Whatever It Takes
I know you don't hate me. And I don't hate you.
That’s just it, you respond. I do hate you now.
You remember your last exchange with him. Sixty days on the calendar.
At first, when it leaves your lips, it feels like a lie. A feeling you must fake into existence. But you soon realize, it isn’t fake at all. Tension that causes you to clench your teeth and your grip slowly loosens, as if a fragile glass slowly slips out of your fingers before hitting the ground when it finally shatters. You’re telling the truth, as you always promised him you would. I’ve never lied to you. Why start now?
I hate him for ruining this! You say to your therapist with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat. It was so beautiful before all of this. I was all in! I hate that he couldn't see that. You choke the words out as if pleading with her to make it all make sense. The room is filled with a scent from the decaying flowers in a vase on your coffee table, while the steady hum of the nearby freeway provides a backdrop to your stifled sobs. Your hands rest in your lap, fingers fidgeting and clutching the fabric of your sweater as if grounding yourself against an emotional storm. Helplessness stings your broken heart like lemon juice slowly seeps onto a paper cut. Slowly, subtly, and painfully. Your heart feels bruised by the laundry list of unanswered questions: why did this happen?!
Your therapist sits with you, patiently, hearing your cries countless times. She doesn't push away the questions and pleas you make with her regularly. Together, the two of you hold space for your hurt. But her greatest gift is giving you the gift of truth: No. This doesn't make sense. How ironic. She responds with calmness, offering acknowledgement like balm for an open wound.
I hope we can somehow be cool. We’re still peers. His delusions slip out as easily as venom dripping from a snake’s fangs, smooth and soft. Pools of poison collect with each syllabul. Sounding eloquent and safe, his words slither into your ears, attempting to cast a spell on your mind as they have many times in the past. The truth is, I deeply care about you, he adds.
Friends? Peers? Is it customary to lock your doors for friends? Do you look over your shoulder with caution for them? Do friends make you feel the need to carry pepper spray in your hand before opening your front door? And do research on domestic violence and domestic violence hotlines when it comes to dealing with your friends or peers? Have your family and friends ever been concerned for your safety because of a friend or a peer? And do they tell you to call the police if that person shows up at your home unannounced?
As far as you know, that is not what friendships are made of.
Maybe he did care, and maybe he did really love you. We’ll never really know. What we do know is that his past came up in the present of your relationship. It came between the two of you. For over a year, you’ve spent countless hours in therapy trying to understand him and trying to understand what happened. In those sessions, you've found yourself dancing between empathy for his struggles and anger for placing the burden of his unresolved issues onto your shoulders. An unnecessary and heavy burden that becomes yours to bear. A part of you seeks to rationalize his behavior, attributing it to his childhood or other battles he's fought along the way. That rationalization often dissolves into exasperation, as you realize you're entangled in a cycle not of your making. Someone else having trauma in them does not give them the right to create trauma in you.
They say that those who need to self-reflect and go to therapy don't go, and those who go do so because of the pain caused and inflicted on them by those who refuse to do the inner work. You pay the price, literally and figuratively, of doing someone else’s healing, unpacking their wounds, their trauma, and their inner world. It’s as if there are two adjoining sidewalks. One is meticulously swept clean, while the other is littered, debris spilling over its edges. This image embodies the divided responsibilities in relationships. What if both cleaned their sides of the street instead of letting filth trickle onto someone else? Imagine dealing with your demons so they don't deal with you and the ones you love. Yeah, imagine that.
Don't be mistaken. Begging someone to heal themselves is not the same as asking them to change or to become a different person. Far from it. You aren't asking for them to be someone else. You’re asking for them to be better! For the pain to end. For the abuse to stop. You’re asking them to pause and self-reflect to make room for the vast love you feel for them and ask for in return. You’re asking for what you know you deserve.
It begins with a gentle thought with curiosity, stemming from a place of hope and love. You reach out, offering a chance for introspection, a bridge back to the love you both once shared. The peace you yearn for hovers just within reach, as if beckoning with open arms. For you, it feels like the lifeline that will lead your relationship to the everlasting love and romance you once promised each other when you first fell in love, limbs tangled together under soft sheets in the dark of night.
But when asking for this becomes begging and then fighting for your life, there’s no hope. Warm light begins to fade to gray. Winter is coming. They hear criticism and meet you with walls of defensiveness and anger. They feel under attack, and they will retreat to their fortress and fight back at all costs. In those moments, words of love and healing are lost in the battle, and the relationship becomes a struggle for survival.
He once promised you, I’ll do whatever it takes. Apparently, he didn’t mean this.
