I’ve been with Glen for about six years. That’s a fairly long time. That’s long enough to really know that person and to have routine, to exist together. There’s really no surprises at this point of the relationship, so you feel comfortable and relaxed.
This should be the case for inlaws and inherited relatives. Alas, it is not. They don’t have a clue who I really am and they don’t know my tastes in things. This results in birthday and Christmases being very disappointing and demoralising.
I’m continually starring in a recuring role on Pleasantville. We all know the movie. It’s set in picture-perfect-nobody-has-any-real-problems land. We’re all pleasant and polite. No one has a mean thing to say about the other and we put on a persona when in the presence of such company.
This is hard for me. I consider myself to be a very real person. To say it like it is. I wasn’t blessed with the gene of subtly. I don’t know what that word means. I grew up in a very relaxed family which consisted of me and my mother. The lines of parent and child were blurred to become friends and accomplices in life. It was how it had to be. The tap needed fixing, we were both there fixing it. Dinner had to be made, we were both there peeling the potatoes and cleaning up. Ironing and washing had to be done, we both endured it.
More to the point, if there were issues, she told me off and I had my say (to a small point). We sorted it out. We kept it real.
Suddenly, I am thrust into another world where such relationships were never formed. Where affection towards each other wasn’t as paramount as it was in my family. That is not to say it wasn’t there, because I am sure it was. But the degree to which you say I love you etc is not as present. In this new world, people do not say what they think, they keep it to themselves. If you have an opinion that others do not concur with and the situation presses enough buttons, you are told to shut up - like a small child that you were 20 years ago.
I don’t want to disparage this family, because for all the things I whinge about, the produced the man I am spending the rest of my life with. The man who has so much love to give, there is never enough time to receive it. He is perfect, despite the issues that surround us today.
Having said that, it has been refreshing for my partner and his sister to get an ‘outsider’s’ take on the situation. To give an objective appraisal of the situation. To say that for others, this is not a normal family dynamic. People do talk back, they do express discontent and annoyance to each other and the lines of parent/child become blurred as the child becomes an adult and the parent just becomes another adult. Children at the age of almost 40 are not told to ‘do be quiet’ as they were when they were 10. They aren’t silenced because the parent has ordered it. The dynamics are supposed to changed. We are allowed to question our parents. It’s ok.
So, this family dynamic has become a bit of an issue for me and for my partner and his sister. It’s been a stressful week and I feel as if there is great expectations placed on me to sort it out, to bite the bullet.
Life is so much simpler when you pretend in your everyday life that no one but you and your partner exist. It is very selfish, but less complicated.
