My personal commitment, that came out of my four day somatics intensive a couple of weeks ago, is to cultivate relationships based on mutual care, consideration, and intimacy. Not long after the intensive, my relationship completely disintegrated in what seemed like the blink of an eye, and without any involvement on my end in the process that led to the actual break-up. I am experiencing a lot of thoughts and emotions around this. Mostly a deep sadness around how little my ex-partner shared with me about what he was going through. This is not to demonize him or to make him into the bad guy, but rather just to say that it broke my heart that he had a process that did not involve me at all. Apparently, that is what he needed. People hurt others in their process of saving themselves all the time.
And. I am a commitment to cultivating relationships based on mutual care, consideration, and intimacy. And I was in a relationship in which I had not felt cared for, considered, or intimate with for way too long for comfort. And he was not hearing me when I said these things. And I was not hearing him when he asked for what he needed. Both of us were so determined to protect ourselves and our needs that we could not care for the needs of the other anymore.
I guess what is hard is that I thought we were in the kind of relationship in which we would have worked through that. I thought that one day we'd look back and say, "Remember that time? How we hurt each other and were struggling so hard? Remember what we did to get through it? Remember how much stronger we came out?" And he decided to leave. He was in a different relationship than I was in.
So now, it's the lease and the credit cards and the joint savings account and the visits to our old home, when he is not there, to pick up enough clothes to get by until I can stomach going in there to clear everything of mine out. It's not ever having had a chance to say goodbye to the dog, who has been at work with him every day that I've popped in to get things. It's the people I considered mutual friends, who don't look me in the face or acknowledge my pain. And it's the people he is friends with, who I never knew and who often acted like I was invisible or unworthy anyway, who . . . argh. I won't get into that right now. It's a lot of shitty things. It's a lot of pain, more pain than I knew I could feel. And such extreme disappointment and sadness.
And also, it's an opening. A chance to fulfill my commitment. Because I am a commitment to cultivating relationships based on mutual care, consideration, and intimacy. And that's what I'm doing, from here on out.
awesome post
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