I needed a translater last night...

I know that I have *conditioned* the hus to respond to me the way he does. I have never been the type of person who wanted to be "held" or "comforted"...I don't like to *cuddle* by the fireplace or curl up on a couch together and watch a movie. I don’t like walk together holding hands and admiring a sunset…It’s just never felt right for me. The hus used to be like that…a long, long time ago…*affectionate*. I didn’t like it. Eventually he realized I wouldn’t respond to him by returning the affection so he stopped trying.

I remember years ago a friend of mine wanted to get married and her BF did not. They were in counseling together and the therapist told them not to see each other, or speak to each other, for 1 month. And after that month they would return to the therapist and each other and decide their future. I’m generalizing this story and making it much simpler then the reality of what that month was like for them, but they followed the therapist’s advice and didn’t see or speak to each other for 1 month.

The month ended on a weekend they were to go out of town for a mutual friend’s wedding and when she was telling me about the weekend, and seeing her BF again, she said, “It was so wonderful.” *insert dreamy/romantic voice tone here* “It was such a romantic coming back together for the BF and me.” And I smiled with her, and shared her joy of seeing her BF again as she told me how much she missed him and that she loved him, and even if they did not get married, she still wanted to be with him. It was like Herald and Maude!  In my cynical head, I was wondering if there were doves cooing on the roof of their little romantic cottage. Less than a year later they broke up. That’s not the point of this story, but cynical, unromantic Grace had to throw that part in… The point of sharing the story of my friend’s relationship hiatus and following reunion is this: As she was telling me about her romantic weekend with BF at this quaint little cottage where their friends tied the knot; it sounded like a fairy tale! And I was trying to imagine what she was saying, and incorporate her words of romanticism inside my trauma brain in a way I could maybe feel some of what she was telling me. And I couldn’t. I didn’t feel anything at all.

My crazybrain is wired wrong…I don’t believe in love, and fairy tales, and romanticism. I never have. Sometimes I wonder if you can really miss something you have never known… After last night’s conversation with my friend of what it must be like to be held safely, I thought I would try it. It was the middle of the night here when I went upstairs to bed.  And I laid down next to the hus and asked him to hold me. It didn’t really work out well. I don’t think he believed me that I just wanted him to hold me. But that was really all I wanted. Someone to hold me but not f**k me.  Somehow my forgoing the fortress building and saying, "Will you hold me" must have have somehow sounded like, "Will you f**k me." to him.