being okay at the edge of the void

Warning: long post. Hopefully the last long one for a while. : )


I started to write this shortly after the last post. . . so almost a month ago.  But right at that weekend we started a busy season--which I want to tell you all about, since it is all so much more fun than this heavy interpersonal stuff!  But  I do want to finish the story where I left off, because if I am going to share it, I want to be clear about it.  The story is still unfolding, and I have a feeling the best parts are yet to come.

Here's why we thought DH's parents might visit that past weekend:

FIL had sent an email 2 weeks before, asking about good weekends to come visit, and was inquiring about that past weekend specifically, since DH would have President's Day off and so in theory they could have more project time together. Very sweet and thoughtful of him--but also makes me wonder if he knew about the quiet drama playing out interpersonally between me/us and his wife since that fateful first Monday in January.  Or maybe he knew and was still reaching out in relationship, which is so good and so sweet. . . and we kinda ended up rejecting him. : (   When FIL inquired about good weekends, DH acknowledged in a return email that it would be a possible project weekend. . . but did not specifically invite him to come.  In the past his parents have never needed an invitation and would just assume they would come down any 3-day weekend.  So even though we had not technically invited them this time, we thought they would likely be coming anyway.

Of course, we did not extend the official invite because we really did not want them to come--because we were afraid.  Afraid that too little time had passed, that MIL was still really mad and that the weekend would thus be an interpersonal disaster. 

But then we received a box in the mail from MIL a few days before we thought they might be coming,  with Valentine gifts for the kids, which made us wonder--are they coming or not?  So I emailed MIL to let her know the package had arrived safely and tell her how much the kids were enjoying the anticipation of opening the pretty things, and then asked if they were coming that weekend.

In other words, trying to act normal.  The email would be a test to see if MIL was ready to start acting normal too--if we were ready for the "pretend it never happened and move on" phase. But I never got a response, and so I knew--with a mixture of sinking dread and take-a-deep-breath-knew-it-was-coming--that MIL is really, truly, positively mad, and DH and I started to wonder if they were not coming after all, because of it.

So Thurs night DH called his dad, and they talked for a while.  The gist:
--they were not planning on coming
--because they recognized they had not been invited
--DH and his dad did not mention anything specific about anything interpersonal, but just chatted for a while as men do about various projects they were both working on, etc.
--but DH said afterwards his dad sounded hurt and tired and sad.

: (

I have to tell you, while I was so relieved that they were not coming, that last point was sooooooo hard to hear.  It has not been hard for me to think of MIL being angry about the letter, first because it already feels as if she is angry/upset/frustrated/disappointed with us most of the time, and second because I know it is important--necessary--for us to do this, and start the process of being DONE with this sinful and destructive way of relating to one another. I wrote the letter knowing anger would follow, but believing that much, much better things would be enabled after the anger is processed.

But to think about MIL and FIL being hurt. . . that is so much harder to hear.  Esp. if they really don't understand the letter (i.e. MIL can't hear my hopes for better loving that are behind it), and especially after they did SO MUCH over Christmas to show us love. They spent lots of money buying the things we said we wanted (and then some).  They prepared for us, hosted us, fed us, tried to please us, sacrificed for us.  They then kept our kids for us, drove them all the way down from Chico for us. . . . They spent so much time, energy, money, effort, etc. to ACTIVELY LOVE US.  And then here I reward them with harsh words and effectively cutting them off from us.  That's what I imagine they might be thinking/feeling right now.

The thought of them feeling so hurt after all they have done to try to love us well--as best as they know how--just makes me ache.  I can't stand the thought of that, and esp. FIL since he is such a gentle and meek but strong man who works so hard for everyone in the family and who seems to value his children and grandchildren in a very real and sweet way.  I don't even know if MIL shared the letter with him, or if she just told him her interpretation of it, which might be very different (and much worse).  So who knows if he even knows what I said or why--or if he just feels rejected unfairly. 

But even MIL I don't want to be hurt. 

