Cardiac Algesia
My heart hurts. Not from the few incidents of cardiac arythmia that I've had in the past few weeks. Rather it's that asphyxiating, hollow crushing in the middle of the sternum one feels when one has been uncontrollably crying for too long.
I've been an idiot and in my efforts to avoid inflicting pain I've done exactly that. My feelings are so muddled and soured at the moment that I'm uncertain and unconfident in the validity of my own thoughts. Until the congitive silt settled down in this emotional maelstrom I didn't want to inflict this mess on anyone, and as such have not even shared a hint of this with my wife as of yet. If my childhood taught me anything it was how to put on a straight face while the aches overwhelmed inside.
It strikes me as ironic that this very desire to be more aware of and in control of my thoughts before sharing them that essentially led to this current crisis.
It's tough to discuss this without going into specifics that violate my ethical sense of privacy. I can freely share anything about myself, but I find it abhorrent to assume it's okay to do the same about other people. Still, I'll try to put this experience out there in a way that doesn't compromise my ethics here.
There have been barriers in fully exploring my relationship with RR. Some are practical and I knew them when I started seeing him. Others have unclear causes and caught me by surprise. It was even uncertain for me until lately if there was a problem at all, or if the barriers were a temporary product of circumstance (lord knows there were plenty of less-than-ideal circumstances in most of our quality time together).
Still, I introspected on the causes of the barriers as a trend became more and more apparent. I kept my thoughts to myself instead of sharing them with RR, which I now realize was a bad mistake. I suspected a leading cause from the start, but didn't admit it openly even to myself. I thought to myself: Surely THAT couldn't be it? I'm more rational and aware than that. To have that be the problem would be to admit that I was more country-bumpkin in my subconscious attitudes than worldly cosmopolitan.
I didn't want fear to win out, and hoped that these worries were temporary, a product of the coy virgin that would evaporate with experience. So I kept them to myself and thought on them some more, hoping that under better circumstances the barriers would be gone my worries wrong.
Better circumstances came and the barriers were still there. The relationship was still very good and very satisfying, but I worried that RR would begin taking this problem as a sign of a rejection, or lack of commitment to our relationship.
I resolved to talk with him about it. When an opening appeared on our last date (actually it was more than an opening, he asked about it directly), with some sense of relief I spilled all of my pent-up thoughts, from start to finish.
It was way too much. I feel so guilty for spilling my entire truckload of angst on him out of the blue. He looked shell-shocked and I could tell I had hurt him. I had initially feared talking about unvalidated concerns weeks ago would have driven him away and now it's clear that by not doing so I was guaranteeing exactly that.
For the first time we ended a date without a goodnight kiss.
And he called to cancel our planned weekend trip, citing the need for more time to think.
And suggested that perhaps he'd become too emotionally attached to me too quickly and needed to back off.
Ouch. But far less painful perhaps than what I inflicted on him, and for that I am sorry.
I'm not sure if this is the end of our relationship, but it's clear that it's been fundamentally altered and if it survives it will always have a different tone. In twenty-four hours my optimism in our relationship has been crushed, and I know blame lies entirely in my lap.
I feel like scum.
I've been an idiot and in my efforts to avoid inflicting pain I've done exactly that. My feelings are so muddled and soured at the moment that I'm uncertain and unconfident in the validity of my own thoughts. Until the congitive silt settled down in this emotional maelstrom I didn't want to inflict this mess on anyone, and as such have not even shared a hint of this with my wife as of yet. If my childhood taught me anything it was how to put on a straight face while the aches overwhelmed inside.
It strikes me as ironic that this very desire to be more aware of and in control of my thoughts before sharing them that essentially led to this current crisis.
It's tough to discuss this without going into specifics that violate my ethical sense of privacy. I can freely share anything about myself, but I find it abhorrent to assume it's okay to do the same about other people. Still, I'll try to put this experience out there in a way that doesn't compromise my ethics here.
There have been barriers in fully exploring my relationship with RR. Some are practical and I knew them when I started seeing him. Others have unclear causes and caught me by surprise. It was even uncertain for me until lately if there was a problem at all, or if the barriers were a temporary product of circumstance (lord knows there were plenty of less-than-ideal circumstances in most of our quality time together).
Still, I introspected on the causes of the barriers as a trend became more and more apparent. I kept my thoughts to myself instead of sharing them with RR, which I now realize was a bad mistake. I suspected a leading cause from the start, but didn't admit it openly even to myself. I thought to myself: Surely THAT couldn't be it? I'm more rational and aware than that. To have that be the problem would be to admit that I was more country-bumpkin in my subconscious attitudes than worldly cosmopolitan.
I didn't want fear to win out, and hoped that these worries were temporary, a product of the coy virgin that would evaporate with experience. So I kept them to myself and thought on them some more, hoping that under better circumstances the barriers would be gone my worries wrong.
Better circumstances came and the barriers were still there. The relationship was still very good and very satisfying, but I worried that RR would begin taking this problem as a sign of a rejection, or lack of commitment to our relationship.
I resolved to talk with him about it. When an opening appeared on our last date (actually it was more than an opening, he asked about it directly), with some sense of relief I spilled all of my pent-up thoughts, from start to finish.
It was way too much. I feel so guilty for spilling my entire truckload of angst on him out of the blue. He looked shell-shocked and I could tell I had hurt him. I had initially feared talking about unvalidated concerns weeks ago would have driven him away and now it's clear that by not doing so I was guaranteeing exactly that.
For the first time we ended a date without a goodnight kiss.
And he called to cancel our planned weekend trip, citing the need for more time to think.
And suggested that perhaps he'd become too emotionally attached to me too quickly and needed to back off.
Ouch. But far less painful perhaps than what I inflicted on him, and for that I am sorry.
I'm not sure if this is the end of our relationship, but it's clear that it's been fundamentally altered and if it survives it will always have a different tone. In twenty-four hours my optimism in our relationship has been crushed, and I know blame lies entirely in my lap.
I feel like scum.