Counsel

Robin and I have been going to marriage counseling for the past fours weeks.  Well, we started the first two weeks going together, for couples counseling, and then the last two weeks we have gone individually.  Our counselor decided it would be helpful to see us individually for a few weeks and then come back together.

I’m not ashamed to say that we are in counseling.  Receiving counsel is essential for a healthy marriage (and a healthy life).  Sometimes we go blind, and we need a discerning pair of eyes to tell us what we can’t see… and help us see together how we can be better to ourselves and to each other.

It has been really good so far, and I am eager to see how what we are learning in our sessions translates to our mariage and to our lives.

Personally, the counselor has brought up some interesting points for me.

1. I don’t think people like me

I have always had a hard time making friends.  Well, that’s not neccissarily true.  I would say, I have a hard time in new situations making friends right away.  It takes a long time for me.  In fact, sometime in the middle of my high school years, I discovered that each new school year, it took a few months of being forced to stay in the same room with people I don’t know, before I felt comfortable to speak and start to develop friendships.

I always associated this to me just being me.  I am shy.  I am not very outgoing.  I am an intrevert.  But the crazy thing is… get me around people I am comfortable with – and I am far from shy, I am very outgoing, and I actually really love being around friends.  So what gives?

Well… I don’t think people like me.  I walk into a new situation and immediately decide that I am not a very cool person.  I have nothing good to say and everyone is immediately judging me.

There are many potential reasons why this is, which I won’t get into.  But I realize now… it’s not true.  My reality is made up in my head… and if I just felt comfortable right off the bat in new situations, I would have NO trouble making friends and participating in a group.

2. I’m afraid to be vulnerable

This is not what you might think… obviously, me writing this stuff is a sign that I do not try and cover up anything in my life.  I put it all out there… the facts at least; the data.  Sit down with me and I will tell you ANYTHING about myself or my life… but I will not show emotion.

Why?  I cried a lot when I was a kid, and when I was a teenager.  I was very sensitive and felt a lot of emotion.  I was emotionally scarred and I teetered on the edge of unstable most of the time.  Because of this, I got made fun of by my family and sometimes friends, and was given a hard time for being soft.  Eventually, I just shut down.

I can remember a confrontation with my dad when I was in college… where everything that was deep down just erupted, and it got REALLY intense.  There was a lot of yelling, but nothing really got resolved.  I think that was the last time I really felt anything, and really cried.  After that, I just shut down – because it was easier not to feel, because then I could not get hurt.

I did not do it on purpose… it was my survival mode.  I could not go on feeling so much pain and emotion… I had to guard myself from being hurt again… so I shut down.  I put up the walls and dried up the lakes of tears.

Ever since then… I have been terrified of being emotional.  Whether it’s in church, or in counseling – becoming emotional feels strange to me, fake, and unsafe.

And yet it is this very thing that is causing me to distance myself from the ones I love.  Not just Robin, but my friends and family as well.

I need to find my sensitive side again, and realize that although most people will not understand my sensitivity or my emotion, that does not mean it is wrong. It is ok to cry.  I am still a man… I am still respectable.

I am learning how that works.  How to tear down these walls and allow the world to see my heart again.  I feel like freakin’ Adam and Eve in the garden… I’ve seen my nakedness (my emotions) and I just want to hide.  But I was made perfect the way I am… and I need to respect myself and find myself again.

3. I am part of the problem

If you asked me why we are in counseling, I would probably say it is because both Robin and I have some stuff we need to work through so that we can communicate better and be better parents, partners, and lovers.  But deep down, if I was honest, I don’t blame myself that much.  I’m an arrogant bastard and I think I am always right.  I hate that, because I despise that about people.

I need to find the areas in which I am falling short… in which I am blinded to my own role for causing hurt and making things hard on my family.  I need to take responsibility for my shortcomings and not blame others so much.  I am not perfect… not at all.

4. Life is really, really good

Like I said at the beginning of this post, sometimes we go blind.  I went blind. Having two kids, moving to a new state, making new friends, starting a new career, re-establishing your faith… that will cause some blindness – fatigue if nothing else.  I have needed this counsel to see clearly again… and although I still feel like there are some areas that are hidden to me right now, I am hopeful that things will start to make sense again soon.

Life is really good.  I have a wonderful wife who is willing to push through hard times and keep her chin up and continue to love me and figure this al out.  I have two BEAUTIFUL daughters whom I would die for… and who I am so eager to see grow up and find their calling.  I live in the most beautiful state/city in the entire world (that’s pretty biased, I know).  I have made some pretty incredible friends up here, whom I never expected to meet but am so thankful I did, and who are apart of a community which I love.

Sometimes I look back… especially when times are hard.  But there is so much to look forward to, it’s time to stop glancing backwards and focus on today.