For the past day and a half I’ve been feeling extremely sad. The cause lay in a message from a person that I love very deeply.
This message is very thoughtful, mature, respectful and loving. There is no doubt from this message as well as other interactions with this person that they love me deeply, too.
I knew that the “immediate” reason for my sadness was heartbreak. I also knew that this heartbreak and the unfathomable depth of my sadness was due not only to this particular message and this particular situation that can be logistically difficult but also to old heartbreaks and traumas from my past. I was aware that I was reading this message not simply as it was but also, inevitably, through the colored lenses of my own past hurtful experiences. So I haven’t replied, yet. I’ve been holding off until I reached some balance and clarity in my own feelings, also because I could feel in my gut that something was nagging at me that I couldn’t pinpoint, yet.
Now I know what it is: once again, it lies with assumptions.
One of the aspects of that message that kept feeling terribly hurtful and also disappointing was the sense that this person was deeming our relationship impossible or us incompatible on the basis of what to me felt like “hypotheses”: situations from the past that we haven’t really ever discussed fully and hypothetical situations in the future that might happen or not (because plans are simply plans and can get overturned anytime!). This word “hypothesis” kept lingering in my head and nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on the cause.
Until this morning. These “hypotheses” in this beloved person’s message that hurt me so much are assumptions — and mostly unfounded ones, as far as my feelings and experiences are involved.
Yes, this person is mature and honest and direct and loving. They are one of the people I’ve loved the most and had in highest regard in my entire life. But in this message — while it’s still a mature, honest message — they are making a bunch of assumptions (without asking me) and based upon them they are deeming our relationship doomed.
They are assuming that since I’m white, I have never experienced racism (in my case, what I’ve experienced is technically called “xenophobia”) and thus cannot understand their mixed-race experience.
They are assuming that my tendency of being non-monogamous would endanger our long-distance relationship.
They are assuming that their desire to coparent would be a problem for me.
Why not ask me instead of assuming?
I know it’s partly, maybe mostly, on me, on my being very shy about bringing up and sharing my deepest thoughts and feelings, my fears and pains. And I know that this person’s assumptions are coming from a place of trust and/or respect towards me, on one hand, and of self-protection to avoid getting hurt too much themselves, on the other. (These are, admittedly, partly assumptions of my own for which I have some direct evidence from this person but which I also need to check!)
But although I know these assumptions are not meant to hurt me, they still do: they still feel like a shield and daggers.
So please, please, please: ask me, don’t assume!
The Little Prince and the Fox 