It might be said that the better a relationship is, the more
things hurt when they imperfections between two people emerge. Mr. P and I are
about as perfect as you can get: we’re old enough to know what we are doing and
young enough to enjoy each other. We’re experienced but not jaded.
But last night, with the end of our first vacation
confronting us, the biggest fell hard, and I have the puffy eyes to show for
it.
The worst part is, it may not even really be worth the
effort to dissect it. We were both tired and hungry. We were both cranky. These
things happen, especially when you spend as much time together as he and I do,
and will continue to do.
But I experienced something very like heartbreak last night,
as Mr. P took my inventory in a way he really hasn’t done before. He accused me
of refusing to ever admit that I’m wrong. It’s a fair assessment, though not
one I had personally made of myself. I admit my flaws, but that doesn’t necessarily
mean I’m aware of them all.
“I’m not going to treat you with kit gloves all the time. It’s
not just children who need tough love.”
Except that it is just children who need tough love. See, I’m
the sort of woman who doesn’t need tough love. I operate much better if I am
given kind and constructive criticism. Tough love shuts me down. It crops me
out, it cuts me out of the picture and destroys my ability to be an active
participant in my own development. And maybe the worst part is that I am very
accustomed to Mr. P’s kit glove treatment. Maybe it was too much to expect it
to happen all the time, but certainly it is understandable that the first time
the gloves come off that I’d be surprised, isn’t it?
He wanted to talk about it tomorrow, and the gloves came off
because he was tired and hungry. I didn’t want to go to bed angry, so I asked.
And we had a fight. And I cried like a baby. And I told him I wouldn’t hold
anything against him from last night, and he said he never intended to either.
And it hurts. No one likes to hurt. But as Umair Haque (http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/02/why-love-matters-more-and-less/)
notes, “Love is investing in, sacrificing for, and caring about; seeking what
I’d call higher-order returns — igniting the creation of real human wealth in
others (and reciprocation in kind). Love transforms, and transformation hurts.
Hence, you probably won’t love if you can’t surrender to a little bit of
suffering.” Tough words from the Harvard
Business Review, but we get it where we can, don’t we?
I spend a lot of time trying to be sure Mr. P and I are on
the same page. I confirm, double check, etc., etc. It probably drives him
crazy, but I’m constantly reaffirming my position in life. I’ll never know more
than I don’t know, and I’m well aware of that. So tonight I will ask him just
how often I can expect the kit gloves to come off, and I will ask him if he
knows what my reaction will be to tough love and whether that’s the kind of
relationship he wants to be in. Because it’s not the kind I want to be in. I
don’t want to love him despite the tough love. I don’t want to love him despite
anything.
It’s very scary to think that one might be in a relationship
that provokes the kind of painful response that’s needed to grow. When Mr. P
and I first started dating, we both admitted to being shit scared of falling in
love. And I’m only really beginning to understand what it was we are afraid of.
But the good news is that I am also beginning to understand that we are well
equipped, not only to handle the challenge but to excel at it. You see, despite
what the Huffington Post says, I am special. I may not be the next Secretary of
State, but I am special. I’m special to those who love me and the ones I
love. It would be pretty difficult for
me to love them the way they deserve if I didn’t believe I was.
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