The fight had been ridiculous. Ten minutes after the explosion I couldn’t recall what it had been about and certainly I can’t remember three decades ago with any precision. But I can still feel in my mouth the metallic taste of a bad fight. We laid in bed, backs to each other, hearts a million miles away. He is a selfish only child. He is bombastic, verbally brilliant and when he unleashes his venom I stagger away knowing I don’t have what it takes to spar with him in this way.
I understand now what I didn’t then: trauma. My left frontal cortex, especially Brocca’s area, goes off line. Words are gone. My Amygdala screams danger and I am flooded with enough cortisol to light up a small city. I feel like I could kick his teeth out. Sensations pulse through my body and I am clouded as broken images flood my mind of past fights and the rage of my mother. All I can do, it seems, is hunker down, keep my back to him and remain quiet with shallow breath. He is dead to me.
If I were to guess what we were fighting about it is likely his mother or mine. I don’t recall what prompted the escalation but usually it arises when I defend my family as ‘normal’ and accentuate the craziness of his mom. And she is crazy. She waits on me to bring her breakfast and then tells me that it is far more than she normally eats and that all she wants is some buttered toast. But not too much butter. What is too much butter? A thin spread will indicate to her I don’t want her with us. Too much butter disrespects her desire. I can never win with her and if I stop trying then she is even more hurt. She makes me crazy.
Maybe I said that my mom, at least, made her own breakfast. Maybe I said, “Why don’t you make your own breakfast.”
I don’t remember.
I find when I am enraged, I feel nearly infinite. I seldom get that angry but when I do I feel like all the hurt I have experienced over a lifetime congeals and guides my heart not to care.
It is the moment when I feel his body turn and the mattress compress as he plants his elbow and reaches to touch my back. His hand feels like a searing poker scorching my back. I hear distant but distinct words: “I know right now you hate me and I don’t blame you. I am wrong and I am so sorry.”
I do hate him. I hated him when I used my back as a bulwark against his anger. But I hate him almost infinitely more for disturbing my refuge. I don’t want to turn and receive his grief. I don’t want to forgive. It is too delicious to give him a taste of all the hurt I have felt with him and all the hurt I have known in my life.
I feel so justified.
As crazy as it sounds, I feel righteous in my rage.
And, he has reached out and in a few words made my world far more difficult. If I turn over, we will talk. We will likely come to face more clearly the damned log in each of our eyes. There will be sadness for our failure and ownership of how we trigger each other. There will be goodness, but it feels so good to be untouchable and cold to his touch.
Now I feel guilty. I should have been the first to reach out and touch. He owns his failures more quickly and forthrightly and is not afraid to be humbled or exposed. I am defensive and I feel cruel. He fails me. He apologizes. I am hurt and then I get to feel guilty. It isn’t fair. It is a cruel play. He is no longer touching my shoulder, but he has not moved away and I know his sleep pattern, he is not returning to slumber. He is waiting, with no demand.
I can’t move, but I can’t remain locked into this fantasy of revenge. It no longer tastes sweet. I can’t turn toward him. I can’t refuse. If I turn now it will be out of compulsion, not desire.
If I remain locked into my refuge, I will drown in my self-righteousness.
All I know to do is to say: “I can’t turn toward you yet.” The words puncture the air and what felt insurmountable like swimming upstream in a raging river feels more now like letting the current wash me down stream. I need to keep my feet forward and look for the closest tree or foliage to grab to pull myself to shore.
His hand is back on my shoulder, his touch gentle and inviting. I don’t hate him. I don’t hate myself for not hating him.
Touch has again offered me life.
If I turn over to face him, will I remain cold, angry, self-righteous and hurt or will I find who I really am?
Loved.
Becky Allender lives on Bainbridge Island with her loving, wild husband of 40 years. A mother and grandmother, she is quite fond of sunshine, yoga, Hawaiian quilting and creating 17th Century reproduction samplers. A community of praying women, loving Jesus, and the art of gratitude fill her life with goodness. She wonders what she got herself into with Red Tent Living! bs
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Hard to describe emotions beautifully expressed. I feel the hot, sel-justified anger, the steeled resistance in response to the turning and touch of the other, the argument with the goodness of also turning. And. The transparent beauty of knowing who you “really” are…loved. Stunning, Becky. Thank you for this reminder of the gift of reconciliation this morning. Love to you, Christine
Thank you Christine!
