I’ll burst into tears making tomato toast, or scream into my pillow when I feel overwhelmed. I’ve recently experienced the dissolution of a once-happy relationship, and I find myself getting angry about this sometimes. And that pain can be magnified when what you see on social media, which is the only way a lot of folks are able to see and interact with one another right now, is images of people who seem stronger than you taking forward-moving steps when you feel stuck in place, drowning in quicksand. But I am here to tell you that it can be as important or as painful if you are the person experiencing the grief of a relationship that currently feels like it’s in free-fall. And I am not saying our relationship turmoil is more important and more painful than the unnecessary death of a loved one, or permanent chronic health issues, or the loss of full-time employment. How the fights have gotten uglier, the weed and alcohol budget has increased to cope, and how the person they used to imagine as the one they’d walk down the aisle towards is now a person who they barely look at throughout the day.ĬOVID-19 has taken so much from us. How one partner is suddenly feeling trapped, and like they want to take the next step, but the other partner is feeling left behind. How living and working next to the person they love has nixed any version of a sex life they may have had pre-pandemic. For the past few weeks, I’ve been having the same conversations with friends in their 30s who are unmarried but coupled. When I actually sit down and speak with people who are in relationships, all I hear is how difficult things are. It is, however, a clear message to people, like me, whose relationships have been tried during this pandemic, that you aren’t the only one out there. This newsletter, while a weird one, isn’t the ranting of an embittered woman whose own relationship doesn’t match the perfectly filtered relationships of those on her social media feeds. And because everything else is hard, they’re sharing the good in their lives far and wide.Īnd I want to be clear that I want to be happy for them, and most days I get there. Somehow, in the midst of all of the death, and the illness, and the violence, and the climate anxiety, and the anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, anti-helping-people-in-a-crisis ball of shit that has been steamrolling our lives for the past 18 months, some coupled-up folks are finding ways to flourish. Because if you are anything like me, you’d have reason to believe that everyone except for you is thriving in their relationships. ![]() I feel like I need to start right there - right in the apex of it.
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