Why We Didn’t Attempt Mt. Baker
A couple weeks ago we drove within eyesight of Mt. Baker. Nick pointed out, "oh look there's our route," or what would have been our route if the trip wasn’t diverted by a bag of chocolate Easter eggs. This is the second May in a row we have attempted to make it out to Mt. Baker. This year, we thought the trip was on, even after our friend Sarah had to bail for work. We packed up our car for a week’s worth of stuff, our lovable and devious fifteen year-old dog, Pepper, and loaded Trevor Noah’s book on Audible (HIGHLY recommend!), and made our way to Seattle on a Saturday.
Sunday consisted of practicing crevasse rescue in a field with Nick’s parents doubling as anchors. We made a trip to the gear store and spent a nice evening in the city getting dinner. While we were out for a couple of hours, Pepper found her way to a pound of Hershey’s foil wrapped chocolate eggs. The night went from full bellies and nervous excitement to an ER visit for our aging pup. Fear, disappointment, guilt, anger, laid heavy as we sat anxiously in a sterile waiting room until well past midnight.
We made the call not to climb the next day when Pep was safe and recovering in our care. We decided that even waiting a couple of days would not make this attempt possible this time. We were too stressed, tired from staying up nearly the whole night, and we did not want to carry our fear of our pup’s health onto the mountain. We needed and wanted to be fully present for each other. A hard enough task when you are taking out your significant other (read this post for more context), so we moved through the feelings of saying not right now.
Dealing with Stress in a Relationship
Backing up a bit, I want to share some of the uglier parts of this story before it gets all buttoned up. I was sitting in the waiting room of the ER with Nick, listening to cat videos on repeat for hours, stewing. I sat arms crossed in silence, partnered up with blame. Which meant I was sitting there replaying the situation over and over in my head thinking about who’s to blame for this pain, instead of taking care of my emotions. Later, I caught myself in my spiral remembering Dr. Brene՛Brown’s “Blame is the opposite of accountability”. But at that point, a bigger part of me wanted to stay mad.
Mad seemed better than needing to deal with all of my emotions, mad seemed better than crying in the lobby of the ER, mad seemed better than teaming up with Nick to hold each other through a hard moment?…So I got cold, sat with my arms folded, and scowled “No!” when Nick gently asked if I wanted to go for a walk. No, because a part of me wanted him to feel as shitty as I did. No, because I was stuck in my unhelpful coping pattern. The problem was, staying only with anger, blame, and withdrawal did not let me access the other emotions I was feeling including grief, fear, guilt, and disappointment (which was part of my use of blame…for avoidance).
If I had let down my protective barrier of blame I would have had to acknowledge grief that my beloved dog of many years is aging. Fear that I may have not kept her safe from her own dangerous coping mechanisms. Guilt that I stepped out of my knowing and wisdom in caring for Pep. Sadness that we would not be able to go and do an activity we love, because of these errors. Disappointment in myself for not being able to use the skills I know to help create relief in my relationship. Instead of attending to those, I sat arms crossed, not talking for hours waiting for the vet to tell us her prognosis.
The next day, when Pep was safe in our care, Nick and I were able to start talking about these emotions, slowly. We were still quite tired, so we did not belabor or analyze a lot of this until we were more rested. Throughout the week we were able to move back toward each other the more sleep, rest, and communication we had.
Here are a few reflections about what skills we did implement, and why they were crucial.
Repair required me recognizing and taking accountability for how I was using blame and withdrawal to escape hard feelings and to punish Nick for the pain I was feeling.
We both admitted later we regret not taking more time to ensure Pepper’s safety in a new environment, and slowing down to listen to each other well. (If you’ve heard me say before, all decisions need to be a win-win situation for both of us, and often that takes slowing down to do so). Our agreement from this learning experience is from now on we take a crate with us when we travel with Pepper. That helps us feel safer going ahead and minimizing stress in the future.
We did implement looking for win-win solutions in managing her healing and additional vet care.
We both knew we needed more rest before we attempted a full repair conversation and we did both move toward relief by acknowledging each other’s experience the night of the event (just before bed), and the next day.
I needed time to process my emotions including anger, and all the other emotions I was avoiding. So did Nick. We did not create a lot of space to do so until we were back home a couple days later. Sometimes you don’t have the space right away, the important part is coming back to it no matter what.
We learned we both could create relief sooner by recognizing the emotions the other person was feeling and validating them.
We did take time when we were home to chat more about how anger was communicated in our families of origin and how we can care for each other in that emotional state.
We remembered that we are on the same team (the next day) and held compassion for each other and the honest mistakes that were made, with no one person to blame.
The thing about having relationship skills is that you still may not always use them right away, (even if you are a trained professional in them…) and that is okay. The goal is use, use again, and eventually you will forage a system that can continue to endure stress and hardship without those defensive strategies (blame, defensiveness, withdrawal, contempt, etc.) and you will know how to repair when you do.
Thanks for reading!
