Now that the divorce is behind me, I’ve noticed that there are habits that I need to unlearn.

Habit 1: No buts.

I have become irrationally averse to the word “but”. Ever since Eric said that me saying “yes but” (rather than “yes and”) was a major issue, I fixated on that. I had something concrete, something I could work on! And now I am watching my language all the time, getting anxious whenever I use the word “but”. I rephrase my emails when I see the word. I know it’s ridiculous, but it makes me anxious.

Habit 2: No opinions.

I was conditioned to think that if you love someone, then you don’t voice a different opinion unless your opinion is explicitly asked for.

I stopped voicing opinions. Then I stopped having opinions. One day I realised I didn’t even know if I actually didn’t have an opinion about a question, or had trained myself to suppress it, because it would only lead to hurt.

Adrian has called me out – “well, what if it was just you, what would you choose?” and I am pushing myself to have opinions.

Habit 3: Follow.

If you love someone, you walk half a step behind them. Me walking half a step ahead of him was me “being controlling” and “always needing to set the pace”. I learned to never do that, so now I can’t even walk side-by-side with a friend or colleague; I reflexively hang half a step behind, which makes things awkward.

Habit 4: Books.

There are books I have never dared to read because he admires them. I didn’t dare read them, because I knew that I would for sure not be as enamoured as he was. And he was sure to ask for my opinion afterwards, and I can’t lie and and say I loved the book when I didn’t. So it was safest to just not read them.

Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens was one example. Once he shared some section of the book because it related to what Ingrid was studying in history at school. I was not entirely impressed. I didn’t even say anything particularly harsh, didn’t claim that the author was wrong or stupid, just “that seems a bit simplistic, I’m not sure I agree all the way.” He immediately started defending the book: “Well, that was just a short section!” and sounded hurt. It was very telling, looking back – a mild critique of a small part of something got interpreted as a total rejection of the whole thing, and since he liked the whole thing, he identified himself with it, so a rejection of the thing was a rejection of him.

I can now read books that he likes, and maybe manage it without getting anxious about his reaction to my opinions. Although some, such as Sapiens, are probably tainted forever.