The Unspoken Voice

You have been fighting all night and he won’t give you anything in return. You keep yelling and he keeps staring blankly at you. All you want him to do is fight back, and he has barely let two words out of his mouth. This gets you even more riled up. At this point you cannot even really remember what was so upsetting in the first place, but you are not going to let this one go. The worst part is you still have not been able to get your point across and he is ready for bed.

Did he just turn over? Is this fool really going to sleep while I am this upset? Is he snoring? You walk out into the living room ready to rip your shirt in half and start throwing plates at the wall. You are mad. You cannot believe he really went to sleep without resolving your feelings. You pace back and forth, steaming from ear to ear, and as your mind starts to clear in the silence, you fall to your knees and tears begin to race down your face.

What you do not realize is that every little thing you have been brushing under the rug has finally surfaced, and you just vomited all over him. Of course he is going to bed, as far as he is concerned you are just having another one of your moments and you will get over it in the morning.

Eventually exhaustion takes hold of you, and you make your way back to the bed. The next morning you wake up still mad, he gives you a kiss and tells you he loves you, and you decide to let it go. You tell yourself you said your peace, and next time things will be different, knowing deep down this time was no different from the last.

I have been here, boy have I been here before. Not feeling like I was being heard and boom, just one button, and I would explode. I can remember the nights I would get so mad because he said something that released the dam holding back all of my feelings and it was like World War III. In my mind it was, at least. I would yell, and cry, and carry on about all of the things he had done that upset me.

Somewhere in the middle of my outpour of anger I would realize that I didn’t even know exactly what I was so upset over, and then that would make me more upset. He would say he was sorry and all I would think is, how could he really be sorry if I am still mad? Once I had vomited enough he would suggest we go to bed and talk about it in the morning. He would fall fast asleep and I wanted to stab every crazy thought in my head. Eventually I would fall asleep drowning in my own self-pity just in time for the alarm to go off.

In the morning all it would take was a kiss and an I love you, and we were on to the next day. All of those pent up feelings, brushed right back under the rug.

We are human, we are not robots. It is impossible to turn off what really matters. Sure, you can bury it for a while, but it is always going to find its way back to the surface if it matters to you. We were not made to shut off our emotions. Emotions are healthy, you need to listen to them. If you are feeling a certain way, you feel that way for a reason. Figure out why and speak up for yourself.

I have spent most of my life living to please others. I listened to everyone else’s feelings and I listened to everyone else’s needs. The one person who never got any of my attention, was me.

I realized that the issue was not in the details. It was not about what he did or did not do, or what he said wrong. It was about that I never spoke up initially when something he did or said had upset me so that we could work through it in that moment.

This is the moment I realized that I had a voice, and in order to be in a happy relationship I needed to use it…