Good morning.
As I sit in bed with a delicious coffee brought to me by DH, I am anticipating a cosy day indoors with the fire on and the weather blowing a gale and bucketing down outside. I will venture out at 12.45 for a shiatsu session, but apart from that I am hunkering down for the predicted storm and enjoying doing absolutely nothing scheduled. My vertigo has all but gone (slowly better from Wednesday) and my mental/emotional state has much improved as a result. I still have the lingering cold, so I will forgo the pump class again, because I really want to be better by Monday and not set myself back.
This week with my therapist I discussed a feeling of disengagement, or lack of intimacy, with DH. It wasn’t until three quarters of the way through the session that I been realised I was feeling this way, and nor was he even the current topic of conversation, so it came as somewhat of a surprise. But I realised that over the past 6 weeks, throughout the pregnancy (which I faced alone for the best part of a week, shielding him) and the miscarriage (which he was away for, for the most part) and the two bouts of vertigo, coupled with colds, we have both been, in some way, retreating into ourselves. Or maybe he’s just been moving away from me. Or maybe he hasn’t but that’s what it’s felt like. So that night at dinner I struck up a conversation about how we were feeling about our loss, my illnesses, how much time we were spending together, how we felt about the upcoming IVF cycle and the possibility of it working, or not working, and what either scenario brought with it.
And the discussion was easy. Smooth. I felt connected, heard, safe, trusted. I am so grateful, not for the first time, that I am in a relationship where important issues are recognised and raised early, before they become major issues, entrenched in bitterness and resentment. Sometimes I see them and raise them, and sometimes he does. It feels even, equal. I don’t feel like I am carrying the whole relationship, nor being carried. Whoever has the insight and the strength of the moment pitches in. And even more than that, it is comforting to know that I am safe in this relationship, safe to be who I am, to put my needs forward (even if they can’t always be met) and to know that I am worthy of respect and love, without judgement.
We decided to spend the upcoming weekend together, and knocked back an invitation to drinks at a friend’s place on Saturday, been thought they had been wanting to catch up with us for over a month. We also declined FIL a visit (specifically DH did, when FIL phoned yesterday to ask if he could come for the weekend. ‘That was awkward’ DH told me when he finished the conversation- we are both practicing saying no and it doesn’t come especially easily), and I was open with my friend-whose-marriage-is-currently-rocky and phoned to schedule a visit next weekend, that I was feeling exhausted and unable to give much emotionally and the near future would not be a good time for her to come with her two young (and very needy) sons. I am usually irritated with other people’s children and their neediness and distractions that take away from my engagement with my friends, but this feeling is magnified a thousandfold when I am ill. She said that she completely understood, and that the child distraction was also irritating to her, as the mother! It felt great to be able to be so honest without being prickly or defensive. This must be what gently feels like.
This week I was introduced to a couple of T.E.D.. talks which I will share here with you. The first discusses ‘the key to connection’, while the second examines more deeply ‘the price of invulnerability’. The topics are pertinent to me, as these notions are at the root of what I have been working on in therapy for a couple of years now. [If ever there was a situation that laid waste to your feelings of connection with society, IF would be right up there- and how vulnerable are we allowed to be about our response to IF? Our culture doesn’t exactly embrace disclosure of uncomfortable feelings around this issue]. Brene Brown lays it all out in an easy-to-follow-fashion, making sense of a complex emotional subject in a rational way, with humour thrown in. Very accessible. I will be interested to hear your responses.
Thanks for all your support. As always, it is incredibly important to me. A vital part of me being able to feel connected, in fact. For which I have the deepest gratitude.
3 Responses to On the mend- with a little help from my friends