History and/or Experience

 Once married to Stu I was faced with a dilemma. I knew about his attachment to women as friends. I often reacted to it--feeling uncomfortable, anxious, and withdrawn--followed by crusty, sharp words meant to control or back him off. It was one of those default reactions that came when some part of me felt threatened (real or not).

I noticed that my fear about Stu having lunch with a female friend came from my history; not from my experience of Stu, the friend, or our relationship. While this was true and a rational thought. Experience told me feelings trump intellect more than not. I pondered this off and on over time and realized that when my reaction is born out of history it feels no different than when it’s the real thing.

I have emotional hot spots where the reactions come faster than I know how to stop them. Like flinching, my feelings of jealousy and anger came unbidden. The threat needn’t be real only imagined. The sensations—real enough to make me indulge in a  parade-of-horribles  that were front and center. I had done enough work by then to know that controlling someone so I wouldn’t have to feel jealous, envious or begrudging was not feasible. It was some kind of insanity that didn’t work.

Stu understood I couldn’t stop my feelings from coming up. I was okay with him having lunch with female friends, and I needed to share what it brought up for me. The fears of losing another person in my life. My part was learning to recognize this as a fear of mine... and realizing controlling him would not resolve my issue.  
    This was powerful for me in that it gave me a way to work against feelings that could be destructive when I took them at face value. We went through quiet a few issues in our marriage this way. 
Discussing how certain things affected each of us allowed for close connections that carried us through difficult times.

So the moral of this story is to check in on what I’m feeling and the thoughts it brings up. I try to see if my experience of this person fits with what I have going on in my head. Many times I found it was nothing more than ghosts from the past. I try and check out what I am picking up on these days and assess whether it is my history, my experience, neither or both.

The only way to know for sure is to ask myself, “Is that my experience of Stu?” My reaction habitually comes up regardless of whether the threat is real or not.