As DH and I talked that week when we thought they would come visit, about the stress of seeing his parents again after the recent conflict, and of how horrible it feels to have caused someone pain, a very powerful visual came to my mind.  I realized I feel like I'm standing on the brink of a huge interpersonal void--a deep, black chasm of hurt.  It's like we/I created this void when we/I challenged those negative ways of relating.  It's looming in front of me, deep and black and scary, and I feel guilty and I want it gone--and so I have the urge to jump. 

Because the void looms, waiting, NEEDING to be filled.  Nature abhors a vacuum, right?  Even interpersonally that is true--and that's why people unconsciously rush to fill awkward silences in conversations.   And that's why for so many years now DH and I have jumped right into the middle of conflicts, to sooth, to smooth over, to fill the negative spaces MIL creates when there is conflict and division.  Conflict creates a rift, a psychological and emotional negative space between us, and the only resolution is healing the rift--filling the void--and until the resolution, there will be tension.  That tension is the subconscious awareness of the void, and the powerful urge to fill it.

And with that realization, God showed me something so important:  Right now, DH and I have to be comfortable living and loving in tension--with the rift still between us and his parents.  Just standing there, at the edge of the void, being at peace and resisting the urge to jump in. Waiting. 

Because no matter how much I long to be done with the tension, the unsettled conflict, the void is not mine to fill.   I long to jump in to fill that void, I empathetically ache to, because I am at heart a people-pleaser, and am fairly (even maybe more than most) sensitive to other people's feelings, and like I wrote before, I now see a life-long pattern of frequently jumping in to cushion my MIL from the harsh consequences of her own interpersonal choices.  In my 18-year-long relationship with my MIL, there have been many voids--or maybe one big long trench?--and for all of that time, DH and I have always jumped into the void, to try to erase it and pretend all is well. 

But we can't jump into the void this time, because doing so would be just repeating the same, failed and fallen interpersonal pattern.  

My Dear Husband and I are in this mess BECAUSE we have always cared so much about MIL (and FIL) not feeling hurt.  We sacrificed ourselves, our marriage, our children for 18 years to protect their (esp. MIL's) feelings.  So trying to shield them from hurt has been part (the root of?) the problem, and therefore cannot be the solution to our interpersonal mess.

So, what can we do?  Just stand there, at the edge of the void, and love, and wait.  Because only God can fill the void.  The whole classical "God shaped vacuum in every human" argument posited by Blaise Pascal way back in the 1600's makes so much sense to me now.  And in this specific case, I know I'm not really to blame for the void between us--I know it is the result of all the negative ways of relating we have allowed to take place between us.  It's the result of sin, and our human failings on both sides.  If the void is made up of sin--anger, malice, strife, bitterness, division, disunity, self-seeking--then the only thing that can ultimately and completely fill that void is the presence of the Holy Spirit.  God in us. God between us. 

For the past month--well, really since that fateful Monday morning in January when this all started--I have been living under the shadow of fear.  I have been totally stressed out by standing there, looking down into that black pit.  I have been struggling with the weight of guilt for causing the void--even if I know that is not true, I know MIL believes it to be true, and that is enough to make me feel guilty.  I have been afraid, so afraid, of the first time we see them and what will happen--and most of all feeling the burden of responsibility for our future together as a family. 

And let me tell you--God continues to be faithful.  He has shown me so many more things in the past couple of weeks, things that are helping me find confidence and strength and freedom from fear.  They will have to wait for another post, because this one is already too long.  But I'll end with the very last mental picture of the situation that God gave me just yesterday, as I sat down to try to finish this post. He showed me that I have been standing there on the brink of the void, looking down--so afraid of jumping, but even more afraid of falling, eyes fixated on that terrible, never-ending darkness. . . and He is telling me to lift my eyes.  To stop looking down into the pit--and look across it.  Because just like Peter walking on the waves, I will be perfectly safe if I just keep my eyes up and stop looking at what is scary, and just focus on the voice of my Savior.

Just look ahead, to the promise of better things, and breathe.