I am not an angry person by nature, but when it does flare, watch out. Confronting me directly doesn’t make me angry. In fact, it opens a world of possibilities if the confronter is willing to be honest.
What makes me angry? Subterfuge. Silence. Purposeful ignorance. In short, I get angry when someone purports to know me, but refuses any attempt at understanding what makes me tick. My own family members are experts at inflicting the ‘silent treatment’, and, today, that is my single biggest trigger.
I recently dedicated a decade of my life to the pursuit of a ‘forever’ type relationship with a man I respected greatly. Over time, his inability to be honest and straightforward cost me so much more than I can report here. On the brink of literal insanity, I ended it, but not before I questioned every value I have and my very identity as a human.
Because of his lack of honesty and clarity about our relationship, I was forced to second guess things I absolutely knew to be true. He merely stood silent and watched me struggle and squirm, knowing that, to me, our relationship took precedence over anything else. I no longer think of him as inherently evil, just immature when it comes to deep, meaningful conversations and a pathological fear of anything resembling confrontation. Indeed, there were moments when a ‘sit down’ would have been so very welcome and ultimately healing. But his approach was to extricate himself from anything difficult. Because of his deep lack of understanding about the true human condition, everything felt threatening to him.
My attraction was based upon the belief that this was a man with character and grit. He had suffered through years of his late wife’s illness, and seemed to emerge wiser, stronger and enticingly real. ALL of this was illusion, as he actually had a distaste for any human frailty. Years after his struggle with his wife, my own husband received a similar terminal diagnosis, so I had reached out to him, in pain and sorrow.
He made me believe that he, alone, understood the traumatic journey I was on. Years later, I would learn that he had little to do with his wife’s illness… her family had taken on the role of caregiver. But he played the consummate martyr and later even gleaned adoration for his widower status and for raising the infant daughter he was left with after his wife’s death. I fell for it completely, believing him to be perfect partnership material.
In the end, he is a very good human being in most cases. But he is the most selfish, exploitative and willfully ignorant partner anyone could saddle themselves with. It’s a nuanced but insurmountable piece of his approach to interpersonal communication. For years, I blamed my own shortcomings for our constantly disconnected state. But, with the benefit of hindsight and considerable dissection via therapy, I know the truth.
He recoiled at, but should have gotten to know, my anger. It is at once protective, wise and it can be very scary. However, if he’d really known me, he’d have explored this facet of my personality. It kept me alive during some very surreal and abusive periods throughout my childhood, and it protects me still as a mature adult. It looks like dissociation, but it is not. It knows better than I how to spot a true threat, and it does what it has to to survive.
And he, so committed to his perceived self-interests, was an undeniable threat to my continued existence and future happiness. Fortunately, my fearless protector was there when I needed it, and because of that, I can look forward to more years of life as a free person, and may even find that elusive life partner so I don’t have to live my remaining years alone.
Travel, Write, Repeat 