Toward the end of last year, I was traveling back from Devon and I had an unexpected conversation with the taxi driver on the way to the train station. I had a pleasant chat with the driver, the usual small talk that you would expect. I seem to intrigue others when they find out about what I do. This time was a little different though because the gentleman told me how his wife had experienced an abusive relationship, he told me about the events that had happened and how he couldn’t believe how she was treated. He told me that she is such a loving and caring person and questioned why anyone would do that to her? He told me how they hardly argue and that they work together. It was refreshing to hear about the support he had given her. 

I told him about my husband and how he has supported me and how I know what a healthy relationship is like now. I shared the other side though, how looking back I felt for Rob (my husband), in those first months and even years that he ‘put up’ with me. My anxiety and paranoia of what he may do to me, that I felt the relationship was suddenly going to turn and my trust will be broken again. I spoke about how Rob had stuck by me but questioned where was his support as a new partner to someone who had experienced such trauma? Rob also felt isolated on the path to be by my side, most of the time he made it up and took each day as it came. I know there were times he couldn’t understand me and my thought process, I think this is where he would have had benefitted from having some support himself; even if it was to talk through his difficulties.

It really got me thinking about the last six years of my life and the journey I have been on, a lot of people may see my experiences as an individual journey but it hasn’t been that at all. Rob has been there to hold me up in the beginning, to holding my hand and finally letting go. It has all been a process and it has taken years to get where I am today. Saying that, I still reach out for him to hold my hand and on the odd occasion he holds me up. I feel very lucky to have had him enter my life and have his love unconditionally. 

We created methods to be able to move forward but in the early days he used to constantly refer to two quotes… 

“Even the word hopeless has the word hope in it”

“You have to go through the hard times to know what the good times feel like” 

I know, it’s all well enough saying quotes like this over and over again… but he was right and I can see it now. I can use them when I am feeling rocky on my journey or something comes back to bite me. I know I will get through it and I think about these two quotes that he used to repeat to me. 

Thinking about it made me think about what a strong person he is and how he has adopted this into his life. I wanted to be able to do this for myself and have this outlook on life. In return I know there have been moments in which I have been able to remind him. 

My husband and that taxi driver aren’t the only good people out there, it has taken me a while to recognise that I don’t need my defense system on ultra-sensitive all the time. 

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