Guilt

SB got punished on Monday.  He’s been a miserable wreck all week.  It’s now Thursday night and I found myself not wanting to be in the room with him because… he’s just… sad.  And then I was really annoyed with myself for my reaction, but I can’t stop feeling this underlying anger towards him for… being sad.  Which is HORRIBLE!

And I’ve talked to him about this, I’m being honest and up front, so this isn’t behind his back bitching time.  And I talked to my therapist about it yesterday.

She said, guilt is anger turned inwards.  And when people don’t process their anger, those of us around them can get angry ABOUT them not processing their anger, we pick it up somehow, and their expression of guilt (beyond what feels reasonable) can feel manipulative and passive aggressive and that’s probably why I’m reacting that way.

Fortunately, SB is not too fragile to hear my feelings about this and I REALLY appreciate that about him.  My previous two partners were BOTH too fragile to have these kinds of conversations.  And that was hard.  And frankly, I think I’ve been too fragile for large parts of my life for people to have those conversations with me.  That, and, usually when people have that conversation, they don’t own their feelings.  Usually that conversation goes like, “You’re pissing me off because you’re doing this thing wrong.”  Whereas my conversation was more like, “I’m feeling anger that I don’t understand when I experience you doing ____ and I’m really trying to process what is happening in my head.”

I think this is one of those moments when I realize again how strong our relationship is.  The three of us can be upset with each other, annoyed with each other, or even angry at each other, and it doesn’t feel like a threat.  Never in my life have I been in a relationship with someone where anger with the other person didn’t feel dangerously like a threat to the health of the relationship.  Now… I can feel angry, or have Sir angry with me about something, and I don’t like it or want it, but I don’t feel this dread that it is going to end us.  It’s just something ugly that’s happening and I know it will resolve eventually.

But then I was thinking about anger and what kind of anger SB would be turning inwards and I was thinking… He isn’t angry about anything!  He’s about the most even-tempered human being I’ve ever known… Except about his parents, and that anger is definitely turned outward!

But then, I realized… I get angry (very small scale) about things all the time.  I get angry that I have to eat my stupid diet.  I get angry at my disease.  I get angry at Sir telling me to take a shower after work so I can relax.  I get angry at my own desire to write.  And none of these are lasting or even usually expressed outwardly… but I feel them.  I’m not afraid of feeling annoyed by something because I know I’m not going to let that become lashing out over something stupid.  But I have that moment when I think, “Grr…” and then it’s fine.  And it feels weird to call it “anger” because I always think anger is something big and outward.  But I realize that it isn’t, it’s little moments of frustration or annoyance that rise and fall inside of my mental landscape all the time.  And probably why I get little punished a lot more than SB because… sometimes my little annoyances don’t stay internal.  🙂  And… that’s okay…  in fact, maybe that’s good.

I talk to SB and I ask him about this often, doesn’t he ever get irritated?  Doesn’t he ever get annoyed?  Doesn’t he ever want to roll his eyes or argue or whine or stomp his feet or ANYTHING about ANYTHING?  And he always says no, that he might get a little annoyed about some things but not really angry.  And I kept pushing because… I felt like… he must be perfect, I must be flawed, I wanted to find something that he was like me about.  I said, “What about traffic?  Or people who cut you off, or drunk drivers, or politics, or anti-gay crap… doesn’t anything piss you off?”  And he said, not really because he really just tries to understand where people are coming from and not get angry about it because anger doesn’t solve anything.

Yeah, okay, so he’s a saint and I’m a sinner.  I get angry all the time.

But now I’m wondering if his lack of anger isn’t really lack of anger but a fear of feeling any anger at all.  He has a temper when it finally gets pushed that far, and he will get into a screaming match with Sir every once in a while, but it’s like he has an on off switch, he’s either lost his temper or he has no anger at all… toward anything…

And it’s not in a scary way.  But it’s making me wonder if he’s suppressing the every day anger.  If he’s suppressing the small angry moments.  If he’s suppressing the pain that he is gay, that the world is a SHIT ass place for gay people, that our government is currently a horror movie of anti-gay rhetoric and attempted legislation, that he grew up in a household of the most toxic, anti-gay, “Christian” values enforced with violence on a daily basis and how can he not be angry?

And maybe he is.  And maybe he is afraid, because of what anger meant in his home, to even feel his own anger.

And maybe that is what is turned inward, is why he is so subject to guilt.

I always thought I was terribly guilt driven and held onto things way too long, but he tops me by far.  I always thought I was a perfectionist and am too hard on myself, but he is a professional by many magnitudes above me at perfectionism…  he actually ACCOMPLISHES perfectionism, I just wish I could and beat myself up for not making it there.

And I wonder if all of that is internalizing anger… just like it is for me… just to a larger degree…

And I wonder if that is why he needs punishment, and yet can’t forgive himself even then…

I’ve been wondering these things and needed to write them down.

SB has read this and says it’s okay to post it (although if it pissed him off he probably wouldn’t tell me anyway, right?)

Sigh.

But, I actually feel less angry about his guilt now that I’m thinking through it like this, and maybe that was really my point.  As my therapist said, his path is his own, I just need to understand my own and travel it authentically.  His path is his, not mine.

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