I want to make it clear that I am not sure there is a clear answer to this question always. Sometimes, the ick sticks out like mold on a fruit, to let you know you should probably step away from whatever is in front of you at that given moment. It could be a biological, protective mechanism to drive you away from partners that won’t be good for you long-term. It could be a moment of reminder to stop putting your partner on a pedestal (a practice that will be ultimately harmful to the both of you). But, it could also be an indicator that the parts of your partner that ick you are just reflecting back to you the parts of yourself that you are deeply, deeply uncomfortable with.
As a person who has always used several data points in order to make decisions about my life, you can assume I do have lived experience to reference as I write about this. My first boyfriend in college. Actually, my only boyfriend in college. And, really, the man I have loved most deeply up to this point. We began dating after my freshman year of college, after almost seven months of messiness in which one of my close friends experienced trauma implicated by one of his friends. After navigating the complexity of this situation, I was unsure if I should keep seeing him. Our relationship up to this point had consisted of hooking up, friendship, stress, and care for one another. As we kept talking over the next summer, I found myself liking him more than I thought. I didn’t want him to be talking to other girls, I didn’t want to be talking to other boys. We settled on dating, and trying it out before our sophomore year started to see if we liked being together. We did.
Things were going alright, except for the fact that I didn’t realize when I decided to date him, I had also agreed to date his depression. And not on the side: I spent sometimes about equally or even more time with his depression than I did with him. It laid in bed between us at night, held hands with us as we walked around campus. It lived in the gaps between songs in our playlists: the meals we cooked were bathed in it. This was difficult to manage. As someone with solid experience in setting absolutely no boundaries, you can imagine that quickly I was fatigued by dating both him and his depression. I thought what I had was the good, old-fashioned ick.
What I did not realize was that I brought with me my own secret partner. My partner was also part of the relationship in a massive way. Mine was in between the letters of the texts we sent, in the air in my lungs (then, in the room, heavy) during an argument, rested on our spines under our backpacks as we walked to class. Anxiety. It was as large of a part of our relationship as was his depression.
The worst part about realizing I had a secret partner was that I didn’t fully realize until after we broke up how much damage I was bringing. It was easy to be hurt by his depression, but harder to swallow that all the times he had pointed out my anxiety was controlling me, making my pride larger to protect me, and stressing about things that didn’t yet exist, he was right. To take responsibility for something after it has already passed is easier in the sense that you can avoid heartbreak of disappointing someone for a little bit. That’s it. The thing is, if you really care about someone, this sucks anyway because you know they carried things they didn’t need to because you refused to take it off their emotional plate.
I don’t think I’ll close this one perfectly, more just leaving these thoughts out there for whomever wants to listen.
All love,
Kate
