They don't know us and we don't know them

A while back, the woman I was in love with left the following message on my voice mail:

"Sometimes when I'm not with you, I forget about how good you make me feel when I am."

When I first listened to it, I took it to be an affirmation of her love for me and it made me feel good. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that might not have been the message she was sending me at all. It might have been a way to tell me something a little more cold-blooded.

"Out of sight, out of mind."

In other words, she compartmentalized her life. When she was with me, she was happy, excited and satisfied with me and the world. But when she left me and went back to friends and family, she focused on them and, in the process, put me in the back of her mind instead of the front.

I think most of us have had relationships before, both romantic and platonic, when a person's actions or behaviors surprise us and even shock us. They do or say things we would have never anticipated, showing us a side of them we didn't even know existed. That's because we're not open books. In fact, for the most part, we're closed books. We don't tell others everything about us. And for some, we tell very little. We only want people to know what WE want them to know and, consequently, we take huge steps to protect our privacy. That's why the outrage was so strong and immediate when we found out the government might be listening to our phone calls. We don't want people listening to our phone calls, peeping in our windows or following us around because we expect and demand privacy.

But how does that attitude impact on intimate relationships? The same woman mentioned above once told me she didn't want me to know EVERYTHING about her; that she deserved to keep some things hidden from me. But the question is WHICH things? What did she say about me when she wasn't with me? What did she think about me when she was with others? What did other people say about me when she was with them and how did that affect her relationship with me?

I don't have the answers to these questions. I simply know that many people hide the most intimate part of themselves until they determine that part must become public and when it does, the people who loved them the most are often the most shocked and disappointed because the other person is doing and saying things they never would have anticipated.

I've long believed that honesty is imperative in a relationship. There can't be secrets; there can't be things we hold back from those people we say we love the most. I have to know everything about you and you have to know everything about me if our relationship is to have a chance of working. There can't be lies, half-truths and deceptions if we're going to believe and support each other.

But many people don't live in the same world as I do because they believe hiding things from their intimate partners is not only acceptable but mandatory. But if your partner discovered you have lied to them, how can they ever trust you again? How can they forgive and forget? How can they stick their head in the sand and pretend you were loyal to them when they know you weren't? And why would you deserve a second chance?

I know that some people are needy and, because they are, they will accept any treatment their partner gives them as long as the partner hangs around and doesn't leave. I know that but I don't understand it because it doesn't make any sense to me that a person could care so little about themselves and the relationship they're in that they would tolerate such behavior. But they do.

It's a shame that people who were lucky enough to have been born in the greatest country in the world would choose to throw away their lives with people they can't trust. But they do. They make themselves believe that a little bit of a person is better than nothing at all so they continue to live in a fantasy land they've created by ignoring the truth.

In the end, the only person who knows everything about you IS you!