Driving home from that Sunday dinner, Chris and I had a conversation about before we were together right to that transition when we were together.  We met so young and we’ve been through a lot but he had such a different life before we became we.  We started talking about darts in particular because he was playing darts on Saturday night and he told me how much he used to play prior to us getting together.  I knew he was always social but I didn’t realize how many different things he actually used to be involved in.  He’s always been magnetic, always attracted a lot of people, always social, always on the move.  I feel like he stopped so much of that when we got together and I know he did.  I was afraid of everything he was doing behind my back because of his “socialness” and his socialness.  But as he told these stories, as we talked about people from his past and from ours, how our paths crossed repeatedly but we were always in our own lanes, I realized how very much we have forgotten about that time as well.  Ironic considering I am writing a book about many of those past events.  But there was always this side to it: his side.  I never wanted to hear it because I was stuck in the righteousness of being wronged by him.  I was stuck in the needing to express myself and have my needs met for the sacrifices I made for him with no regard for who I was as a person.  I needed to hear these stories so I could be reminded that he was this person and he too sacrificed some of that when we became we.  I needed to have that integration of the person he was so I could understand who I am. 

I took control to the next level with him and I can fully admit that now.  It was ENTIRELY a defense mechanism.  I never had any desire to make him do my bidding or anything like that—the control came from the fact that I fell harder for him than he did for me and he wasn’t as committed, and I felt that every step of the way.  I foisted that control because I saw an outcome for us that he didn’t.  And I know that as much as I lost myself, he lost parts of himself too. Now we are trying to find who we are while we are still together.  But somehow this felt different.  I didn’t feel strangled by the memories or threatened by them.  I was curious.  I was curious about who we would be if we were both fully who we are.  I was also fascinated by the difference in the detail we remember from that time.  23 years is a lifetime.  We’ve been together longer than we were alive when we first got together.  We’ve literally had a lifetime.  The reality is I want to let go of the guilt or the fear that I forced him to stay with me and I want to let go of the guilt for making him make these amends all these years. The story has never changed and now we are working on that.