Responses to FB comments.

Around 2am this morning, I posted this status:
If I'm still hurt that he won't even apologize, does that mean I haven't really forgiven him?

Below are select comments I got from a few friends. I found I had a lot to say in response, so I thought I'd turn it into a blog and still respond directly to each comment. Don't know if any of them will ask for this blog address to read my responses, and I'm ok with that. But these cover a pretty good spectrum that I feel it fitting to dedicate an entry to them.



"Maybe I'm just too lax or insensitive or whatever, but I never really understand what's the big deal with all these inter-personal relationship issues. I mean, at the end of the day, you're not starving in Africa. You have no terminal illness. You've got all your limbs. Your face was never disfigured in some fire or freak accident. Life has been pretty good to you. I feel like Yubo playing video games or you feeling emotionally discontent in some manner, as far as problems go, just isn't all that bad. It's not like he's cheating on you, a raging alcoholic, or actively participating in domestic violence. On the contrary, I get the impression that he cares about you a lot, but no one on this planet can give you everything that you need and want. Personally, when I get home from an evening of obligatory labor, I really want to be able to do whatever I want to be doing with the remainder of the time I've got left because I know what awaits me is yet another day of mindless and arduous labor. The last thing I want to do is something I don't want to do."


I tend to feel that we were created for relationships. Not only romantic relationships, but any and all relationships. And that is why I think relationships are much more important than many people make them out to be. We are not meant to be alone in this world. So the big deal is that a bad relationship leaves you alone. I would be fine to have a terminal illness, missing limbs, and/or disfigurement, as long as I wasn't alone. And if we want to get technical, my scoliosis is a disfigurement. My scars from scratches and cuts and accidents. But I have family and friends and Yubo and God. The relationships in my life are the blessings that keep me going. And with Yubo being my second most important relationship in my life, of course I'm strongly affected when something is wrong. Otherwise, God would have called me to live as Paul did, celibate and romantically single, but still having relationships with people. And even in that case, I would be burdened by a friendship that wasn't working out well. The way I see life, it all comes back to relationships.


If going off of what my friend ended with, how can I not be hurt or make a big deal if the one thing that the man I love wants to do when he gets home from a long day at work is NOT be with me?

One of my greatest frustrations stems from knowing how good we've been, how great we can be, and how amazing we're going to be. So when we're in a slump and it's looking like he doesn't want to get out of it (or at most, get us up to satisfactory), then I'm frustrated with the thought that he doesn't care enough about us to get us to that amazing that I know we have. Understand, though, that this is one of my filters. I have no proof that he "doesn't care enough about us to get us to that amazing" stage. And I know that I'm impatient, and not good at pacing myself (which he is good at). But when we live in a way that disconnects us from our relationship (that feeling that we're roommates instead of married), I get no balance from his way of doing things. Instead, I just get irritated.




"...when its Us time and he refuses to put down the damn DS after having played the same game for about 6 hours before I came home.. then yeah, I have a problem. I usually try to distract myself with whatever movie we're watching or maybe another crochet project because quite frankly, at this point, I feel it is an absolute waste of time to get upset over it.... again. Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt but after a little while, it just hurts less and less."


I have my things that I do all day. While he's working, I'm at school. And I practice guitar and do homework and work on church stuff and watch anime and play with the cats and knit and crochet. At the end of my day that has been filled with everything I can do without him, there's nothing more I can distract myself with when all I want is to be with him.


And I don't want it to hurt less and less. If it does, then something is wrong. Then it means I don't care anymore whether or not I can actually be with the one I love.




"Some of the things your friends have to say are pretty good.Here's my summary with my own twist. 1. You can forgive someone but still be left feeling hurt. I think you know it's forgiveness when in spite of feeling hurt you don't carry a grudge or harbor resentment. This is a subtle thing to pay attention to and only you can know, it is most clearly seen in those moments when you could do something to annoy the other person, and either choose not to, or choose to take a subtle stab. Another indication can be if you are talking to them, and feel the need to spin off into a narrative about how they hurt you to make them feel bad. This also would not be forgiveness 2. I'd like to rephrase what Andy said for my own liking. When a person feels hurt, sometimes they get tunnel vision. They look at the thing in life that's causing pain, and are forgetting to be grateful for all the wonderful blessings in the periphery. This is a kind of distortion of the big picture, and it happens to all of us at times. 3. It's perfectly reasonable to ask someone your married to, to set aside quality time where they are not focused on doing anything other than just being with you/ doing something with you. If they aren't engaged in the activity, then there are times that finding out what THEY would like to do with you during the quality time would be of value. Finally, it's pretty important to find something you're passionate about that you enjoy doing for it's own sake. "Having your own life" This makes it easier to adjust a change in plans if something doesn't work out that you'd planned, but you have a different thing you could do that you actually do look forward to doing. Hope that helps!"


I already pretty much responded to the "having your own life" thing above. Basketball was my choice for what to do that he likes, but due to crazy schedules, has fallen by the wayside at the moment. Honestly, the only other thing he would want to do is game. And even if I tried to start playing a game with him, it would be just like basketball. Once I'm done, he'll continue on at his pace. So for a game, he'd stay slow and put up with being killed several times and having to revive me several times and putting up with missed and failed quests because I'm not good enough, and then redeem all that time for himself by staying up longer to play with his friends that actually know what they're doing. Then I would feel that the only times he'd actually let me play a game with him is just to humor and placate me.


