The Battlefield
The gaze of a controlled reaction to my evenings behavior was too much for me to handle. Everyone knows the look. It's a stubborn dead stare into the distance because they don't agree with your current behavior or reaction to a situation. Unless you have a band of yes men that surround you, then you know the look. The silence was insurmountable because my friend and I had past the usual label of mere friends or besties. We had graduated to sisterhood. I have a few women that I refer to as this. So I said something because I needed her opinion. I was devastated and confused. I needed to know if I was thinking clearly.
"Well," she paced herself, "I just think that you guys really have a good thing going on E. You guys are going to just ruin it. You're going to just mess it all up with this foolishness you guys have going on if you don't fix it."
There it was. I asked for it. Honesty; not really harsh but true. My respect for it was evident because I retreated back into my thoughts. I reviewed more than just our conflict but our true love that I knew and other people also knew to be real. It was good most of the time.
There just seemed to always be a dispute between us.
"Despite everything you guys are going through...I just love you guys. I think you guys are good for each other. Now, I'm not condoning anything he has done. He is an asshole. I'll give you that. But you are also a bitch, Ericka. You are so dirty for sending that text message," another confidant of mine explained.
We shared a laugh and mine was sheepish. This man hit a nerve and hurt my feelings. Why couldn't I return the favor. A relationship is supposed to be made of reciprocity right?
"How? He said," I started.
"I know what he said. But you still didn't have to go there," she vehemently interrupted.
I had an attitude but she was correct. The Kobe system couldn't apply to relationships could it? Especially not for a woman.
Still, I found myself in battles over the security of our love.
"Calm down Ericka," my then new friend, but now best of friends exclaimed.
I couldn't gain my composure. I felt exposed. I had finally learned to hide so much about a relationship because I wanted to preserve it. The mere notion that someone could see the faults in it and in me made me panic. I was nearly stricken with paralysis. The thought made me queasy and uneasy around her at first. She assured me that she wasn't just any old person. She was my friend. I opened up a bit. Again we battled with love and trying to control parts of our relationship that mattered.
She told me plainly, "You shouldn't make him do anything. He shouldn't make you do anything. You guys should just do the right things period. He shouldn't do things and you shouldn't do things to hurt each other because it isn't right; because he loves you. Not because you guys are afraid of what the other might find out or think or whatever the case may be. Love doesn't work like that. You guys love each other. Love each other and just let go of the other stuff. Don't do and say things out of respect for that love. You guys are people stop trying to control each other. Don't try and give any ultimatums."
I had never been made more calm in all my life from such blunt words. She was right. Love is war but it isn't a forced battle between two people. People join it mutually knowing what work it entails.
I'm not qualified to give advice. I have no answers on honesty, lust, or any other issue that engulfs relationships. No one relationship could ever give someone enough perspective or clarity to understand the insanity that is love.
Insanity is a characteristic of love. Love is also a battle field. Hear me out: you are insane (a state of psychosis) when you are in love. A person could be at ease one moment and in the next moment they can catch their lover cheating. Rage can literally take over, shut down the senses and make some one behave like they belong in a mental institution. That same person, once calm, will know what they saw with their own two eyes and still be lied to. No matter if that person allows another person to lie to them or not. They eat that lie like it is a top five filet mignon and devour it whole. They may then take that very person back. Is that not insane? To believe the very opposite of what you rationally know is true or fact, because you love and believe in your lover.
Yes love is psychotic and if caught off guard will make you a hypocrite. You will find a sour after taste resonating on the tongue from all of the 'I would nevers' you have spoken. Life shows you in time an angel and demon lives within all of us. That is what brings about the battle field.
Love is a game that should never be played until you realize that there is no choice in playing the game. Arming yourself properly is the only way to survive. There will always be a war. Married, open or shut relationships, or single, it doesn't matter. The labels merely provide a different scenery but the war ensues regardless.
Battles are fought for large reasons like cheating all the way down to the most minute issues such as washing the damn dishes. At the beginning of the battle, each partner should consider this, for every battle fought there are two losers. Pieces of the relationship can die forever depending on how gruesome and savage the warriors become.
I am an alpha woman. In every sense of the word I have embraced the hardness, the coldness, and the savagery I have been groomed with. Being a witty and foul mouthed bitch is something of a talent mostly. My husband knew I had it day one right? So why shouldn't I deliver the same victorious blows during an argument when vicious licks are being thrown my way. I am a fucking winner. I win. However, one day I realized that I was losing. We were losing. Our great foundation crumbed and buckled after every viscous word I thought I was only using to defend myself. I am quite the writer. Poetic and dramatic. Throw a couple of f-bombs in there and I am like a modern day Shakespearian genius. The hurt my love felt when he would bring it up later after the smoke cleared and the fires were put out would destroy me.
Who was I? Why was I that petty. How could I be that cruel. Even if he took it there first did I have to rise to the occasion? You see, it's something they will never admit but women, we are stronger than our men. It was built that way by design. Adam was sad and alone and viola. God gave us to man because we are what he is missing. He needs us to be strong and lift him up. Filling the empty void is exactly our purpose in his life.
Don't misunderstand what I am saying. The fight is what keeps the relationship alive; without an argument, there is room for doubt, infidelity, anger, and loneliness. The way we handle each battle is how relationships last. If you truly love the person you have chosen to argue with, just like with true friends, spare your lover a death to your relationship. Remember that you are half the heart and they are the other half. We are all just halves of a whole until we meet the person that completes us. Hurting them only hurts you if they complete you. If one half of a human heart is shot or cut to pieces the other half can't survive. Don't turn a temporary battle within the war called love into a dynasty ending finale.
