There are some things that you just can't say if you're in a relationship and you plan on staying in a relationship. There are things that will kill it stone dead. And if, by some chance, you can rebuild the relationship it will never be the same. It will always be a poorer, weaker thing.
You have to know what these unsayable things are because if you don't you might say them without thinking, without realizing the consequences. But once you know what they are they have a terrible power. Every time I get really angry with my beloved I can feel the words rising up in my mind just begging to be said. It would be so easy to say them just to get it over with, just so I'd know what would happen, just so as I would have to fight the urge to say them any more.
I don't say them. That is - I haven't said them yet. Partly it's because I love him and I don't want to hurt him. Partly it's because I need him and I don't want him to go away. Partly it's because I don't want to be the bad guy and whoever says the unsayable first is definitely the bad guy. However there is another, secret, reason why I don't say them. He might have unsayables too. It's the relationship equivalent of mutually assured destruction. I have these verbal atom bombs and if you really push me I might just use them but if I do then you might drop yours and I don't want to find out what those are. I don't want to find out what you really think of me in those terrible moments of rage-induced clarity. I don't want to hear those thoughts that you can barely admit you think.
The unsayables are one of those doors which once open can't be shut. You can never go back an unsay them. You can't pretend that you didn't hear. They will always be there and they will colour your recollections. Not only do they rob your relationship of it's future they take the past as well.
I think this is why long term relationships are getting harder. Once upon a time we just didn't talk about our feelings. Now that we've all got into the habit we can't stop. Relationships used to hold together for 60 years or so simply because neither partner knew how the other felt. Both people were in a fantasy relationship and they supplied the other person's half from their own heads. Now we tell each other how we feel. We communicate. A relationship can only stand so many sentences that begin "You know your problem..." or "You make me feel..."
I feel sure that honesty is not the same as always telling the whole truth.
Sunday, June 27, 2004
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