The Truth Will Set You Free
This is The Letter, something Glen and I share with our mailing list each month. Sometimes it's a story, sometimes a teaching, sometimes a piece of the book. This month's is mine.
For as honest a person as I think I am, there's a way that speaking my truth feels terrifying in relationship. Call it codependence, call it trauma, call it fear. Either way, there's a challenge to voicing my feelings and opinions that interferes with the intimacy I crave in my marriage with Glen.
Yet I've seen in my past relationships, and in every couple I work with, that truth is the only path to freedom, individually and relationally. If we don't talk about what's actually going on beneath the surface, deeper than the obvious points of contention, we'll never be able to heal. We'll keep repeating the same patterns that keep us stuck.
For me, my truth has been scary because it feels like it threatens the security of my relationship. I'm a free bird, and lately I've been feeling trapped. Regardless of Glen's intentions, which are always for me to be happy, or his actions, I've felt weighed down by unspoken expectations, by the cultural conditioning of what it means to be a good partner and a good wife.
I find myself fantasizing about the days I was single, telling myself it's because I don't want the burden of a relationship. Which may, on some level, be true. But if I dig deeper, what I actually long for is the feeling of freedom I had cultivated for myself.
Freedom is much easier to create when it's just you. Creating that inside a partnership is some advanced-level work. To battle feelings of selfishness and guilt for choosing yourself.
The other truth that's been harder to name is my need for more prioritization of our bond over our business. That one feels trickier, somehow. It brings up feelings of neediness, and consequently, feelings of abandonment if those needs go unmet.
Not to mention the seeming contradiction of wanting freedom and closeness at the same time. I debate it within myself, the logical parts and the emotional parts, both making damn good arguments for their side. But it's not that black and white. Both sides are needed. Both needs are valid, not one over the other.
What I've found lately is a different kind of freedom, the kind that comes from speaking the truth even in the confusion. Instead of waiting for complete clarity before letting someone in, saying out loud: I don't know. I'm confused. I'm scared. I feel lost. Not to blame or shame or get attention, but so my partner can be in my world with me. So he knows the truth of my experience in that moment.
Because how else can we navigate this together, as partners on the same team, if he doesn't know my capacity or my concerns? So I've been lovingly challenging myself to speak up more. To ask for the time and space to be heard, not just to be understood, but to feel less alone in my relationship. To give Glen the opportunity to be my missing experience, to feel like someone cares, that I matter.
Sometimes we need to start with the smaller truths, to give our nervous system the experience of sharing and being received. To build the safety and trust before we can reveal the bigger ones.
Glen and I have had some conversations recently that reached under the surface and uncovered the things we'd both been withholding. Similar fears, different approaches to soothing them, different strategies to keep ourselves safe. Underneath it all, we're afraid we won't be accepted fully as the flawed humans we are, and will be left, alone, again.
But every time we air those scary thoughts with each other, surrounded by love and tenderness and compassion, there's more levity and spaciousness in our connection. We feel closer. Our hearts soften. Empathy grows. And there's a renewed faith in who we are, because we remember who we are to each other.
In the end, we made a commitment to choose us. And that means in the ups and the downs.
With love and magic,
Natalie
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