There have been a lot of things in the past month or so that have been emotionally charged, but have been so wonderful for me and my marriage. I have thought so much about what I love about the person I'm married to and what had slowly gone by the wayside over time that I missed. I missed our long night conversations that we had in the beginning of our relationship. I missed the "new car smell" of discovering someone else. I missed learning about someone else's views on life.
I suppose that's the way most relationships go, losing the newness of it all. I feel like we have that newness back again. It's great, emotional, passionate, but also a bit scary. Why is scary good? I don't really know the answer to that, just that it's not stagnant like most relationships get over time. Comfortable? Predicable? Why might that feel so boring? I guess that the excitement of learning someone else's little idiosyncrasies, secrets or true feelings tend to fade away over time. Why can't I be more comfortable with the predictable? I'm not sure about that either. Is anyone comfortable with that or is it just...numbness?
I feel like we get too set in our ways that we think we always know what our significant others (or anyone close to us) are thinking that we don't stop to consider that people can actually change. We all change over time. Not just in something like what me and my spouse are experiencing, but all of us. People can change their beliefs, their opinions, their thought processes. How do we convince others who have known us for a long period of time that we have grown? That's a difficult thing to accept. We have a pre-conceived notion about who a person is that maybe we sometimes stifle what they are becoming.
I'm actually quite excited to see this new side of my spouse. It feels like a completely new relationship, even though we have been together so long. Things are changing about how we communicate, how we relate to each other and even our compassion for each other. It's hard to let go of past assumptions of feelings sometimes, but we are getting there.
Something has shifted in my mind. I don't think of my spouse as "him" anymore. When I talk about "him," I think "her" now. When I think of the future, I think of us as a lesbian couple. When I'm talking to people, I want to say the female name or use the prounoun "her." I feel badly when I see "him" because I know that isn't the person who is really inside. The male part now has become the costume instead of the female. It's not that I can't handle seeing "him" or that I'm not comfortable, but I just know that it's frustrating for my spouse to live a dual life.
There have been so many significant moments lately where family and friends have become acquainted with her and seem to be more and more comfortable. For me, the hardest thing is to see "him" walk through the door after work, knowing that "he" had to pretend all day not to be who she really is. I am actually excited now for the moment when it becomes full-time, just so the duality ceases to be and we can just be ourselves both as individuals, and as this new couple.
There are so many new things on the horizion to look forward to that I feel a sense of renewal in my life. I don't know where it might go, but I have hope that things will be much better for both of us. I am gaining a new sense of myself, so is she. I sure hope both of us feel after the full transition like we can walk this new path together, but I don't feel so afraid anymore if we had to each walk our own paths. Maybe it's kind of like the saying, "If you love someone, set them free..." and now I feel like we both have the freedom to be ourselves no matter what. At this moment, I feel more in love than ever and so proud of how each of us have grown so far. We are letting each other in to all of our true feelings and trying to let go of the past. Just live in the moment, right? :)
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