Day Four

Yesterday cracked open something for me.  I wrote by hand and then tore up the paper.  But the words are still poking at me.  Jerks.

They came from conversation with someone I love.  He said something that, on another day, I may not have even heard?  A simple statement with no mean words.  An observation, really.  But I heard it.  Loudly and clearly.  It felt like a slap.  I couldn't say anything at all.  I am the talker in this marriage and I couldn't speak.   
When I am afraid, I do one of two things..retreat or attack.  At this moment, I retreated.  Deeply.  The rooms was mostly dark and I was grateful that the fear I felt could not be seen.  As I play it over and over, I suspect that he didn't see my fear but felt it?  There was a shift.  Did the shift come because he put it out there and is waiting for my response?  Or is the shift an internal one because I have conditioned myself to expect failure as a given?
I spent years in a relationship where words his words were cruel and punishing.  Even the ones that were kind on the outside were thinly disguised.    Not surprising, really, that for a long time I have been in a place where my own internal dialogue sounds like the mean girl on the playground.  (My  therapist says I am supposed to befriend that mean girl and invite her to have tea.  It is supposed to disarm her.  Most days, I let her win.  Yeah, I know, I can go well past the 40 day project.) 

Anyway,  as I replayed the statement  for hours and hours afterwards, this is what I bounced between:
1.  He didn't mean anything at all by it.  YOU are the one that says crazy stuff.  NOT him. 
2.  He said it.  And meant it.  And is now acting strangely because it is out there.   He wants you to ask about it.  C'mon...ask what he meant!
I went back and forth between those two sides all day yesterday.  And in the dark last night.  And, this morning.  The truth is, it may not be either one of those?  But, I panicked when I heard them.

I fully understand that the only way to fix this is to ask the question of what he meant.  The truth is, I am more afraid of the answer than the question.

To disarming mean girls and to just asking the question.