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I Don't Feel Emotionally Safe With My Husband!

Dear Don,

I want to establish some rules in my relationship so I can feel safer.  I often feel pressured to do things that I don't want to do, like being social with people I don’t enjoy and having to make love whenever my husband wants to.  I usually just go along with this, but I am just tired of it. My husband complains now that I close him out. I think if we had some clear rules about these things I would feel safer to be more open and available. Right now I feel numb when I think of him. Am I being unreasonable to ask for these rules? Thanks for your straightforward answer. ~Unsafe and Numb

Dear Unsafe and Numb,

Rules don't make you safe.

The foundation of safety is telling the truth about how you really feel, what you want and what you don't want. The truth defined here is simple: what is actually happening without a story or drama.

So, for safety reasons, how important is the truth in a personal relationship?

Think about something extremely precious in your life--something you would actually die for. Notice the love you feel inside. You need to love truth more than that! Why? Because how can you protect and keep safe that which you value as extremely precious by ignoring what is actually happening? Rules don't make you safe. What truly makes you safe is the liberating, adventuresome, challenging path of truthfulness.

The good news here is that you are starting to do that! However, this is confusing your husband. He mistakenly thinks that you have closed him out, when actually you are starting to be open to him for the first time in a long time---maybe ever.

Although you will temporarily confuse him, your truthfulness allows your husband to know what is happening for you, and now a realistic exchange can occur. The reason you are starting to speak up is that underneath it all you are feeling frustrated and dead toward him and yourself in the relationship. Truth is not always pleasant and sometimes painful, but it is always authentic and feels alive. This authenticity and aliveness, often experienced as anxiety, opens the way for mature trust and intimacy to develop. Mature trust is based on what is actually happening instead of unquestioned assumptions, un-investigated expectations, denials, or lying. ONLY with truth comes intimacy. Only with intimacy comes trust. With trust comes safety. Your best bet is truthfulness.

Disagreements inevitably develop between spouses. But by constantly submitting to the wishes of your husband and by hiding your own desires, you are giving him unclear and inaccurate messages about what you really want. By giving him the impression of "yes" because you just go along, you trap yourself further into a role and into situations that you don’t want. Having rules will not get you out of this trap, because people break the rules whenever “the boss” or “the cops” or whoever is in charge is not around. This is human nature. Rules as agreements are necessary guides for relationship, but they don’t automatically make anyone safer.

Instead of a series of rules, I suggest making an agreement with yourself and your husband to be as honest whenever you feel pressured to do something, whether by yourself or with others. Agree that “No” just means “Not now” instead of “I don’t love you” or "Never!" Then “Yes” can be “Okay for now, but don’t lock me into this forever.”

Give yourself room to change your direction or preference at any time. Being honest brings a flow of real choices where a feeling of connection to the flow of actual life is experienced---not always pleasant and not always painful but always real. You aren't locked into either way, yet you can keep agreements. You can adjust them as circumstances change. You will be living in tune with life, and not rule bound by an idea that is a step away from life.

Truthfulness brings a direct experience of life as it is happening. This is the connection you are seeking. This is the love that you long for: LIFE. Without this honesty, anyone feels lonely, paralyzed, and unsafe. If you feel trapped and dead, this is not you. The "you" that you long for is aliveness itself.

Truth is not a robotic walk with a smile on your face.  If you feel trapped and dead, this is not you. You are alive. Truthfulness will bring you back from feeling emotionally dead in a second!

To be truthful, moment-by-moment, will be most challenging, liberating, sometimes disappointing, but your best option for safety. So, don't get ahead of yourself. Just be honest one moment at a time. Stay out of the idea of the future. Stay out of the idea of the past. Just be right now. At times you will resist it, because, at times being truthful in any committed relationship is very, very hard. However, being truthful gets easier with practice, and it yields something that rules can’t: closeness, belonging, and love. And, if it ain’t honest, it ain’t loving . . . and it certainly ain't safe!

Best wishes in loving.

Don

Don@DonElium.com