I went by myself to a free workshop on Nonviolent Communication. I really liked it! It felt really good to go to something that aligned just with my interests. I did it for me. The feeling was so rare, and it made me realize how throughout the marriage I rarely did anything just for me. The girls and husband always came first. Where have I been all these years? I have signed up to take the next workshop in this series on Friday.

The divorce continues. T told me how the team set up a number of special provisions for our big meetings to help me feel safe there. I guess I could have felt kind of insulted or embarrassed that they did this, but I didn't. I just felt taken care of. They are trying hard to enable me to get through this, and I appreciate it.

At my sessions with T, the conversation just flows. Often now I feel we are so attuned. I can tell him things I wouldn't have been able to even 3 months ago. Little glitches between us can be quickly brought to the table and dealt with. It just seems easy to raise these things with him. Then these bumps don't fester and grow and become much worse than they need be. This all seems amazing to me, like a miracle.

Last session he asked if I had been able to read his handwriting (very scrawly) as he was the notetaker on the white board at our previous big meeting. I said no. What?! I sat there and took notes for everyone and you couldn't even read what I wrote? That's right, I said, adding, you're so cute. We laughed. Such an easy companionship. (He sometimes tells me I am cute when I do something he finds endearing. So right back atcha T!)

In this session too, I told T of a dynamic between my husband and me so he could be aware and watch for it at our meetings. This is that I must be very careful not to be at all assertive or have opinions or he gets angry. And his anger makes me give in, try to appease him. It's been hard for me to try to be this way (submissive, passive, don't speak before spoken to, etc.) for 20 years. Now we’re apart, and I hate it when I act in this manner, but I can’t help it when I am around him. As I explained this to T, I felt momentarily sad, for all the years of marriage I had spent in that situation, walking on eggshells, holding back my thoughts and feelings and true self. T immediately said, "you're sad." I swear, sometimes he knows what I am feeling before I even have a chance to notice it myself. Yes, I said, and let a few tears slide out as we continued talking. It was just no big deal, to be able to be sad and cry with a person, have them acknowledge and accept it, just like it is a natural part of life. I realize I can be myself with T--what a contrast. I remember saying, I’m not doing that again, and T asked, doing what? And I said, I'm not having a relationship like that again. Good, he said. (And maybe inside he was thinking "finally!") You deserve more and you just walk away if that’s how it is. I will, I said, it’s not worth it. No, it’s not, he said. I just want to be able to be myself. I think T was saying a prayer of thanks to the therapy Gods upon hearing his client make these pronouncements. He then shared a moment from his first marriage, and I saw that he knew exactly how I felt. Empathy rooted in shared experience. His disclosure models success and makes it seem possible for me too.

Maybe I'm taking that communication course to find others who also value communication and want to learn to communicate better. Maybe I’m trying to expand my circle of healthy relationships. I’m not sure, but it seems important that I go, a positive thing for me, maybe just a small way of being myself.