About a year and a half ago I started to get to know the woman I am very much in love with now. Nance was teaching a country swing dance class at the local lesbian bar here in Phoenix. I knew who she was because our paths crossed periodically in the ballroom world over the five years prior, but I didn’t know much about her. As the first few months of slowly getting to know her went by, she became a really beautiful friend of mine. She was willing to talk about a lot of the things most people aren’t willing to dive into, she was honest and blunt and the what-you-see-is-what-you-get type of person, she was an amazing dancer, and she was a ton of fun to be around. I started to crush on her but I didn’t really think I had any kind of chance with her.
We went to a concert together in December and that was the first time that I thought to myself that maybe there was something there between us. She had made it clear in the months prior that she wasn’t interested in dating a woman again for a handful of reasons but, even with that said, she did seem to possibly be interested in me. I was thoroughly confused but I was enjoying the fun and the friendship and the tension between us and I didn’t mind living in that space with her. I was polyamorous at the time still and was open to trying out connections that lived in the space between friendship and romance as long as everyone was on the same page about it all. One of my other partners and I even had a conversation during her previous visit to me about my crush and she had told me that she was excited to hear about where it went.
Once Nance and I kissed for the first time, my heart felt all kinds of things. I had no idea where it was going but I hoped it kept going. I assumed still that friendship was where our connection would mostly live but as the days went on my heart quickly and definitely shifted. She was very respectful of me and my boundaries around intimacy (big green flag), which was especially important considering I was poly and had other partners at the time. But within about a week of just our first kiss, both of my other romantic connections ended. One ended respectfully and on her accord and the other ended due to jealousy and lashing out in a really disrespectful way – something that I refused to tolerate so I ended that one immediately.
But as soon as my other connections ended, Nance and I both panicked. Neither of us thought that we’d end up with only each other and neither of us thought that we’d develop the feelings that we did as quickly as we did. The previous year, I’d been so focused on being in relationships where I wasn’t someone’s primary or only partner, and suddenly I was unintentionally exactly that. It scared the shit out of me but I couldn’t help but lean in. The first couple months of she and I were so damn fun. I laughed a ton, we danced, we got to know each other on a deeper level, and I honestly fell hard and fast with each and every new thing I learned about her.
Once things got really real for us though, both of our minds, bodies, and nervous systems went into panic mode. We both have had disorganized attachment styles in the past and I hadn’t felt anywhere near the way I felt about her in a damn long time so my anxious attachment started come out strong. I had been much more avoidant the previous several years – one relationship I was in had actually started on the premise of working because I was emotionally unavailable and she was logistically unavailable. (PS – I highly do NOT recommend being in a relationship with that as the premise because it doesn’t work out for either person and hurt on both sides is almost definitely going to happen.) Needless to say, I was not prepared for my anxious attachment to come out. On top of that, her avoidant attachment came out strong also which does not go well together. We started a cycle of pursuer and withdrawer for several months leading to some pretty big relationship wounds. It wasn’t anything like infidelity or lying, but it was almost a complete breakdown in communication between each other.
We got to the point where I asked her to go to couples therapy with me to try to figure out how to communicate and understand each other better. I knew I was madly in love with this woman and everything that she was but we also knew that, with the way we were communicating, the relationship wasn’t going to be able to hold. She agreed, so we went and things very quickly started to shift. Not only did we start couples therapy, but she started individual therapy as well (and I was already in my own individual therapy luckily). We went from some of the worst relational communication and patterns to some of the absolute best. We both learned more about ourselves and how to best support and reassure the other person. She learned how to not just communicate with me, but also how to communicate in a more healthy way with other people and with herself. I honestly feel so damn privileged to get to have a front row seat to this woman learning more about herself and learning that she is a human worthy of love and respect.
We were having lunch the other day with a friend we hadn’t seen in about a year. We were telling her our story and telling her about our struggles and what it was like to work through them. She turned to me and asked me why I stayed, which was an easy question to answer. I’d seen who Nance was at her core when we were friends and in those first couple months of us dating before our communication broke down. She is loyal as hell, cares so deeply about everyone around her, she can dive to the depths of conversation, she’s passionate about everything that she does, she’s fun and makes me laugh more than anyone else ever has, and she values and sees people for who they really are. She was similar to me in the sense that her coping mechanisms and the ways that she learned to survive were how she numbed down how much she felt on a day to day basis. I’d been there and I understood how hard it was to feel so much about everything and anything. Being a deep feeler has it’s own set of struggles that come along with it.
Now, had we not started therapy and our communication patterns hadn’t shifted, the relationship wouldn’t have made it. We both had to work on ourselves and work with each other in order for this relationship to work. I’ve never quite seen someone devote so much of themselves to learning how to help and heal themself so much though. I think there’s a lot of people out there who say that they’re ‘doing the work’ or working on themself but when it comes down to it, nothing is actually changing. I’ve been there plenty of times where I’ve been in therapy for years and never made any actual progress on myself. I’ve sat in the same cycles for years and said that I was working on healing and fixing myself but I was just going through the motions of it. I’ve learned more about myself and made more progress within myself because I’m with Nance and because I’m witnessing her heal her relationship with herself. I’m a better person now because I’m with her and I’m constantly learning from her just as much as she’s learning from me.
I know that this isn’t how we imagine a perfect love story happening. We all want to be able to fall hard and fast and have no issues and have perfect communication from day one with someone, but I don’t really believe that that happens very often. Love and relationships do require work and effort. We have to take the time to learn how to love someone how they need to be loved and learn how to communicate in ways that work for both people. I have so much more that I want to write about relationships and the lessons I’ve learned in my current and past relationships. For now though, I’m just going to share this little story about this imperfect beginning to this imperfectly perfect, beautiful relationship I’m lucky to be in.
Now, I’d love hear your stories. I’d love to hear about the lessons you’ve learned in relationships and any of the lessons you’ve learned about yourself while navigating this messy thing we call life. I’ll slowly be sharing my own stories and lessons along the way, and Nance may even make a debut herself on here with her perspective and some of the lessons she’s learned along the way too.
I want to be as real as I can with you all because I don’t want people to think that I have it all together – even as their coach. I’m human too and humaning in this world is complicated and difficult but I’m here to support people on their journey to figuring out what it is that makes them most happy. We’re all just navigating this as best we can and I’m lucky enough to have some people in my life that I can lean on for help when I need it. I think that’s a big part of being a coach – being a listening ear, helping people sort through their thoughts and figuring out what they really value and want to prioritize in life and in relationships, and how best to move forward toward those values and goals with the resources that they have.
Let’s talk soon.
Chelsea
CKB Coaching, LLC 