerate, my kindness was misinterpreted.

    Or does it go deeper than that? Are there some issues around entitlement that I need to unpack? Do I feel I deserve less than others?

    I think for a long time this was the case. I tolerated less, because I felt deserving of less. My sense of entitlement has shifted, but my go to responses to people who let me down have not. I am telling people it is ok to not perform, when actually I have an expectation they will, and it damages my regard of them when they don’t.

    My seeming kindness is actually unkind, to myself and to those around me. I short-change myself and set others up to damage their relationships with me, sometimes to the point of no return. I am unwittingly setting people up to fail. When I tell a client it’s fine they forgot to pay me, or tell the landlord it’s ok they haven’t done the repairs they said they would, I am telling people they can walk all over me. I am telling them, I don’t value me or my time, the implicit message in that is they shouldn’t value me or my time either.

    This can happen in our couple relationships. We let things go and let things go and then suddenly explode over a seemingly trivial matter. Keeping ourselves in balance sometimes means speaking up before we lose our shit! Being able to set a boundary when we are calm and centred is far more effective than losing it. The repair job takes up precious energy we could be spending on enjoying each other.

    What messages are you sending with your kindness and generosity?

    Is your kindness really kind? Or is it a fear of setting a much needed boundary?

  • When You’re All Out of Love

    When You’re All Out of Love

    This was a rough week in relationship world. I had a falling out with my husband. Notice the wording there – I had a falling out with my husband. As far as he was concerned, life was and should be fine. Something quite innocently thoughtless on his behalf ripped open a deep wound in me. It was a wound I thought I had healed reasonably well, but with the right triggers it became a gaping, festering wound in the space of a few hours. I wasn’t expecting to be wounded so easily,or for the pain to strike so deeply.

    My response was to retreat into being a bitch. I was grumpy, sullen, and obnoxious. My husband became my ‘bitch eating crackers’. It was amazing how the little things I usually gloss over as unimportant became huge faults and wrongdoings. Him leaving his wet towel on the bed resulted in me telling him to go and put it in the wash, the way he did the most simple things became a source of annoyance and disappointment. I was all out of love. The wound had sucked it out and its place was filling with disdain and disappointment.

    It shocked me how quickly I could go from being so in love with this man, to being so out of love. It reminded me of conversations I have with girlfriends when they have lost the loving feeling and their marriages have become chores and a source of stress. My hunny and I usually manage to avoid this cesspit of disappointment. Now I found that even with all of the work we have done, the safeguards we have in place; opening up a source of pain can quickly lead down paths that make you question your entire marriage and your regard for your formerly loved one.

    After 3 days of hating myself and my husband, I finally came clean with what the problem was. I asked him to listen to me and not to respond right away. I was too raw to deal with an argument or justifications and the topic was too painful for us to have a rational conversation immediately. He was able to hear me and just listen. He was unhappy, I could tell he felt parts of what I was saying were unfair, and possibly they were, but they were the festering sores I carry in the wound.

    It took courage to expose my deep fears, I worried about him rejecting what I had to say outright, or denying it, or trying to blame it on me. These were all things I had experienced in previous relationships, the gaslighting of making their failings mine. His response is why I love him and rarely am ‘all out of love’. As the day progressed, there was a thawing, when he came and hugged me and held me tight, I felt the love slowly seeping back.

    My innate response to these kinds of bumps in the road is to catastrophise, to want to run away, to shut off my feelings and leave. It’s easier to walk away than to deal with the painful feelings. I am a master at cutting people out of my life and walking away. It is my first response and one I battle each time my husband and I disconnect.

    We have spent the last couple of days being gentler and kinder to each other. We still have a way to go before we can address the wound and add another layer of salve to a wound that will probably be with me for life. This morning my husband responded in a negative way to a request for help. It brought up all the feelings of fear and rejection I had been experiencing throughout the week. One moment of him expressing annoyance at asking him for help with something he felt was trivial hurt me to the point of tears. It was then I realised that after having been ‘all out of love’ the reservoir of good will, security, and safety I felt in our relationship was low. Usually I would know this was just his way of dealing with what he felt was a demand when he was feeling stressed, not an indication he didn’t want to be married or no longer loved me. Being ‘out of love’ doesn’t just mean being out of love with our partner, it also means being unable to feel love from them.

    How many of you are ‘all out of love’ at the moment? How many are running on the fumes of goodwill and love?