Talk

I got a comment on my last post with some advice. And that advice was that Harry and I should seek out marriage counseling because it's obvious I'm carrying around a lot of resentment. And since Harry and I don't talk about our feelings, that hour of marriage counseling a week would force us to do so.

I'll be honest and say I'm not an advocate of counseling or therapy for myself personally. I've had a couple of bad experiences with it in the past, and it did more harm than good.

I will also admit that I sometimes worry about ending up resenting Harry for certain things, but I also have to say that I do work on that, despite not having professional help to do so.

And while I have stated that I use a lot of inner monologue instead of raging and lashing out with my feelings in the heat of the moment, I do end up talking to Harry about how things affect me and what I'm thinking when a disagreement occurs. I simply do it at a later time, and it's more of a discussion.

Case in point: I mentioned to some girlfriends last month about how Harry's learning disability and lack of desire to learn to read better has been bothering me as of late. Being a bookish person and wanting to once-upon-a-time become an English teacher, it's been difficult for me. And I've just now only realized how MUCH it bothers me, and for a long time, I didn't even understand the extent to which his learning disability goes. This past year or so has enlightened me. I was afraid to approach the subject with Harry because I know it's a sore spot for him, but I also knew that I had to eventually say something to him about it, otherwise my annoyance would fester and get the better of me.

Harry and I started talking, and it seems that he's actually been thinking about "practicing" his reading. He's been looking through my book club brochures, and he saw a couple of books he'd be interested in (and lucky me, I was already planning on ordering them). I went one further and said that we should start up a nightly thing where right before bed, we each read our respective books for 15 minutes. He's all for it. He wants to start with one of my graphic novels, and I'm totally cool with that. I remember him telling me he had liked to read comic books as a kid, so graphic novels would be a great way to get his feet wet.

With the last "discussion" I talked about in the last post, I'll bring it up in a few days. Most likely, I'll ask him if there's anything else besides his work calendar that he thinks he should be responsible for in the future. I don't resent him for not balancing the checkbook or making sure all the bills are paid because, well, I do a better job of it. We both know that, which is why I take care of it. We'd be flat broke if it was Harry's responsibility. Neither of us want that to happen, so I handle it. I simply get annoyed because the work calendar thing is so basic, and well, I thought he was doing it. Why WOULDN'T he do it, ya know? So I was irked when I found out it hadn't been happening. It was just like, "Dude, one thing. That's all you have to do... just one thing. Do it."

My last post was a way for me to hash it all out for myself. To see it all in black and white and figure out what it is I need to do for personal growth, self awareness, and peace of mind. I need to hear it out loud or see it on the screen to understand why my head works the way it does and why I react and say what I do. I want to fully realize that: YES, the way I handle disagreements is the way I want to go or NO, this isn't working for me. The jury's still out as of now. I still don't know if I might be less stressed if I just said it while the discussion was going on, therefore resulting in an actual argument. Who knows? Maybe I'm a nasty arguer who pulls out all the stops and really rips into someone. Do I want to even find out if that person is in there?

In the end, maybe there's really no right or wrong answer. And that's simply because one size does not fit all. That means each individual argument and each individual couple. Some couples thrive on butting heads while others do better walking away, cooling down, then discussing at a later time. Some couple reach a whole new level to their relationship through therapy while others just aren't comfortable with sharing their more intimate day-to-day doings with a third party (and yes, I consider disagreeing/discussing/arguing extremely personal and intimate). What works for you may not work for me.

And that's about all I got tonight.