Communication

Last weekend DL and I sat down and had a heart to heart, the reason for this being the lack of communication between us lately. That's not to say we don't talk to each other or anything, but we seem to be less open about our feelings these days. This all stems from my trip to Africa and the effect it had on each of us in turn, and on the relationship as a whole.

Back in January my dream of going to Africa was just that, a dream, and in my heart I never actually thought it would really happen. When my plans started to come together however, and I spoke about it with DL, she was mortified that I would be going away, but at the same time she knew how important it was to me and so wanted me to do it. We talked lots about it, and I came to the conclusion that I would rather go and have her mad at me, than not go and for that to breed resentment on my part. And so I booked the trip. To be perfectly honest i never told anyone just how upset DL was about the whole thing, because I didn't want people to think she wasn't supportive of the things I did, when in actual fact the majority of the time it's exactly the opposite. When I told her I'd booked to go, she cried off and on for the first few days, and then gradually became more and more angry towards me for going. I thought that the trip would actually do us both the world of good, I think that DL is sometimes too dependent on our relationship, and she needs to feel like there is life outside it in order for it to be healthy. But as the months drew on and I started preparing to go, booking flights, buying things to take, she started to withdraw more and more into herself, and refused to talk about it and how she was feeling.

I think we argued quite a lot about it all, we'd booked a holiday to Tunisia two weeks before I was due to leave for Africa, and she kept saying that it was pointless us going on holiday because she wouldn't have a good time as it would be so close to me leaving. She felt like everything up until that point was marred by the fact that I would be gone for a month, and that made me so upset and angry with her for feeling that way. Consequently, as she withdrew into herself, so did I. I pulled away from her because I didn't feel I could talk to her about the trip, share my worries, nervousness and excitement with her, and so I stopped talking to her about it altogether. I only spoke to friends and family about it when she wasn't there, and i started doing my shopping with other people so that she wouldn't have to be involved.

The week before I went was a bit of a nightmare to be truthful. One minute we were cuddling and she was crying, the next we were fighting and she was so angry. On the day I left she punched the door, I didn't realise at the time, and her wrist still hasn't heeled propperly. At the airport she couldn't stop crying, and it made her more upset at the fact that I wasn't crying when I left. I guess the experience held completely different feelings for both of us. I was excited about going, and I was sad to leave her, but knew that I would only be gone for a month and that she would hopefully still be there when I returned. In her eyes, I was leaving her for no good reason, she would be on her own in our house for a month, we may not be able to speak to each other everyday, and she was hurting.

While I was there things weren't too bad. We did manage to speak everyday, and I even came home early. Three weeks of being back however, have shown us both the effect it's all had on our relationship. On my return we still didn't open up to each other. DL was still mad, and refused to hear anything about my trip, or look at my photos, and got very jealous when I received emails from the people on the project, accusing me of having feelings for them, which is absolute bullshit. She refered to the people and the country in dirogatory terms, and said that everything I owned had come back dirty and that I smelled of Africa. This of course had an effect on the way I felt, and again I got so mad with her and upset that she was being this way. this reinforced even more my emotional distance from her, not only concerning the trip, but also the way I felt in general. In the time I've been back we've hardly talked about the way we feel, just got on with day to day life, DL pretending the month apart never happened.

Over the weekend however we somehow came to realise what was happening to us, and we sat down and talked in length about the way we felt about my trip, and about each other. I think we both feel hurt by the other in some ways, but we realise now that we need to work on opening up to each other again before it's too late. I feel relief more than anything that we've noticed what's happening, because I think six months down the line we'd have been worlds apart, and that would have been it. As thingsstand now we are still very much together, it's just that the lines of communication between us have become a little blocked.

This past week has been much better. We've talked a lot more, and done things just the two of us, like walking in the park, or having a drink together, that have given us some time away from the everydayness, where we can propperly talk. She's now seen all my photos, and has even bought me a beautiful brown suede album to put them in, and has paid for them all to be developed. That meant so much to me, and she even commented when flicking through them, "did you ever stop smiling while you were there?" and when I replied "no" she seemed happy about that. So hopefully we're now on the road to recovery, I love her so much and I'm willing to put my all in to this relationship, including a bit of work to make things perfect again.