Quote:
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It’s intriguing that I’ve ended up with someone who now works in this field and must keep a part of her life secret from me. But I know that to be something of value for someone, you don’t have to be an open book. I know that somewhere in the hospital where she works, someone must consider her an especially helpful and reliable “friend” — someone who will never learn much about her private life and who relates to her in a way that I don’t need to understand.
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This paragraph and the parts I bolded say sooooo much truth about life, personal identity, and relationships in general. This is also the very thing that many people seem to have so much of a problem with. The fact is that two people can have entirely separate an private aspects of themselves and
still have very deep and meaningful experiences with others.
I get into this argument with my Partner sometimes because I am a private person, I need time alone often, I have my own journals, etc. and sometimes she gets insecure and thinks I'm being "secretive" or leaving her out of something.
The reality is that on some level we ALL have private lives we keep to ourselves, and even the closest people in our lives with never know that side of things 100%. It doesn't make that relationship with a Significant Other any less valuable or meaningful or functional. In fact it's healthier. The same thing for therapist/client, I think.
It may feel like we're sharing our whole lives with them but in reality we have lives outside of that "box" that serves and an office- that they'll never see or have a a real grasp on either. (no matter how well we describe it, our telling is our telling - not the living of it. )
Thank you for sharing this.
