Something that has really been weighing on my mind is the question of whether or not a good relationship can be successul when love is mutual, but full understanding of eachother is not. Can someone really, truly, love you the way love must be to ensure success & happiness if they don't understand you or vice versa? If I feel like he doesn't know what drives me, he'll never be able to appreciate me for who I really am. And I feel like I am doing him a huge disservice if the reciprocal is true.
How can we defend, encourage, support, or even agree with our lives' directions, goals, and decisions if we don't really "get" what drives us. It's not for lack of communication or information. It truly is for lack of understanding and comprehension. I hear what he says, I try to see it from his perspective, but I have no comprehension of being able to see it the same way! And we're talking right and wrong. Things that make me feel good to do because I think it's the right thing to do, he'll come back and tell me how incredibly wrong they are in the most, "what the hell were you thinking?" way.
I end up feeling like crap. And I pretty much do the same thing to him. He really thinks he's got a situation handled and he's doing the respectable thing and I think he's lost his mind or making a big mistake or is a total jerk because of it. And now there's the whole back and forth of everything. I feel like I can barely consider a life without him when things are good. I really work hard to impress him so he can see how good my heart is and he thinks there's something loose in my brain. It's devastating!! And it's not because we're sick of eachother. It makes me cry to think of it.
And the way I get incredibly jealous of the thought of him with even an inkling of a possibility that he hold someone in higher esteem than me. And simultaneously it breaks my heart to think of hurting him - but how will I not hurt him if staying will keep him from being fufilled and leaving him would make it hurt to breathe? And how I would miss the things he does that allow me to feel how much he loves me even if he never even said it. And having the major contradiction to his gesture, his emotion, is my own self-doubt and my quandry that brought me here in the first place, to the book, that is.
I want to be his "leading lady" the one he always writes - the one he always thinks of no matter what idealistic thought of a potential role of his lover, wife, etc. And so when these things happen, when he disapproves, I feel horrible. And how do I give up the dreams I see in his eyes, in how he holds a baby... So because he is regularly doing things to touch my heart and it wins me over and I forget all of the things that I see as potential issues and then I question the validity of those concerns and push them aside.
I've identified this over and over and I still fall into the trap! Am I pursuing him or the dream? Is it because I see him as bits and pieces of reality that coincide with my dream and then fill in the holes with fantasies? And why do I think more of the moments when I don't ever want to be away from him instead of the moments when I wish I never met him, so I wouldn't have to be in the middle of all this mess - this mental torture. I can not be myself - he says I can, but I can not. It's too conflicting. My self tells me to do something that ends up being a total screw up and then my self tells me that's horrible because it isn't pleasing to him.
I'm living my life for him and he doesn't even get me. Doesn't understand me enough to realize that it's not about me being disrespectful or continuing to do something we previously discussed a million times because I refuse to change. And God forbid, I have an actual conviction on a subject he disagrees on, granted, I'm no angel in that department. We butt heads. We're both strong willed, defensive, and stubborn people. There's no graceful complementing of eachothers qualities or lack there of.
This is not a Yin-Yang situation. We're not going to "learn" ourselves out of this. But there's such a strong drive inside of me to not give up on him. I'm about to end my Miami trip, to land back in Chicago - in my Reality and then what? More fights? More realities to stitch together with my fantasy thread? Realization? Please? Something?