Wow Becky! I feel you have invited me into sacred space in your heart. I feel privileged. Thank you for so neatly & clearly putting your thoughts together.
You know yourself well. You’ve thought through your patterns of response to conflict well. I admire your clear analysis. My pity parties shut down clear thinking.
Good for you! Thank you for sharing your process. I especially love your ending. You can choose to turn over to find who you really are… loved by Dan & Jesus. What a joy to know and be comforted by!
You are surely blessing many by your writing. You definitely have blessed me! Love you precious one!
Laura, thank you for your kind comments. Yes…analysis goes out the window in the depths of trauma. Yes….it is so good to be loved by Jesus…always! And a forgiving husband. Hugs across the many miles.
You have so poignantly illustrated a fight. “We lay in bed, backs to each other, hearts a million miles away.” Oh how I have been in that place wondering how on earth the chasm will be bridged. I shut down much more quickly than my husband, defenses as thick as a 15th century fortress. Forgiveness for me looks like standing on the other side of the wall; I can still feel the hurt, but I am no longer unreachable. Thank you for sharing this vulnerable piece of writing, Becky!
Thank you Kelsi, for your kind sentences. It seems like we have a lot in common! It is so, so good to be loved….
Thank you for your vulnerability… it’s like light beams dispersing darkness… give light and hope to others!!! Blessings
Thank you Ro….may it be so, that is, light to others. May it cause me to remember and trust when I feel walled off again…
Brilliant Becky,
Thanks for touching the depth of my heart with your words once again!!! You are such a gift & I know that dance so well…
Love you friend 😘
Thank you Jean…oh yes…that dance. Boy it’s hard to be human! So glad we are offered grace over and over again…
Becky, you so adequately described the rage that is inside most women. I know I can relate to every word! Thank you for your insight into married life!
Thank you Gayle. It is true, we are all so much alike.
I wish I could say I can’t relate. But, oh my… this touched me in ways I could feel and sense in my body. Grateful for your raw honesty, Becky!
Thank you. Our common ways of being a human being….certainly overlap. So good to receive grace over and over again.
Thank you, Becky.
Yep! Thank you!
Your words could be my words; your fight my fight; your tension my tension; your bed my bed. You’ve shared a moment so deeply personal, yet so universal. What a stunning accomplishment as a storyteller. The moment that captured me and actually made my stomach hurt a little is when your husband turns toward you. You know what it means, yet you are unable to turn to meet him–both his face and his repentance. Oh, what an agonizing moment. I could imagine the darkness of the bedroom, your eyes open, staring at the shadows on the walls, the weighty sound of the silence interrupted by your breathing, your awareness of his body so near to yours. Thank you for your honesty about your inner dialogue in that moment. I love your courage in acknowledging “I can’t turn toward you yet.” You are brave and honest AND a beautiful writer.
Dear Susan, Thank you. Your words, coming from the gifted writer that you are, mean a lot. And for being brave…well, truly, what do I have to lose? Vulnerability and honesty feel so sweet at this stage/age.
I am in tears. Not married…but angry and feeling oh so justified in my rage. Your words pierce my heart, back me up toward the hand that would touch my back, would offer to wait…. I can hope..and weep as I wait. Thank you.
The power of your words: “I can’t turn toward you yet,” because to turn when I do not expect to be found, but maybe, just maybe, to find myself. Courage to turn rather than choose despair and isolation. Your words loosen me to trust the waters, to ride into the rushing current. Humbled.
Your loosening is becoming even though I know next to nothing. May there be so much joy and life and love that give way to what you are feeling and hoping for. Thank you for your comments.
May the words which pierce your heart lead to goodness in ways that I cannot even imagine. You seem so present with your desire. I trust your heart is big and daring and full of love. Thank you for your kind words and your lovely hope and tears….
I know well the scene you described, my own back turned, the self righteousness fortified and working well, the hardened places of my heart growing colder by the moment. Thank you for putting words to it. I love the vision of turning towards him and finding who I am, hope feels strong there.
Thank you Tracy. Oh yes…may our back to back stances become non-existent one day soon. It does seem that these forty years has brought a new understanding of marriage that is so sweet. Easier to realize what I need and speak or say what I see is happening so less snowballing of hurt happens. Feel so good….grateful!
