Moving Forward by Taking a Step Back

Sometimes a sign of trouble in paradise is really just a
speed bump reminding you to slow down and enjoy the ride. ~Me

Yesterday Matthew and I reached a breaking point.

He'd called me like he does every morning so I can talk him through the drive home from work. He works nights and is often fairly exhausted by the time he gets off around 8:30am, so talking gives him something to focus on so he doesn't nod off while driving.

That call, like most conversations we've had the last few weeks ended up in an argument. It was silly and stupid and over nothing of any importance, which is why it was so upsetting to me. After ten minutes of trying to steer the conversation back to calmer ground I gave in and hung up on him. Sitting at my desk, crying, I realized that the time may have come to make a decision I'd been dreading for weeks, the decision that we really were just not meant to be together, that being in a relationship was killing the beautiful friendship we used to have.

I sent him a text and asked him to please not go to bed yet, that as soon as I finished up some work I was coming home. We needed to talk. He said OK. My boss had stepped out of the office so I dropped him a quick e-mail saying I had an emergency at home and had to go. Not entirely true, but not completely false either. The rest of my life was about to change and that seemed pretty important to me.

During my drive home I thought of all the things Matthew had brought to my life, all the changes I'd made as a person as a result of knowing him. I thought of what it meant to be with him, and what it would mean to be without him and as bad as things had been lately the thought of not having him in my life just took my breath away.

I got home, went into our room and sat on the bed. I'd cried all the way home and was still crying once I got there. He came in and sat next to me and for the next ten minutes that's all we did. Then he pulled me into his arms and I fell apart.

Through sobs and hiccoughs, I told him that as much as I loved him and knew he loved me something had to change. I told him that I thought that it might be best if we went back to just being friends, but I was too selfish to make that decision for us. I told him that having him in my life was the best thing that had ever happened to me, but lately all we did was argue and I just couldn't live that way anymore. I told him that where we once communicated so well, now we could hardly even talk without arguing. I told him that the thought us possibly breaking up was tearing my heart in two, but the way we were going, we'd end up not even being friends and that was just not acceptable.

We talked, we argued, I cried, Matthew sighed and when it was all over we'd finally communicated in a way we'd needed to be doing for months.

He was my best friend before we started dating, and in my inexperience, I expected him to somehow become 'more' when we became a couple. I'd loved him for just who he was before we got together, but when the friendship evolved into a relationship I thought somehow he should change.

Why? I can't really say. I know I sound like a broken record but not having ever been in a normal relationship has really put me at a huge disadvantage and growing up reading Danielle Steel novels has left a very unrealistic image in my head of what a relationship should be like.

And part of the problem was, he did change. He felt that I wanted 'more' from him and it left him feeling like I didn't think he was good enough. So he expended all of his energy trying to become what he thought I wanted from him, and in doing so lost the guy I fell in love with. The more he changed, the less I liked who he was, and the less happy I was the more he tried to change to make me happy. It became a viscous circle of me not being happy, him trying to make me happy, and his changes making me less happy, leaving him feeling more and more like he just wasn't enough, and the more he changed, the more I missed the person he was when we met. This was a monster I created and I didn't even know it.

On top of that we've both been under a great deal more stress the last several weeks than we usually are and without any other type of outlet, we ended up taking it out on each other. Money has been really really tight lately and you don't have to be a genius to know that financial issues are the number one killer of relationships. Add to that taking in the stray cat has left us with not only her, tracking food and litter everywhere, which drives this OCD clean freak insane, but four rambunctious kittens peeing and pooing every where but the litter box and draining finances even more with the increased need for food, litter and cleaning supplies. To make that worse, all of the shelters, kill and no-kill are full and we've had no luck finding new homes for them, so for the indefinite future we're stuck with 5 cats. And as someone who doesn't really like cats and hates fur and litter being everywhere, I can't even begin to tell you the stress that's brought me.

Being stressed, angry, hurt and generally frustrated for so long has taken a drastic tole on our levels of communication. When we first met we would sit and talk for hours about everything under the sun. Now, aside from niceties and required conversation we rarely speak to each other. And again, the mess I mentioned before has also had a lot to do with that.

Before Matthew and I decided to date we'd already planned on him moving in as a roommate. And even though I mean roommate in the literal sense of the word, it really was just going to be two friends living together. We were just going to happen to share a bed because my extra room was already occupied. That may sound odd but he'd already stayed the night a few times - as a friend - with nothing happening but sleeping and it worked great for us.

So we already lived together when we decided to start dating. Now I can imagine some of you going "Oh girl, that was your first mistake", but I don't think so. The real problem with living together and dating, was that the only other time I'd lived with a guy I was in a relationship with, we were engaged, and in every way but paper we lived as a married couple. So when Matthew and I decided to take our friendship to the next level I automatically slipped back into that role. I became Mollie Homemaker with someone who wasn't quite ready to make house.

To make an already long story short, we realized that we moved too fast. Matthew has never lived with anyone he was in a relationship with and I'd only lived with someone I was for all intents and purposes married to, and we didn't take the time to find a middle ground before getting together. So we're not breaking up, but we are backing off. Taking time to find a common ground for both of us where we're together but still living our own separate lives.

School starting back will help because I'll be gone from morning to late evening on days I have class, which will give Matthew some personal time, and help me not miss him so much when we're not together, because I won't be home sitting by myself while he's asleep in the next room. I'll also be doing personal training a few nights a week which will get me out of the house and give me some time to focus on me, which I don't do nearly enough.

