Weird Relationships Can Be Good.

I cried like a child yesterday.

I have a hair trigger when it comes to my husband being mad at me. Last night he was "a little" mad. We both had very long days. He didn't sleep very well, and I didn't sleep very long. I had a deadline but I also had to step out to run some urgent errands during the day. It was so sunny, and I still don't know all the places in this new city so finding the stores I needed was hard and took longer than I had planned. The child had a birthday party to attend in the evening, and my husband drove him there, and spent several hours on the road because the traffic here is insane. I went to the gym (killed it) and sat down to finish the work before and it took longer than I anticipated. In that, I forgot to take the dog out so she pooped in the bathroom (I mean, as in house poops go, that's really the best case scenario, no?). So when he came home, and saw the poop, his face got all scrunched up like when you're mad at a person.

I felt very bad that I forgot, and I said I was sorry immediately, and offered to take restorative action. Then I asked him if he is mad at me, and he said, "a little," and that's why I cried like a child.

I have no tolerance for him being mad at me. I need three fingers to count how many times it has happened in the past six years. It's three times. Which is not to say he cannot address things with me, he can do that endlessly, and I am a very proactive about taking responsibility when something is my fault, I just cannot stand it when I see the slightest bit of anger (even in the form of annoyance, irritation or just being kinda miffed) from him directed at me. It's somewhat unfair, I agree, but I need an anger-free relationship. I don't get angry, like almost never, and if ever I do, I feel sick in my heart about it, it's a horrible feeling, and as I get older I have less and less inclination to strong uncontrollable emotion (like anger, destruction, worry, stress and deep despair). It's not repression, at all, I just reason my emotions and have them if they're warranted and beneficial, and with anger, that's something I have never felt strongly except when I was a child trapped in my family home. It doesn't come naturally to me, I can be irritated, but angry is a difficult one to be.

But with him it's not just that. I don't think everyone should emote like I do and so if he feels things, he should be able to express them. I just cannot stand it when he gets mad at me, and to his credit, he doesn't. He really, really doesn't ever get mad at me. I wouldn't even know it was possible if he wasn't just naturally like that with me. It's almost un-human. And sometimes when I put it like that, it seems like an unhealthy thing, or like there is a barrier to communication in this relationship. There is one, but not the one that seems obvious, and there also isn't one, and that is also not the one that seems obvious. He can say anything to me, I can say anything to him (and that extends to a wild level, the jokes in our house would get people arrested if they made them on a stage), but it also extends to a very personal level. If I say something about him, or he does about me, and it's something deeply personal or even potentially hurtful, we always know there was never a malicious or hurtful intention behind saying those things. That's never ever going to happen because if you are at a point in a relationship where you say something just to hurt the other person, and even if this happens during a fight, that's a red-flag to me. You can have completely open channels of communication if you never feel attacked by the other person because you trust they would never do that, and that the person listening takes everyone you say seriously. We can trust that.

So I feel little need for endless arguments (but of course intellectual arguments can continue forever, and you can absolutely insult each other during them), fights, annoyance, and anger. He feels little need for it too. Neither one of us can stomach one more angry relationship. In general, he's not a very angry person, not unwarranted and not in a dangerous way, he is comfortable having the emotion and expressing it to people, but when I met him he was much, much angrier. He was angry with the whole world, but never with me. Never. It was healing for him to have a space where he didn't feel angry. It was healing for me to have a space where no one was ever angry with me. Neither one of us had ever had that before in our lives. And when I say angry, I also means passive-aggressive anger, and the form of it that make you slowly, and constantly tear down the person you love or try to mould them to your expectations, and demean them for not living up to them. I Cannot do "fix and change" relationships anymore. Come as you are, and stay as you are, and  if you must change, please have it be of your own accord, and part of your own journey. I need no one to change for me, change beside me, and let me lovingly watch.

Yet despite this very sensible and loving picture I paint of our relationship, the condition to "never be mad at me" still seems like too much. Maybe it is, but there's something else that needs to considered here. There are two aspects to our relationship. There's the aspect where we are partners, and we enjoy each other's company so much that we have a house, bank accounts, a child, pets to manage together (and a lot of it is just logistics, and I don't understand why there's so much drama in relationships over it, but I do understand that I have the privilege to be in a relationship where both partners take responsibility of all things and that's not a discussion that needs to be had). And then there's our sexual relationship (which is not just limited to when no one is wearing clothes, it's quite vast) in which we are not partners at all. I used to have some power, in the good old days, but now I have like none. They seem like two aspects but they cannot be kept neatly separated, because it is, after all, one relationship.

So, he expects me to never object to him. On the face of it that sounds unhealthy and impossible too. It's not and it's not impossible for him to never be mad at me either, because when you lay the groundwork for communication that supports that interplay, the circumstances are conducive to making that happen. Everyone gets the space for redressal. There is a lot of communication within a sexual relationship as well, and the things you say there don't matter less than the things you say outside it. In our sexual relationship, I feel completely powerless. He can say anything to me, no matter how hurtful. He can ask me to do anything, and I will. He can hurt me as much as he likes, and I will take it. He can hurt me for whatever reason he chooses, and that is fine too. There's the option for him to resolve issues with me, by addressing them in a skewed power structure.

Of course this has to be within a reasonable limit. If I take a huge loan without discussing it with him, that's not to be resolved with a whip (though that would never happen), but if I forget to walk the dog, it can. He has the space to do that, and it's as malice-free a space as the rest of our relationship, and as consequential. He doesn't need to get mad at me or annoyed at me, things can be handled differently, and he knows how to handle them differently, without letting any anger seep through. Within that space I can handle endless cruelty from him, and it wont even make me cry. It has an adequate impact on my behaviour with regard to things I shouldn't have done, much more effective impact than getting angry in those situations does. I don't have the space for that kind of redressal so I have to discuss my issues as his partner. We don't have to do things the same way for it to be healthy and effective. Reciprocity is not equality.

Yes, I expect him not to be mad at me. But he expects me to be completely vulnerable to him at all times. Those things have to come as a package deal for it to approach healthy. Those things serve different parts of our relationship according to what we need individually, but they must both exist. You cannot expect a person to have no skin, and then throw them into a gutter. They will die of infection. You have to provide an environment that is sterile enough that they can survive having no skin. With him I am the most sensitive and responsive person I have ever been, and there are many advantages to that, but there's also the condition that you cannot hit me so hard I break. Anger breaks me. In all of its forms. I have no tolerance for it whatsoever anymore (which is astounding).

On my end, short of that, I don't question anything at all. Even when I don't understand him, or his intention. Even when I don't like it. Even when it's the worst thing I have ever felt. I trust him like I've never trusted anyone before in my life. It's so freeing to be able to do that. I can expect without trepidation, and leap without thought. I never have to think about the intention behind what is said to me, I can actually take things at face value, and I never have to speak anything less than my complete mind. I can ask for anything. I can say anything. Even when the world is ending, I don't have to worry about us, we're good.