Emotional safety

Something I robbed. But, here's what I understand, what I want to hold to, and what is already true.

What I understand now

Emotional safety is not the absence of arguments. It is knowing that a limit will be respected the first time it is set, without having to defend it, repeat it, or outlast anyone to make it stick.

That is the part I did not understand. I thought I was being devoted by refusing to let things go. What I was actually doing was making every limit you set into something you had to survive rather than something you could simply state.

The other half of it is symmetry. Safety is not possible when one person can see everything and the other has to ask. I had the full picture of your life and you had a partial picture of mine, and the parts I kept back were the parts that would have mattered most.

What it looks like, and where I failed it

I came across a therapist's list of what an emotionally safe partner actually does. Reading it was not comfortable. These five are the ones I want to name, because they are the ones I got wrong.

They respect your autonomy and do not try to control your choices. I controlled a great deal, and I called it caring.

They do not throw your past back at you or use what you shared against you. Mine was worse than that. I asked you to stop raising mine.

They own their mistakes without deflecting. I hid mine and let you discover them.

You can ask for what you need without being guilt-tripped for asking. You asked for space and I made it expensive every single time.

They make room for your feelings without making it about their own. You were crying at a concert and I spent the drive home narrating a holiday itinerary.

The list is from A Conscious Marriage. The words above are mine, not theirs.

Rules I want to live by

These are mine to keep whether or not they are ever returned. I am not putting them here as an offer or as terms. If they only hold when someone is holding up the other end, they are not rules.

1. Respect holds during the argument, not only outside it

We speak to each other the same way when we disagree as when we don't. No contempt, no raised voice, nothing said because it will land hardest. When we argue it is the two of us against the problem, not against each other.

My half of it: I stop the moment I notice I have started trying to win.

2. What I can see of yours, you can see of mine

Equal access, by default, without having to ask for it. Money, accounts, the full picture. No exceptions for the parts I would rather you did not see, because those are precisely the parts that matter.

My half of it: I show you the thing I am ashamed of before you find it.

3. Space and reassurance are both honoured

Space asked for is space given. The first time it is asked, without a reason being required, and without me negotiating the terms of it. Not answered with a drive across town, a phone call, or a conversation that runs until you agree.

Reassurance asked for is given plainly. Where you stand, that you matter, said out loud rather than left to be worked out.

One thing I have to be honest about, because I got it wrong before. Reassurance means being told where you stand. It does not mean a promise about how things end. That is the thing I kept asking you for, and it was never yours to give.

4. We discuss, but your decisions are yours

Your money, your work, your time, your friendships, your family, your own day. I can hold an opinion and say it once. I do not get a vote, and I do not get to keep raising it after you have decided.

My half of it: when you tell me something is yours to decide, that is the end of the conversation, not the start of a better argument.

What I am actually doing

I was and I will seek therapy to understand issues / PTSD that I carry. I am introspecting my actions. I will own my mistakes and seek forgiveness. I am striving to be a better person for myself, for you and for all my loved ones.

Promises are cheap and I have made a great many of them. So here is what you could watch for instead of taking my word for any of this.

A no lands the first time it is said. You can raise something old without me asking you to stop. You can see everything I can see, without asking. You can leave a room and I stay in it.