It's strange, but once we talked everything through and realized what our problems were and what we needed to do to fix them the air around us just seemed to lighten and the happy couple we started out as found their way back. We spent the rest of the evening laughing and cutting up like we used to do. We were happy.

As for the "something is not right" feeling in my gut, it's abated and now my heart, head and gut are all filled with a warm happiness. What tomorrow will bring remains to be seen, but we know that we love each other and for today, that's enough.

Hearing everything yet not listening to a word

Forward to 2:10 on the clip.



Lee: Do you understand the words that are a-coming out of my mouth?
Carter: Don't nobody understand the words that are comin' out of your mouth.

The clip is from Rush Hour 2. Jackie Chan's character Lee, is trying to explain something to Chris Rock's character Carter, and Carter is having a hard time understanding it. Lee thinks he is speaking clearly. He understands what he's trying to say, but his partner - even though he's hearing the words just doesn't understand what the message is.

I first titled the post Listening to Everything but not Hearing a Word but as I was planning what to write out in my head I realized that was a little backwards. Hearing is the primary function of the ear. Unless you are deaf you cannot help but to 'hear'. Listening on the other hand is a conscious action. It requires focus and intent.

Parents and children are prime examples. When we were kids, my sister and I took to calling our mom by her first name because when we called her mom she wouldn't answer. She'd be watching TV, or reading a book and we'd be like 'mom, mom, momm, MOMMM!' and nothing. But we could say her name one time and she'd answer. She 'heard' us say mom every time we said it, but it was just background noise. Like being at a ballgame and hearing that everyone around you is talking but not listening to what it is they are saying.

Last weekend Matthew and I got in a pretty big fight. I honestly don't remember how it started but the primary content was that at times we both feel like the other doesn't 'listen'. The next day we sat and talked about it and we're better and stronger than ever, but we realized that even though we can sit and talk for hours about nearly any topic under the sun, when it comes to feelings we both have a bit of trouble in the communication department.

He has a habit of not telling me when something bothers him and then when we argue about it he'll think he's mentioned it before, although I have no recollection of him talking to me about it. Sometimes I honestly just forget, but sometimes he'll think ' I need to tell Mollie such and such', and because he remembers thinking he needed to tell me he gets to thinking he actually did tell me even if he never actually got around to it. My sister does the same thing all the time. Didn't I text you about so and so? No? Oh.. well I must have just been thinking I Needed to text you, but never actually got around to it.

My problem is a bit more complicated. When it comes to feelings I can write all day and all night and express how I feel with ease. I can spout romantic, I can wax poetic, I can rant aggressiveness, you name it. If it comes to putting pen to paper, or type to screen as the case may be, I can talk about my feelings with my eyes closed and get my point across clearly and concisely.

But when it comes to actually verbalizing how I feel, the skill I seem to have with writing just doesn't transfer over. I can have what I want to say all planned out in my head. I'm going to tell him this, and how I feel about that, and how when he does this it makes me feel like so and so. Yet when I open my mouth the words rarely come out as intended. And the main problem with this is I think the words I speak match up perfectly with the thoughts in my head even though that is rarely the case. So when he says 'Mollie, you didn't say anything about that you said this' I get frustrated because I just know that I told him what I was thinking.

It's something we've realized is a problem and we're working on it, but it brings up some questions I'd like your thoughts on..


What do you do when you don't feel like someone is really 'listening' to you even though they truly believe they are and vice verse.

I make it a point to focus on Matthew when we're discussing something so I'm not only hearing the words he's speaking but I'm actively listening to what it is he's trying to say. And if I find myself distracted, which usually only happens on the phone, I'll tell him - Honey, I'm hearing what you're saying but it's just not sticking, can we talk about this another time so I can give you the attention you deserve?. This has proven to be a very successful way of making sure we really pay attention to each other when we need to talk about something important.

Feelings seems to be the only area of conversation where it isn't quite working.

Is it that neither of us are clearly expressing our 'feelings' or is it that both of us have preconceived ideas of what the other is going to say and that's what we really 'hear' instead of what is actually being said?

Matthew says I have a bad habit of assuming I know what he's going to say so when I answer him - I answer what I thought he said instead of what he actually did say. I totally concede that this is a possibility. He also concedes that he may actually think he's told me something but never actually got around to it. So we both know we have short comings, and we're working together to iron those out so we can better communicate when it comes to emotions. But I honestly doubt we're the only couple with these same issues. So...

What types of issues have you had with communicating with your partner/husband/wife/loved on?

Do you feel they don't really listen to you?

Do they feel you don't really listen to them?

Are you thinking one thing but really saying another?

And if you've overcome these problems how did you do it?

One thing we've decided to do is use a talking stick. They have one similar to the picture at Michael's that you can put together as a craft, but we'll most likely just use a wooden spoon from the kitchen. *The talking stick has been used for centuries by many American Indian tribes as a means of just and impartial hearing. It was commonly used in council circles to designate who had the right to speak. When matters of great concern came before the council, the leading elder would hold the talking stick and begin the discussion. When he finished what he had to say he would hold out the talking stick, and whoever wished to speak after him would take it. In this manner the stick was passed from one individual to another until all who wished to speak had done so. * Info courtecy of http://www.acaciart.com/

In other words - he who holds the stick gets to talk - he who doesn't needs to shut up and wait their turn. For two very intelligent verbally articulate people who love to make their point, it may turn out to be the most important use for a kitchen spoon ever.