Couples’ therapy shook up my life. Well, I started the process of shaking up my life when I made the poor decisions that led us to couples’ therapy. Deep down, I had always kind of known that I needed some help unpacking all of my emotional baggage. I even remember telling my husband that I was afraid to go to therapy by myself. I was afraid feeling and acknowledging all the crap below the surface that I tried so hard to suppress. I was afraid that the therapist would “judge” me, and agree that I needed therapy.
I cried in almost every session. It did not even take much to start the waterworks. My deep seeded fears and trauma and insecurities and frustrations were bulging out of the box I tried to stuff them into, and it was going to burst.
I think this was the first time I realized the power of unspoken words. The things I wanted to say or knew to be true but didn’t acknowledge created a dam in a creek effect. Not only did those words and ideas not come out, but it prevented the good stuff from coming downstream as well. I wasn’t able to grow. I wasn’t able to nurture myself or my inner child. I wasn’t able to honor that little girl inside of me that still felt so much pain and loneliness and fear.
One of the best tools I learned from therapy was being able to slow down, identify inner dialogue and feelings, and communicate those to my husband. So many of our issues in the past were caused by me being triggered by my husbands words or actions and assuming intent. I would take that bitterness and internalized hurt and I started to feel resentful. I felt justified in my resent, because my mind told me that he was deliberately hurting me. But I never stopped to ask him his truth.
Shortly after we started therapy, I brought in some flowers that I picked from our yard. As a bug crawled out from the flowers and flew into the house, I squealed “oh no! A bug got in!” I don’t remember his exact words, but I remembered feeling terrible as he said them. I felt sad, hurt, and shut down. But you know what he said to me? Something along the lines of, “What kind of bug?”
As I sat in my hurt, I tried to break down what I was feeling. When I was finally ready to talk, I approached him and told him what happens in my head sometimes. When he asked, “what kind of bug?”, I heard:
“You idiot. Why the hell would you let a bug in? Now it’s just flying around in here? How could you have been so stupid to let a bug in? You didn’t even look? Try paying attention next time. This is your fault.”
The look of shock on his face was priceless. He hadn’t intended any of those words at all. He hadn’t intended any of that unkindness, and he almost looked hurt that I so readily attributed those thoughts to him.
If I never told him what I heard in my head versus his actual words, I would have just continued the cycle of resentment. I would have made myself miserable. I would have been angry with him for “thinking” that I was stupid or reckless when I knew that I wasn’t. We still have work to do, as all relationships do. Sometimes I still need to talk out my inner dialogue with him so he can understand better understand me. But I am so grateful for a broken dam that allows the creek to flow again.
Lunar Lilies 