Today is the day, today is the day I finally feel ready and confident to open up to my partner about my past, my emotional struggles, my fears, and insecurities. I’ve been the victim of some traumatic events in my life thus far—events I’m not ready to expand on yet in a public forum but I’ve gotten pretty good at building a wall around my feelings to protect my peace. I deflect any questions that force me to be vulnerable about these feelings, and in a relationship that can be very frustrating, especially when you’re truly trying to get to know someone.

I’ve been with my partner for a year now, let’s call her Lisa. We met through a mutual friend and clicked right away. She’s an organizational thinker and I’m a creative thinker, so we complement each other in so many ways. I usually spit out ideas of how to do something and she would help me drive it home with her “doer” mentality. When it’s time to pick a place to eat, I just say what I’m in the mood for, she matches that with some restaurants, and off we go. When she needs someone to listen to her and provide emotional support I am there because I live to support others and help them figure things out. Lisa needs constant reassurance about our relationship, her personal decisions, and I enjoy providing that for her because I believe in her choices and our shared fondness for each other. It is really nice, we always pick up where the other needed.

However, I was holding back parts of myself because I was not yet ready to reveal these things to Lisa. I didn’t think it was so apparent that I was holding back, but it was. She started dropping hints that she knows I’m not allowing her to see the whole picture of who I am, that I ignored. When she realized I was ignoring her hints, she became annoyed and more direct about her feelings toward this. We had a conversation, I acknowledged that she was right and I did not know how to bring down the walls that I had built for so many years to protect the fragile and traumatic things that happened to me.

After a month of no change, she was determined to get me to open up about my past. At the time, it seemed like everything she did was tied to her motivation to get me to open up. She introduced me to Mindfulness, a meditation technique where you pay attention to your thoughts as they pass through your mind without judgement. You simply observe and take note of any patterns. This practice combines concentration with awareness. We did this together twice a week. She also introduced me to her mentor, a trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapist whom I spoke with occasionally about life in general. The mindfulness meditation and occasional conversations with her mentor really helped and motivated me to start addressing the real reasons why I had built a wall around some of my feelings. Plus, I really cared for Lisa and did not enjoy seeing her frustrated. I decided I was going to allow myself to be vulnerable with Lisa and talk about some of the really uncomfortable feelings and the trauma surrounding them. The thought of this scared me, but Lisa has been a great partner to me and I didn’t want to see our relationship fall apart because of my inability to be vulnerable.

So, today is the day, today is the day I finally feel ready and confident to open up to Lisa about my past, my emotional struggles, my fears, and insecurities. It’s Friday night, we’re sitting on the couch in my living room rewatching “The Office,” we’re both huge fans of Dwight Schrute. The episode we’re watching is “Asian Jim”, in this episode Jim pranks Dwight by hiring his actor friend, Steve, to pose as him (Jim Halpert). For whatever reason, watching Dwight freak out about seeing someone he thought he knew end up being someone he didn’t know, made me think of my relationship with Lisa. I thought to myself, what if I never really tell her the truth and one day when the walls finally goes down and she sees me as a complete stranger/poser? I didn’t want either of us to experience that. I paused the TV, mustered up all the strength I could find, and said “I think I'm ready to talk about the things I’ve been holding back.” She replied, “Are you serious, okay wait…if you gonna open up about this don’t half do it,” to which I nodded and began to tell her about my traumas. I described all the things that happened to me and how they are tied to my biggest fears/insecurities. I went on and on for 25 minutes before I finally stopped talking.

We sat in silence for thirteen minutes. Those minutes felt like hours. I felt really vulnerable, waiting for her to say anything that would make me not regret opening up to her, but it never came. She finally cleared her throat and said, “Wow, I never knew this.” I was not expecting Lisa to fix anything or magically make things better because that's not her job. I was just looking for some support—a hug, letting me know she’s here for me with no judgements, encourage me to continue working on myself—honestly anything but silence and yet silence is what I got. This was a perfect opportunity for us to get even closer. I would’ve really appreciated some acknowledgement from her about how I’ve reached a new level of growth in my personal life by allowing myself to be completely vulnerable with her knowing how hard it’s been for me in the past. After more awkward silence she excused herself and left. Sitting there alone on my couch, I felt betrayed and manipulated. Lisa pressured me for months to speak with her about my traumas only to leave me high and dry. Lisa was so focused on getting me to open up to her, she forgot to think about how to support me when I did open up. Even “The Office” couldn’t cheer me up tonight, I went to sleep with a heavy heart.

Three days later, Lisa showed up to my apartment with support and explanations. Unfortunately by that time, my walls had already gone back up and I lost trust. Being left hanging by Lisa after I worked through so many emotions and battling my inner voice that kept telling to protect myself left me doubting everything she’d ever said to me. In the moment, it felt like her goal was to bring me to my lowest point just to say she could. I felt foolish for ever letting her get close enough to me to accomplish this goal. This situation has impacted a lot of courtship I’ve had since Lisa. Every time the situation gets to a point where I feel like I’m being too vulnerable, I immediately find shitty reasons to retreat and protect myself from ever feeling like this again. Eventually, Lisa and I decided to part ways because things were never the same. Every time I saw her, I remembered that night she left me hanging.

I couldn’t blame Lisa for how she handled the situation. I unpacked a lot of deep shit onto her at once and she did not know how to process it. She wanted our relationship to grow deeper and believed that knowing more about me would do that. She focused on breaking down the walls for so long, she lost track of how to prepare herself to receive the information. I was deeply hurt by the situation, but I’ve come to realize that it was one of the best things that happened to me. I never thought I would be able to utter some of the things I said that night. I remember feeling relief as I allowed myself to be vulnerable in the moment and share my whole self with someone else. The seconds right after I shared all myself with Lisa were some of the best feelings to date, because I felt so free. As I continue to grow as a human being and engage in other relationships, I am choosing to focus on those few seconds to give me energy and allow myself to be vulnerable with my partners because I know without vulnerability there’s no magic.