On the surface, my world was small. It was a quiet life. I had a routine job and a lonely marriage. As my relationship got worse, my friend circle got smaller. I didn’t want to admit what was happening. I felt like a faded copy of who I was meant to be.
I cultivated an expansive inner world to make up for it. Inside that world, I was never too much. I was just as I was meant to be.
Most of my relationships asked that I shrink myself down to fit.
They might not have verbalized that request, but it was the subtext beneath every criticism. I always felt like I was a little too much — and yet never enough for them.
At the same time, my world shrunk down, too. In my marriage, my then-spouse was reluctant to socialize with my friends. For the longest time, we spent time with his friends and not mine. My world was getting smaller, and even though I didn’t like it, I also didn’t know how to bring him into my social circle when he was so adamantly against doing so. The few times when I was able to bring him into those arenas, his discomfort made everyone else equally uncomfortable.
Later, I would find myself in an abusive relationship. It didn’t start that way. The love bombing was real. But it didn’t take long for him to start to chip away at everything that made me me. He had negative comments about my body, my opinions, my choices, and my friends. I was inundated with criticism. While he had no problem benefitting from my successes, he was equally intimidated and threatened by them. He kept trying to cut me down and limit my access to broader social support.
There were other relationships and other slights. Over time, I noticed a common theme: My world got smaller in most of my relationships. I felt small and limited within the confines of those partnerships.
Healthy relationships should feel expansive.
They should feel safe and supportive. We should feel free to have friends and explore our interests. We should be able to maintain an individual identity along with a coupled identity. Shared goals shouldn’t cancel out individual achievement.
After the end of most of my relationships, I felt depleted. They had taken so much and given so little. But at the end of the last one, I didn’t feel that way. While there were hurts I could catalog, there were also ways in which the partnership expanded and improved my life. I didn’t feel less than I was before; I felt more. I could catalog the many ways I was better for having known him. I didn’t have regrets at the end other than the fact that it ended at all.
That’s how relationships should feel. We should feel like they’ve improved our lives even when they don’t work out. We should feel like they added to who we are, not that they chipped away at our sense of self until little remained.
Having both experiences changed the way I looked at relationships. I wanted someone who added value to my life and made it better for knowing them. I needed that. Frankly, it should have always been the bare minimum requirement, but it took me a long time to realize that I deserved more than a relationship that wanted me to be small so they could feel big.
It’s the manspreading of relationships.
A friend posted about manspreading the other day, and it hit me that this isn’t something men just do in public places. They do it in relationships, too. They take up more space and expect us to accommodate it by making room — even if we don’t have any more room to make. It’s inconsiderate because it would never occur to them to make the same adjustments for our comfort.
Maybe it’s because they were used to their mothers being the ones to pick up all the slack and manage all the invisible labor often shouldered by women. Perhaps it’s the societal expectation that allows men to be assertive and reactive while women can also be aggressive and overreactive. While it’s a generalization, I’ve found that it’s a common experience. I hear about it all the time, and I see it in relationships. It was certainly present in my own. The manspreading of relationships is expecting a partner to constantly adjust and accommodate without appreciating it or extending the equivalent courtesy.
These days, I live a big life.
I know it’s not for everyone. I probably have more pets than what is considered socially acceptable. I have a dog, cats, and a whole flock of chickens. I have a lot of interests, thoughts, and opinions. My big life feels good to me, and I accept that it won’t feel that way for everyone. It’s a good thing I’m not trying to be universally loved and accepted.
I’m not going to shrink any of it for anyone else. A healthy partner wouldn’t ask me to be less to make more room for them. They would allow me to take up space and still feel comfortable holding their own.
I’m over being smaller for anyone else’s comfort. I even came to that conclusion about my body. I’ve hit perimenopause and some of the weight gain that has come with it. It took a while for me to shake off the societal demand that I get smaller. I decided I wanted to be stronger instead. Healthier. More confident in my body as it is, not as I wish it would be.
I’m not pretending to be anyone other than who I am. I’m not tempering my thoughts and opinions to be more palatable for someone else. I’m embracing who I am, and I’ve gotten very comfortable at letting go of people who make me feel like I should be less so that they can feel more.
—
This post was previously published on medium.com.
***
From The Good Men Project on Medium
 |
 |
 |
 |
***
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.
Register New Account
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—–
Photo credit: Nadim Merrikh on Unsplash
