Fears
Written by Sean on Saturday, September 30, 2006
I’m afraid of many things. I assume we all have fears of some sort, so that doesn’t make me particularly different from anyone else. Yet, my fears are mine, and I still have to deal with them, whether 2 gazillion other people have fears or not. But what has fear got to do with transabled issues? There’s a relationship in many more ways than I can explain, but I’ll just talk about this particular set of concerns: the fear related to talking about transabled issues with my partner.
Obvious fears
Now, before I say anything else, I must point out that my partner knows about my "transabled thing". It was one of the first thing I told her, before we actually met face to face. I took a decision a long time ago that I wouldn’t get involved with anyone unless they knew about this side of me. A one night stand is one thing, but a relationship requires a certain level of honesty. So I told her. And at the time, she seemed to be ok with the idea. But things have changed, fairly significantly I think.
I believe she’s not fine with the idea, she tolerates it. There’s mixed messages, in which she supports me in "battles" I have to fight as a wheelchair user, yet she finds the chair cumbersome at best. Perhaps it’s a bit of a love-hate relationship, I don’t know.
In any case, coming back to honesty. I feel in some ways dishonest with her. She doesn’t know about the existance of this site. She doesn’t know I talk to several transabled individuals online. She doesn’t know I meet semi-regularly with a local gal who is transabled (get your mind out of the gutter you, it’s not an affair). She doesn’t know just how hard I’ve been feeling the effect of this 3 year long transabled attack.
Not that I haven’t tried. Before putting the site back up, I had offered to her to read my journal, to share my thoughts. Of course, my "journal" is my online site. She didn’t want to see it, made it quite clear she had no interest. When at some point we had talked about the site, she was so far from involving herself we might have been on different planets. When I tried introducing Sophie to my partner, she said "why would I want to meet this person?", and just went straight back to the car. In some ways, it feels like she doesn’t *want* to know.
So that makes me wonder, just how dishonest is it not to tell something to someone who doesn’t want to know?
Nonetheless, for my own sake, I think I really need to tell her just how badly I’m being affected my BIID. But I’m afraid of telling her.
I’m afraid that she’ll get upset and want to pick a fight. I have a near pathological dislike of fights, it is one of the issues I’m working on in therapy.
I’m afraid that it would break the relationship up (some of you might argue it might be a good thing, which I’ll admit it might, but I don’t want this to happen, as when things are good between us, they are fantastically good).
I’m afraid of confirming my suspicions that my partner is not in fact fully accepting of my BIID, despite what she’s been saying all along.
Yeah, I’m afraid. And I can’t help thinking of the famous saying "Feel the fear and do it anyway". And I agree, it’s got to be done. At some point, when I find the least damaging way to do it. Oh hummm.
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3 Comments
2 On 30 September, 2006, Sean said:
Well, that might be the case if she was aware that I had transabled friends. And on the occasions where I have tried to include her, from the very beginning, I met resistance.
Does she somehow take it as a personal affront to her as a woman/a person/an able-bodied person? (Feel free to email if this is something you’d rather not publisize. And please don’t think I’m just being nosey. And please ignore spelling errors.)
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1 On 30 September, 2006, Elizabeth Elliott said:
You suggest that your partner accepts or “tolerates” your transability, but do you think, perhaps, in her own way that she feels excluded from this part of your life? I mean it is a rather large part of your daily existance and maybe your attempts to shelter her from it have in fact alienated her. Where once she may have been curious and even wanting to be a “part” of it (not as a pretender or anything, just a part of that part of your life) and now having been excluded, she feels nothing but contempt. Perhaps she feels that your “transabled friends” are more important to you, or have more in common with you. Even if there is no physical relationship among you and any of your trans pals, perhaps she feels you have an emotional bond with them that she will never have with you. Nothing hurts a woman more than that.
Then again, I may be totally off-base.