This may sound like I'm painting a bad picture of him, but if you really pay attention, it's me that's looking ugly. Because as wonderful as he is to me, there's not much he can do to show me that he actually enjoys being with me. It's a change I have to make in myself, and that I am very aware of. I still have a very low view of myself, and even the slightest dismissal from him just confirms my view 10 times over. I know how wrong that kind of thinking is. Trust me, this is far from the lowest state of self-destruction I've been. Unfortunately, negativity still is more powerful to me than positivity, because that's the energy I've been working with for at least 25 years of my life.


So let's see where Yubo and I are in another 25 years when we're celebrating our 27th anniversary -- and yes, I do believe we will be celebrating anniversaries until we die.... or until Jesus comes back, whichever happens first.

Treating Symptoms.

May 4-6 was our church retreat. It was an amazing weekend, and so much more than we (the planning team) could have hoped for.

By the end of the retreat, I was faced with something that I've struggled with for so long: forgiveness. Or rather, my lack of forgiveness.

I can't remember if I wrote about this before, but during one of our moments of tension in which he apologized, I told him that although I acknowledged his apology, I could not say I forgave him and mean it.

for·give

verb \fər-ˈgiv, fȯr-\

 

transitive verb

1a : to give up resentment of or claim to requital for <forgive an insult> b : to grant relief from payment of <forgive a debt>

2 : to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) : pardon <forgive one's enemies>

 

 

I couldn't do it. I would still hold things over his head. I would still think about times when he didn't actually apologize, and feel like he still owed me one.

 

Well, at the end of that retreat, by the grace and power of God, I forgave him. Truly forgave him for everything in the past that I still held him to.

 

It was a good breakthrough for me, and I left that weekend feeling energized and excited.

 

 

Well, that didn't last long.

 

That next Monday, we fought. Now, we don't scream at each other, we don't get violent, and we don't really do a lot that most people might do in what they would call a "fight." I was just talking to him (nagging, really, but in a not obviously nagging way), and he shut down hard. And I ended up leaving the house just as I had when I caught him smoking back in February. I sat in the car at the park and cried. Still feeling the bond I created with the planning team at the retreat, I emailed them for help and prayer. Called one of them after driving over to Shari's for dinner; the time had calmed me down, and talking and praying with her helped further. I got home about 2 hours after leaving, and I apologized for lashing out, and forgave him for the same. Then after he went to bed, I ended up on the phone with P.Keith for a bit for more advice and guidance before finally going to bed myself.

 

I was scared, because we usually recover from fights fairly quickly, and yet he was still very upset the entire day Tuesday. The tension remained until Wednesday, until I asked him if we could make up. It was a nice reminder that we do still love each other, and can still come together to enjoy each other amongst all the frustrations.

 

We met with P.Keith together that Saturday, and left with the tension almost back up to full power. But as P.Keith suggested, we started reading Mark together and praying every night, even if it's just the Lord's prayer. Although that has helped a bit, we haven't talked about things as I would like.

 

The latest incident is what sparks this entry.

 

Yesterday (Sunday), I caved in and let Yubo get Diablo III. As with every time he got a new game, I asked if he would not spend too long on it since we both had to wake up early today, and he said he wouldn't. And what happened? He spent too long playing. And he tried to finish up his night as if nothing happened and I wasn't bothered.

 

In light of what happened at the retreat, and with the understanding that forgiveness isn't a one-time deal for us humans toward each other, I had a question. The question was not meant to come off as emotionally charged; it really was just something that I was simply wondering. I posted in on FB, but with it following the previous status about worrying about Yubo playing Diablo III, I understand that my friends took it that way. More on that in the next entry.

 

Basically, though, I asked: If I'm still hurt that he won't even apologize, does that mean I haven't really forgiven him?

 

I just wanted to know if it counted as forgiveness if I didn't hold resentment but still felt hurt by the event. I could forgive him and not feel like he owed me an apology or anything, but I was still hurt that he didn't feel the need to apologize. Because I wanted to make sure that I was really forgiving him as I wanted to.

 

I asked him if we could at least talk today about what happened last night, and he agreed.

 

And we finally get to my title: treating symptoms.

 

Everything I focus on has been a symptom rather than what's actually causing things.... the virus, if you will. My vision is filled with his gaming, his smoking, the messy house, not spending time together, not having sex often enough, that I nag, that I'm trying to force him into a schedule, and other obvious surface things like that. Nothing or not enough about why. Just that it's happening and it should stop.

 

We both know that what happened on the 7th had nothing to do with what it seemed like on the surface (the fight was outwardly about going to play basketball and limiting his time). But we focused on it because we didn't know how to or didn't want to dig deeper to find the real issue.

 

The first thing we're trying to do, though, is to not resort to our usual tactics when facing and dealing with conflict.

 

When meeting with P.Keith, we were able to verbalize our tactics in this way:

• Yubo shuts down, and what he thinks he gets by shutting down is peace.
• I run, and what I think I get by running is giving the other person peace.

And we know that it doesn't work like that. It doesn't really bring us peace, and instead, has hurt us both rather severely because of how long we've been doing this.

So we're hoping that as we stop shutting down and running away, we'll be able to focus that energy we would have used to instead find and work on the actual issues.

Reading Mark and praying is helping us to finally bring God into our relationship, and the goal is to finally let Him rule like He's supposed to. And that's our first and most important step.