I love the honesty of this!!! I’m sick of all pretending and yet my heart isn’t healed enough to be generous. to be grace, forgiveness, love. Is it even possible??? Because I am better at it than I used to be, I cling to it is possible. And sometimes it feels like pushing the boulder up hill. I envy your growth to be able to write it for me. I want to send it to everyone. SEE THIS!!! I want to shout. Be honest . . . this is you too! This is hard. Why does it have to be so hard???
Ginger! WOW! Talk about honest….YOU are so, so, so very honest. I have been married forty years which is Wildly crazy. I feel I am NOW just learning how to rid contempt from my heart towards my husband. Seriously…the modeling I had for loving and speaking goodness and joy over my husband was so deplete. AND….it is a choice I did not really get until I got more healing for myself through the witness and care of story guides. It is miraculous….and…..now that I have friends who are widows or caring for husbands with Alzheimers, etc. I see…now is the time to trust and not be taken out by the enemy.
I love that you wrote what you did….
I cannot even seem to put into words how much this post affected me tonight. I have been struggling with a boatload of guilt around the demise of my marriage. He was a sex addict….arrested…..and exposed. My life fell apart in the space of a day and continued to implode for months and years after….always finding there was more. But one lingering lie….lingering doubt has always hurt my heart more than the others…..this notion that I was cold and dispassionate and that is what caused all this. There was a very subtle pronouncement in every disagreement ( for we didn’t “fight”) that I turned away and was cold and unable to open up…….this article offered me hope that all wives feel that cold anger and turn away. It is in the resolution….the offering of grace and his touch and desire to see and humbly come for your heart that the difference between a healthy marriage and a sex addition plagued marriage can be seen. Silence defined all our disagreements. Turned backs were the norm. I always felt the need to make it right and fix it. I now know that he couldn’t come and see me because he was hiding so much of himself that the fear of exposure was overwhelming. But I also see that my having feelings and getting triggered from childhood trauma did not cause his addiction or cause him to choose to hide. I hope someday to experience turning and finding more of myself and feeling loved after a fight. It is what I long for.
Bless you. How horrible. How hard. How impossible to heal without miracles. I love your hope. Your hope for something new. I am so sorry you had to suffer as you did. I trust that I would have been like you. Silence….what else? What choice? May this next season of life offer healing, grace and newness. May you find love…love…love….with what is ahead. I am so very sorry you suffered as you did.
Bombastic. Verbally brilliant. Venom. I am those words. I have responded to betrayal and abuse with contempt. Cortisol. I literally feel the cortisol fill my abdomen in these times of trying to understand and communicate. It’s SO DIFFICULT! We used to shut down. Not communicate at all. Unaware of how our past affected our present. So many accusations that I am judging and interpreting and unfair . . . His work sometimes feels merely like a check on a to do list — His anger is strong when I refuse to be part of the ruse. Yesterday we offered grace to each other by staying present. We’ve begun to do that more often. Even at an impasse. No light at the end of any tunnel. The miracle yesterday was that, through my tears, God gave me words to describe that the strength of his anger (when he can’t control me/make me part of his social image) is so far from an emotion that would empathize with my WHY. The pain of knowing that he (still) cares more for his image than my heart is suffocating. Thoughtful silence ensued. He came to me and I immediately wondered if I could trust this. You know, Becky, you know! And your words are hope and an invitation to be honestly present in the most difficult conversations. Thank you!
Dear Suzanne, thank you. I do hope my words were hopeful to you. You sound brilliant in waiting…. trusting…loving. You…YOU are amazing. Thank you for taking the time to write. I love that you name God as the source of your strength to name. YOU are more important to love than any image that is tied to social image. May you learn this…and your mate too!!!
This is so raw and honest and brutal and transformative. I read this a couple of weeks ago from a link I saw on Facebook, and it penetrated my heart. It echoed my own experience: the verbally brilliant man, the loss of words, the cortisol flooding through my veins.
The other night, my husband and I fell into one of our tried and true fights. He hurt me; I retreated. He probed; I shut down. But then a beautiful thing happened. Instead of being enraged when I didn’t answer, he recognized that perhaps my silence wasn’t a weapon but a defense. He recognized that maybe my silence was not an intentional wounding. Because of his kindness, I lay there begging God to give me the words. I wish I had remembered your sentence: “I can’t turn toward you yet.” But He heard my prayer and answered, and I managed to squeak out enough words: “I’m not angry; I’m hurt.” Not profound or particularly insightful, but oh so much better than the stony silence that was my usual response. And what came next was a beautiful grace-filled conversation.