We talked in later sessions about the habit of postponement — the choice to delay a discomfort because in the immediate moment the discomfort of postponing is smaller than the discomfort of confronting, ignoring the compounding that makes deferred discomfort larger than the original would have been.
Daniel identified this as a pattern that had preceded Patricia. There had been other occasions over eight years, smaller ones, where his instinct was to wait and see if things resolved on their own. Some had resolved on their own. The ones that hadn’t had grown.
I identified my own version of the same thing: accepting insufficient answers because the question required was harder than the answer was frustrating. Saying okay when I didn’t mean okay, and then carrying the not-okay-ness privately, which is a form of accommodation that had become so habitual I barely registered it as a choice.
Martin said: what would it look like to catch it in the moment instead of processing it afterward?
I said: saying the thing when it happens instead of when it’s already accumulated into something large.
He said: what makes that hard?
I said: worrying about what the other person will do with it.
He said: and what have you found when you’ve said it directly?
I thought about the walk in October. The conversation with the departure date. The moment I put down the dish towel.
I said: mostly he handles it.
Martin said: so the worry is somewhat larger than the evidence suggests it should be.