Things in my personal life have been challenging in all sorts of ways lately. That's been more visible on Facebook than here. However, as there was a suggestion in the comments that my husband and I are splitting up it felt appropriate to tackle that.
Tom and I have been married for twelve years at this point, and we've been co-creators for much longer. We got together thanks to a publishing house many years ago, and through interest in each other's work became friends and started working together. Everything else flowed from there.
Long term relationships are bound to be complicated. People grow and change, their needs change, what they want changes. This is good, healthy and to be expected. It means that a committed long term relationship shifts and evolves and sometimes that can be bumpy. We've had more than our share of challenges, not least because both of us are dealing with trauma legacies and sometimes we have to fight through triggers and anxiety to communicate with each other. Sometimes we don't do so well with that, but we're still together and figuring things out.
What happened this week is that Tom made the bold decision to be more open about his mental health. This is an ongoing thing and not a new problem. I'm aware that having been open about my issues for years, we might look like a very unbalanced pair where he's all strong and well and capable and I'm a gibbering wreck. In practice, we're fairly well matched on that front, although of the two of us, I'm better at talking about it. We muddle along as best we can, try to look after each other and try to get on top of our issues.
Tom and I are very different in some critically important ways. We don't have tidily aligned needs, for a start. Working out what it is that each of us needs and how best to deal with that is a work in progress. Our people-needs are very different, around how we both function socially, what kinds of relationships we thrive in and what kinds of interactions we need with other people. As a consequence we have some people in our lives we're both heavily invested in and some people we interact with in much more individual ways.
As it happens, this week found Tom in a situation and needing support and care. I've piled in to do what I can. Other people who are essential to Tom have also piled in. People who needed to know we are ok have been in touch and we're talking more precisely with people who genuinely need to know what's happening.
Love is a choice. Love is how we treat each other if we make that choice. Love is what we might choose to do together and how we might relate to each other in any of our relationships, human and not-human. Wherever possible, I will choose to act with love. Sometimes, when dealing with people who don't operate on those terms, acting with love towards them is a choice that might hurt someone else. Sometimes you have to prioritise, and its been that way this week. Tom and I continue to choose to treat each other with love, as best we can. We're both very glad of the people who bring love and support into our lives. We're focusing on where the love is in our lives and the people we can build a future with.
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