Dealing With Emotions

Originally posted December 22, 2009

Maybe one of the reasons I dated/married men all these years was because they don't deal with emotions the same way women do. Women HAVE emotions. Women FEEL emotions. We can even get lost in emotions. Men, on the other hand, deal with emotions as little as possible. They tend to look at emotions logically, or ignore them altogether.

I totally realize I'm generalizing here, and I don't intend for this to mean EVERY woman is open about her emotions, or that EVERY man is logical. Those that I have had in my life have fit this pattern...and I know that I choose people based on whatever it is that I need at that time. I have specifically chosen men that remind me of my father. My first husband was uncompromising, irrational, "manly", and fun. My second husband sleep-walked through life, was hilarious, gentle, and warm. All of the above are traits one will find are very strong in my father. Right before I left my second husband, we were reading a book with the intention of "saving" our marriage, and we learned all about imago and the kind of partner you choose to fulfill your needs...and both of my husbands fit that pattern to a T. I needed them in my life. Not just MEN, but THOSE men, in particular. And of course, the women I have chosen to have in my life tend to remind me of my mother (it pains me terribly to say that, and I'm going to choose not to dwell on specific characteristics like I did my father/husbands...I'm only willing to go so far with my acceptance of this phenomenon at this point in my life...but suffice it to say, I do understand that my mother is a factor in my choice of women).

Now I need to really reel myself back in. I just spent a ridiculous amount of time explaining myself, and totally got off my point...but whatever.

My POINT was, dealing with emotions. This is something I'm not used to. I'm used to the men in my life (the ones I chose specifically because they had traits like my father, who sleep-walked his way through life, not paying attention to the fact that my mother was abusing me, etc...so yeah, no dealing with emotions there). My second husband has a very well developed method for avoiding emotion in real life. He ACTS like he's dealing with emotion - and he is a fabulous actor. He should really be in Hollywood, he's that good. He had my ass convinced for 8 years that he wasn't shying away from emotion.

So this idea of actually dealing with emotions - not just pretending, not being ignored or put on the back burner - is an entirely new concept for me. It's hard to get used to, and I've already noticed some major issues that I have with it. When my emotions are acceptable, and I'm safe to express them...I tend to go into shock. All my fears of abandonment come racing to the surface, and I start feeling the need to protect myself. After all, ANY emotion I had, as a child, was absolutely unacceptable. Once I started expressing emotion, people left, or hurt me, or threatened to leave, or withdrew inside themselves, etc. No one ever dealt with REAL emotions when I was a child. And my whole life, until the last couple years or so, I have surrounded myself with people who followed this same pattern.

Oh no...I'm starting to get off on another topic...but one that's WELL worth another blog. I hope I remember to complete that thought another time.

At any rate, the idea that I am now choosing to spend my life with people (women in particular) who don't run from emotion, and who encourage the raw, frightening, vulnerability of truly expressing whatever I'm going through (and whatever she is going through as well) is still new to me. I'm having some trouble finding my equilibrium here.

This is actually where I'm at in my relationship. I noticed that over the last couple weeks or so, my emotions were intense, and not in a positive way. I was getting more and more dissolutioned with myself, my relationship, and most especially with the reasons for my emotions. It got downright frightening the other night when I was visiting my girlfriend, and my state of mind just went all kinds of wrong. I ended up leaving nearly in tears simply because she had set a very reasonable boundary. She informed me the next day that I was starting to raise my voice at her (which I NEVER do...I raised my voice at my ex husband ONCE in 8 years). About a half hour after I left, it hit me full-force: I was acting codependent!

Oh my...I've done so much work, HARD work, to escape codependency. I'm well aware that it never truly, completely goes away, and that one must remain diligent...and this was a glaring reminder of that. I just hadn't expected it to crop up so immediately, so suddenly, and after we have only been together just over a month (we have known each other right around 2 months). This was a HUGE signal for me that I need to step back, do some intense self care, and refocus my attention on my emotional health. I need to keep my words on my side of the fence, and quit worrying about whether she's meeting my needs. I KNOW that she's doing her best, and that if her love isn't enough as it is, it's my responsibility to ask for what I need...not her responsibility to provide it. But man...it's so easy to slip into that comfort zone of codependency when I'm actually FEELING my emotions. It's scary shit! I can't believe how terrified I am/was that she would leave me if I acted like myself, my TRUE self, my broken, damaged, emotional, sensitive, survivor self, who only one person in my whole life has ever truly seen.

I told her I was going to step back for a couple days, do some personal work, and come back to her with some new information, a new perspective, and a commitment to avoid ever treating her that way again (of course, I understand I'm human and may mess up again in the future...but I'm determined to avoid a repeat of this particular circumstance, if I possibly can...and I think that if I truly do the work I need to do, I will be able to avoid this again). I've been working like a dog these last two days, so tomorrow I will be sitting down and busting out all this emotional, heavy work, and figuring out how to not ever do this again. My goal here is to figure out how to be my authentic self (broken pieces and all) without putting my shit on her side of the fence.

I love this journey. Every fucking second of it. Every painful, emotional, beautiful, magickal second of it. "I want to taste it all"! ~Gaia Consort