Let’s get one thing straight at the outset, here: I’m nobody’s idea of a perfect boyfriend. I have communication issues (which I’m working on), I have fears (not to mention a certain level of paranoia), and I can be incredibly awkward physically, verbally and socially.

One of the results of being afraid and having communication issues is that I don’t react well to crises. In fact, I’ve been known to go way, way out of my way to avoid anything resembling conflict… much to the eventual detriment of my marriage. I could, in fact, be considered a past master of the passive-aggressive school of behaviour.

As I’ve said before, though, life’s too short. For instance, it’s too short to limp along in the bad old way when there are simple, manageable changes one can make to improve things.

The first change was to set aside my fear of conflict. I had to suck up and do the right thing a year or so ago, even though it terrified me. (And I won’t claim I did everything right, or everything I could or should have done. That’s a subject I have no wish to revisit, however, thank you.) I’m still scared of strong negative emotions, though, so I still briefly lose my nerve and my ability to focus during moments of crisis. (My son will undoubtedly sympathize with this statement.) But I get through them, usually by stepping back a bit and remembering to breathe… eventually…

Dawn and I have a wonderful and somewhat quirky relationship. Because we share a weird synchronicity (common dialogue: “Get off my brainwave!” “Never, bwahahaha!”) we sometimes get too comfortable in the mindset that we each know what the other is thinking and feeling all the time. Obviously, this blows up in our faces occasionally, causing a tiff of some sort. Half the time I feel utterly helpless and miserable, the other half I feel indignant. I’m learning to get a handle on both reactions, now. It probably helps that I’m realizing that an argument doesn’t mean the impending end of the relationship. As long as we’re still able to talk it out afterward, everything will work out well enough.

Probably the hardest part, for me, is being able to step back and look at both of our words and actions with more objectivity. I’m just as prone to claiming all of the blame for myself as I am to lay it all at someone else’s feet, so trying to be fair and balanced is the key. I’m getting better but I know I have a lot of work left to do. Luckily for us both, we’re both so intensely committed to making this relationship work that we don’t let disagreements simmer any longer than absolutely necessary. (Anymore, that is. Heh.)

Could learning these lessons have saved my marriage? I don’t know, and to be completely honest I don’t want to speculate on it very much. It’s far, far too late now to do anything but move forward, taking with me the best of what came before and discarding the things that sabotaged that relationship.

Anyway. These are the small building blocks, the new skills I’m working on a little bit at a time, every time: Objectivity, compassion, conquering my fears, finding ways to say what I mean without being denigrating, dealing with problems without major delay (if possible), and of course making sure that everyone knows anything of importance that may affect them directly or the relationship in general.

It seems like a lot, but it’s actually just a lot of small and simple things. The overriding skill, the one single hardest thing to do, is being strong enough to force myself to do what’s right, which means doing all of these small simple things.

Or does that only make sense to me? In the words of Paul Simon (singer, not politician), “Maybe I think too much.”