Like a gentle breeze on a summer’s day, or the silken cobwebs that stretch across the porch on an autumn morning you feel my presence. To you it is a mild irritant, easily brushed away, forgotten in a moment. I enter your thoughts, your world for seconds but I am quickly forgotten as you move through your life doing what you want with little thought for anyone beyond yourself.
Though our lives are intertwined in so many ways, through our children, our shared living space, you give little of yourself. Generous with money, presents and material things you guard your emotions as a jailer guards his prisoners. You let no one in and are careful to not to let others know how you feel. You permit yourself short bursts of anger, you shout and mutter but do not reveal the source of the emotion.
This was once my way too, but as I grow and learn I find that I cannot live in an emotional vacuum, repressing my feelings, but you refuse to listen to or acknowledge how I feel. You tell me all the things that are good in my life and that I have no right to feel as I do. For too long now I have suppressed my feelings, the hurt, the anger, the resentment, emotions that bottled up have led me to a dark, dark place, a place I never want to visit again.
I want to be truly alive, to be able to experience my emotions fully, to express them and in doing so to learn who I truly am. To you showing emotion is showing weakness, you are embarrassed by emotional displays whether they be of anger or affection.
It takes strength and courage to allow others to see your vulnerability, it allows them to know you, who you are and what you are. You are willing to discuss your hopes and dreams, your passions in life but have neither the time nor the patience to listen to mine, and I wonder why this is so. What are you afraid of?
I am reluctant to share my thoughts with you because time and time again you have told me I am wrong to feel how I do, that I know nothing of life and loss, and because you do not listen you do not understand. You think you are the only one to experience loss and that loss comes only through death, I have experienced loss through death too but you dismiss it as I was young.(http://wp.me/p1GBe4-2m)
I have not lost my parents as you have therefore according to you I have not truly experienced the loss of a loved one. But we are all individual and the experiences we have are what make us but you want to mould me to make me what you wish me to be, to be subservient to you. I feel that to you I am not important, just a small cog in the machinery that makes your life work smoothly, here to keep your house clean and bring up your children. My opinions are dismissed or rubbished if they do not coincide with yours. My feelings do not matter to you and as I sit and write this I question not only why I am here but why you asked me to be. For if I am not allowed to be who I am in your presence why would you want me in your life?
Maybe it is because you have a need to control others, by making them feel insecure, unwanted, unloved, occasionally deigning to let them know they exist thus ensuring they come back for more. Of course this is a guess on my part and you will not tell me what you feel so I am left with only my intuition and hints from your behaviour.
All I know is I cannot go on like this, if we are to share our lives then we need to be prepared to share everything from our material goods to our emotions, the good times and the bad. To be prepared to listen to one another and to accept each other’s faults and rejoice in our strengths. If you are not willing or able to do this maybe we should not be together.
Though I know you will not read this, and I cannot tell you as I feel you will dismiss my feelings I am writing this as I need to. I hope one day I will have the strength and courage to either speak these words to your face or to finally make the break.
Searching for the light. 
Linda Willows
January 23, 2012 at 18:19
my heart goes out to you. Sadly this is often a society that is guided by histories of “shaming”, often a way of not accepting or a defense against recognizing one’s one feelings for fear of owns dis-owned hurts, loss or anger. Any attempts to control another, especially through criticism and judgment tells more about the critics. One problem is that most people cannot even fathom the kind of suffering that you have been through and it frightens them perhaps. Another is that if they discount it because you were a child, then they show ignorance of the proven lifelong trauma and depth of injury that occurs when a child, still in development and with heart’s innocence lives through such tragedy as your own. It is much worse that the loss of a parent. It is similar to an assault upon one’s own being. The heart and mind of the innocent child is killed during the ordeal to survive….horror. There is little understanding of true suffering in childhood. An few have the courage to speak. You would do well writing a book as well.
Follow everything here with grace. But keep your head and heart high. Nothing is stronger than a survivor!