[adeline_anne]

Today I read a quote written by Nicholas Sparks that touched me:

[color=darkblue]"I decided a man can truly change. The events of the past year taught me much about myself, and a few universal truths. I learned that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet, the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of my life, leading me to believe that while I've often overestimated what I could accomplish in a day, I had underestimated what I could accomplish in a year. But most of all, I learned that it's possible for two people to fall in love even when there's a lifetime of dissappointments between them."[/color]

This can be interpreted in many different ways depending upon your experiences, but when I read it, what hit me most was what we can accomplish in a year versus a day. For me, almost every day has been a struggle to connect with my partner. His emotional wounds have put so much distance between us. So many of those wounds are still unknown to him. He is the strongest man I know. He has built such strong and hard walls that it's almost impossible to emotionally hurt him now. (Or so it seems.) And at the same time, it's almost impossible to get him to FEEL real, true, love. I have day in and day out tried to SHOW him how to trust me by giving him a reason to trust me. I've tried to SHOW him what a family can be.. my family accepting him and welcoming him. I've given him clear expectations about what I need out of him as a partner. What I've learned in those miserable days is that he might not be capable of giving me what I need. On those days I wonder if what I've put into the relationship is worth the pain I feel when he rejects my family or rejects the close honest relationship I try to create. And it becomes a circle of... why am I putting myself through this... maybe there is another man out there that can fulfill all my needs. Selfish? Maybe. But don't we have to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others? That's where I get confused and feel in a tug of war with myself. Then.... I reflect. I look back at the first 6 months of the relationship when I didn't have the faintest clue of what I was getting myself into. I think about how miserable I was when I didn't understand why he locked to door on me when he changed his clothes. I think about how awkward his conversations were with his family (the ones that really do love him). I think about the anxiety he and I both felt upon spending anytime with his family. Every normal (what I deem to be normal) daily activity that caused anxiety and uncomfort--- I think about those things. And each day I felt tirelessly working, chipping away at those walls trying to push forward. A year into it I realized I'm beyond emotionally invested in this person, in his well being. I realized I wanted to spend my life with him, have a family with him. I realized having everything I expected to get out of a partner would be difficult with him. A year and half later, I see such a changed man. He's imperfect, and so am I. But we have learned that in order for us both to be happy, we have to talk to eachother. It's amazing to think that people carry on in relationships without really talking to eachother. What a sad way to live, never really sharing. I have done a lot of the talking... hoping he will chime in. And he does a lot of the shutting down when it gets too hard. I learned for myself that it's not enough for me to be with a man who shuts me down when he's had enough. We spoke just last week about why he shuts me down and he said something so honest to me. He said, "I want you to have the best perception of me. When I shut down or when I protect myself, it's not because I want to hurt you. I would never try to hurt you". Such a relatable statement to him and me both. While we think we're doing our partner a favor by protecting our vulnerabilities, we are selfish. Insecurity is such a selfish thing. And it's so hard to see past it. While we're protecting ourselves we're hurting those who we are supposed to trust to not judge. Our conversations are becoming more and more open. And we're not even talking about his abusive childhood. We don't need to. We're talking about what appears to be the result of that childhood. We're talking about the behaviors and the fears. It's like a light bulb went of in my head. It's so clear. How could I have expected this man, who doesn't trust me with his feelings and insecurities, to open the flood walls of wounds. After a year I accomplished a lot for myself. I've recognized how hard it is for some people who have been broken down to fully trust. Because I tell you to trust me, doesn't make it so, even if I am trustworthy. And I've learned that love is not enough. Love is powerful but it's not always enough to change a person or to influence a person. A lot of people will do anything for love. I imagine those people have little to heal in their lives. The hardest part of loving a wounded person, for me, is not letting the wounds hurt me too. It's pretty much impossible because I hurt when he hurts. But I'm learning to seperate myself from that pain. I'm learning that he has a better arsenal of defense mechanisms than me and I'm not equipped to deal with it. My prayer is that he will find it within himself to seek a professional to help him place those feelings, organize those thoughts, and recognize those behaviors that pose problems in his life now. Actually, that's always been my prayer. My greatest accomplishment in a year has been compassion. I've learned to have a greater compassion of people. For all people. I've learned to look beyond behaviors and understand and process how those behaviors came to be. People are so much more complex than what we see on the outside. I think that was the first lesson I learned as a kid.. don't judge a book by it's cover... and 28 years later I think I finally got it. So while I continue to struggle.. I am so thankful for what I am able to take away. He doesn't believe it when I tell him, but he makes me better too. Life is so powerful.
-aa[/quote]