This is a recurring theme these days. On the internet message boards I stalk I have read posts by people who went through the same adolescent horrors I did. They feel frustration with their loved ones because they don’t understand them. That’s valid, I feel the same thing. I have been reading a friend’s blog and the recent topic has been similar. Dull, clueless hubby doesn’t understand the obsession with self destruction. The word spouse sometimes has another translation after years of marriage. Enemy. It seems we feel that if someone were actually “there” wherever that is-everyone seems to have their own particular place- we would have a stronger connection and feel better that our significant other “gets it.”

I have been reading and writing about things that happened to me as a kid and thinking about how they formed my attitudes about relationships and made me distrustful of men and closed off to happiness of a certain variety. I have read memoirs where women with the same problems continued to try and find acceptance and love with men who at best tried but were incapable of accepting or returning love, at worst they seemed to repeat the patterns of behavior that messed them up in the first place.

My husband who is totally clueless and impatient with all my digging around the darkness of my past definitely doesn’t get that part of me. There are two distinct parts to this. There is the Straight stuff that he might listen to and nod at approvingly if I have come up with something new that I just have to share with him. Then there is The Other Stuff, and that stuff he will not under any circumstances sit still for and would like to act as if that never happened, Thank You Very Much. He understands the broad outlines of those stories as we went over it in the beginning when it came up as things like that do in new relationships, but I can tell it has always made him uncomfortable. It is enough for him to acknowledge that when we first got together I would go away for significant periods until he learned that simply talking me through certain things brought me back.

When I told him I had to start writing, he would need to take the kids or I would start hiring babysitters, he offered to take the kids after work. He is after all a practical man as well.  I thought, “Uh, huh. You’ll last a day maybe.” To my surprise, he is capable of making dinner, doing showers, story and bedtime, sometimes all in the same night. And he isn’t complaining either; he actually enjoys his time with the rug rats.

I am sure he has some of his own darkness, he isn’t perfect. He has seen things in his thirty some years on this planet, but it isn’t a part of him like it is with me. This has allowed me to heal. It didn’t occur to me until just recently as I was too busy being annoyed with him for not “getting it”, now I am glad that he doesn’t. If he really did “get it” that would mean that he was as screwed up as I was and wouldn’t be able to give me the love; the gooey, clean and pure love that flows from him so easily, and in so many ways made him a safe person to be in a relationship with.

I have been watching people recently who look to have gotten though some of the ugliness of their pasts and made good lives for themselves as adults. The spouses appear to be sane, kind, loving people, and some of them can be described as goofy, or  “a little naïve”. Where would we be without them I now ask myself.

If I were with someone who really “got” the dark part of me, who could wallow and commiserate with me, how would I have learned how to grow away from it? I would have never felt “real” love because it wouldn’t have been there to give. Had he experienced the same things I did when his thoughts and feelings about the world were forming, I doubt he would be so stable now. He would definitely not be the same person who I gave up my long standing marriage and child boycott for. In him I sensed an inner happiness, calm, and peace-something I wanted more of.

I sat up late one night with an old friend of mine who understands and can laugh with me about the dark stuff, and my husband. We were talking about the scary place I was in as a kid. She was expressing her horror at the few details I was giving her.

“I never knew that about you,” she said with awe in her voice.

“I never told anyone the specifics; remember we weren’t supposed to blame anyone else for what was wrong with us. Explaining that place seemed like that was what I was doing at the time,” I said.

She looked to my husband, “So what do you think about all of this, is it just too weird?”

He shrugged, then shook his head. He does this with all matters Straight.

 “I just can’t imagine,” he said.

That’s it.  Lame right?  My friend is there commiserating, validating my feelings of outrage that I have only recently begun to express, and here he is with no concept of what I am talking about and can’t manage to fake outrage. Sometimes he will throw in some comment about my parents if he is really feeling it but mostly it is too ugly for him. He shuts down and becomes quiet until the subject changes. He believes it is wise to avoid dark topics whenever possible, especially at two in the morning.

I spent nine years of my life with someone who told me and every one of my friends that I was the coolest chic he had ever met. I felt like a movie star, he was funny and told great stories about his drugged out past. Whenever he talked, people crowded around and he held court, I felt special at his side, and even learned some things about storytelling and dealing with people. He totally got the dark stuff and was a master at making it entertaining. That part was great; I never felt like I had to hide anything, he accepted it all.

He also loved to visit strippers, and thought “degrasion” (his own personal word) when referring to activities with women was hilarious, and frequently used the word in conversation with laughter in his voice. As I got older I decided there might be something to that sex offender thing after all. Feeling like something was wrong with me emotionally was nothing new, but the physical symptoms were a new twist. Any kind of physical encounter left me with a sickness inside that prompted me to visit a medical doctor.

“Nausea? That’s odd. Huh.” That was all the doctor could manage.

 I actually thought it was me.  "What the Fuck?" you might ask, and you would be right. The only thing I can say is that I was young. There was nothing inside that man for me but a growing hopelessness, anger at the world and a hatred of women that I kept hoping would go away but instead turned uglier and more consuming with each passing year.

The blind cannot lead the blind; but what we’re very good at doing is leading each other down full flights of stairs, off  rooftops, and  in front of the odd bus or two. We could only make each other worse. For my part I dropped hints each day that I might have to get on with my life. I enjoyed the fearful reaction I would get, and for a while it made me think I was loved. I felt needed and for a time thought that was enough, it was more than many of my peers had at any rate.

 At the age of 26 I moved toward the light as it were and met my husband only a year later.

I spent years trying to get my mother to give me something she was not capable of, and my father as well. I was only able to experience a loving closeness with my parents when they both lost their minds. How did Alanis sing it? Until I met my husband, being in a relationship, being accepted for what and who I was came at a high price.

In matters of love, family and leading a full adult life, I need someone who is up to the task, who I can watch, learn from and grow with. I am glad he doesn’t get my scary stuff, sometimes I wish he would pretend better but the alternative is not something I am interested in anymore. So in answer to my own question, do I really want him to “get it”, the answer is a definitive No.