I Love My Wife
I grew up in a home that accepted me about as well as most of my worst 'enemies' in school did. As such, I always thought that accepting people was taboo. My best friends were people who were basically in the same situation, so we all pretty much just put on acts around each other and felt like we were about as good of friends as anyone could have when really we had next to no connection.
My wife had it worse than I did. My parents were narcissists, but they liked to maintain the image of a perfect family so they kept us fed right and didn't let us try to kill each other. My wife had no nutrition growing up and she had 3 siblings who could do whatever they wanted to her.
So we were both pretty messed up, but it was obvious with her because her parents didn't beat her for acting out of the ordinary around people and she was not raised in an environment that she could learn what acting normal even meant. I could understand a fair bit of her behavior that most people thought was crazy because I would be acting that way if I wasn't beaten and shamed out of those behaviors.
We clicked because we understood things about each other that we held in common because of our abuse. For the first couple of years I tried to do what I could to teach her to behave normally so she wouldn't be ridiculed constantly (as much for me as for her, because I was raised with the idea that reputation was divine and so the people you hung out with needed to act reputable), but over time our understandings grew into acceptance and we consciously realized the difference between the two. Since then, we've learned to accept each other completely.
I'm not saying that we don't have misunderstandings, but we understand when we are having misunderstandings and we work through them instead of having the major blowouts that our parents would have several times a day. Our love goes way beyond acceptance, but acceptance is a big part of it. There is something magical about being able to share our deepest thoughts and feelings with each other without fear of judgement. Coming from someone who was essentially raised to believe that acceptance is a evil... words cannot describe how beautiful she makes life.
My wife had it worse than I did. My parents were narcissists, but they liked to maintain the image of a perfect family so they kept us fed right and didn't let us try to kill each other. My wife had no nutrition growing up and she had 3 siblings who could do whatever they wanted to her.
So we were both pretty messed up, but it was obvious with her because her parents didn't beat her for acting out of the ordinary around people and she was not raised in an environment that she could learn what acting normal even meant. I could understand a fair bit of her behavior that most people thought was crazy because I would be acting that way if I wasn't beaten and shamed out of those behaviors.
We clicked because we understood things about each other that we held in common because of our abuse. For the first couple of years I tried to do what I could to teach her to behave normally so she wouldn't be ridiculed constantly (as much for me as for her, because I was raised with the idea that reputation was divine and so the people you hung out with needed to act reputable), but over time our understandings grew into acceptance and we consciously realized the difference between the two. Since then, we've learned to accept each other completely.
I'm not saying that we don't have misunderstandings, but we understand when we are having misunderstandings and we work through them instead of having the major blowouts that our parents would have several times a day. Our love goes way beyond acceptance, but acceptance is a big part of it. There is something magical about being able to share our deepest thoughts and feelings with each other without fear of judgement. Coming from someone who was essentially raised to believe that acceptance is a evil... words cannot describe how beautiful she makes life.
31-35, M
