Finding Freedom in Dysfunctional Relationships

A New Rhythm in Your Relationship

Reconciliation in itself is like a dance in the beginning.

You expect disappointment.

Harsh words and lashing out have always been the way you’ve communicated.

You are used to walking on eggshells.

It’s what you have grown to expect; and yet, now that person is showing up when she says she will. She is doing what she promised. She responds with grace or an attempt at grace. She isn’t perfect, but she is different, and it’s hard to know what to do.
In a sense, you are waiting for her to mess up.

That is awkward at best.

I understand awkward. My husband (sorry, babe) has no rhythm, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love to dance. When he first approaches me with his untraditional dance moves, I laugh every time. I can’t help it! If everyone else is moving to the right, my husband is going to bust a move to the left, and do it with enthusiasm. I don’t try to correct him anymore; I just go with it and have fun.

Maybe you aren’t sure whether to go right or left. It takes time to develop a rhythm that works together.

A couple of years ago, my mother was in the hospital. She suffers from chronic asthma, and every winter the battle gets fierce. When she was admitted to the hospital and treated with heavy doses of steroids and medication, I received an unintelligibly frantic phone call from my mother and raced to the hospital. She rose from the bed and tumbled across the room, crying.

I recognized the old dance moves. They were all there.

Weeping.

Depression.

Anger.

Lashing out.

Out of control.

“I’m doing it again,” she said. Even in the fog of medicine she recognized the instability.

For just a second, old memories flooded in from the past. But only for a moment. I put my hands on my mom’s shoulders. I wish I could explain that beautiful moment as I stood there with my hands on her shoulders. The past fell away. Yes, I recognized the instability; but as an adult she and I had a new relationship. When I was a kid, she had screamed for help and no one had listened.

That was a dance move from the past that I could change.