There are some relationship truths. These may be true for some people, they may be true for everyone, I have no idea about this.

Relationship truths, once understood make life a little clearer, like a filtering system in a pool they allow for clarity and make swimming around together just that bit safer and more fun.

Amongst these are relationship truths such as the word “fine.” When a man says “fine” he tends to mean “good, ok, adequate” something along those lines. When I say “fine” it means “I am really upset and I can’t believe you have not noticed that yet.”

Knowing this is just a tiny detail that understood makes everything easier to navigate.

Shopping is a leisure activity as is ice cream.

Birthdays matter.

Being brought a cup of tea in the morning is a basic human right but expecting morning conversation is not.

It could be that when one started a relationship that one would run through all of these idiosyncrasies as a kind of “Getting To Know” event. There could be greetings cards and a series of tick off boxes for the really common traits. Even though it would save an awful lot of time and trouble this is not how we choose to do it at all.

Maybe we want the joy of discovery, maybe we do not want to give away all our secrets at once but maybe it is that we do not want to admit some truths because we fear that some truths are not so palatable as others.

We all want to be the person that we believe that we should be so we hide some truths. We make it harder by doing this but it is worth the price we think, for a while at least.

Insecurity and shyness we hide, fear and self loathing we hide. It may be quite right to hide these very common feelings, they are part of each of us and do not need the air time of extra attention. The relationship truths come in the way that they manifest themselves though, the way that insecurity manifests itself in avoidance and a chipper good humour so acute that it could be used to on the front of whaling ships to break up icebergs.

Then there are the needs that we each have, some shared and obvious and some a touch more individual.

I have to take this into the realm of the personal now or it will be bland nonsense, worse, bland nonsense coming from fear.

I need to be held, I need to be seen, I need to care for the man that I love. I can admit these pretty early on.

I struggle to admit this one that I am about to write about, I struggle with it because it is true, it is not attractive and it is not what I wish to be known. This is one of those things that when it is known a whole lot of control pours through my fingers and spills where I have no control of it.

There are times when for me and when I am in a dark and difficult and lonely place, a time when I have pushed away the man that I love – this is the time when only too much is enough.

This is an ancient truth, a core truth and I would not admit this to anyone but the man that I write this for. I would not allow anyone else to have this truth. They can read it if they like, they can see if it applies to then or to the person that they love but they may not apply it to me. It is too deep, personal, a whispered silence in the dark, a look between lovers, an understanding without words.

Except this writing has words, because apparently I need to admit this. I know that he knows this truth as he is starting to know everything about me. Maybe not now but along our time line he knows it all.

So in these dark and lonely times I have spoken about – there is no naughtiness or bratting, no hidden smiles or cheeky comments, no teasing pushing of buttons. What makes it so bad is that if you did not know me you might look at my behaviour and see all of the above, because I will cover up everything with a thin, tight veneer of happy, playful behaviour, a harpy song to tempt us both onto the rocks.

I am a harpy like at these times, talons to tear and eyes that turn and see it all. Girls are not supposed to be like this, when we are unhappy or fearful we are supposed to look up with our eyes brimming with tears and ask for help, demure and confident in the man that we love.

But in our, in my harpy times I do not trust anyone or anything and wish to release myself from any relationship bond. At this time I believe that any bond is fictitious and any love is just a pretence while he works out a less embarrassing way to tell me to go away.

So at these times I deceive and I lash out. I manipulate and I seek to destroy out a sense of honesty of nothing else. If I  were not loved then that would be an end of a relationship or worse it would be a time when I was misunderstood and flowers would be bought, he would apologise because he would hear what I said and not have a clue what I meant.

I have a fear, a fear of being too happy, a fear of being too known, too seen, because I have no doubt this will lead to loneliness. I have a fear that I will not be able to control my lover’s view of me and that then I will not be able to control him. This is when I will be lost in him and this is when he will go and I will remain lost and alone.

I am almost completely unaware of this fear most of the time but it has been the driving force that has kept me safe and independent for most of my life. I learned it early and so far it has worked well for me. But it does not work so well now.

When this fear steps up I know just what to do. I lie just enough to make myself a victim and him the unloving one. I am funnier and brighter and speak not one word of how I really feel. I beat the rush to make sure that I am absolutely isolated and alone.

This man knows me and I love him too much to keep it up. So I tell him all the secrets that I have never told another and he is able to hear and to understand and does not go away. I don’t understand any of this bit.

Then he takes it all away from me, he won’t let me drive “us” any more.

This is when only too much is enough.

This is when if he spanks me until it hurts it will just intensify the cycle of deceit and unhappiness. It is when if he uses the same positions and the same implements as the ones I am used to or expect I will be left with the same confusion and insecurity as before.

So this is the time when he has to take me further than I would ever want to go, it is when he has to use all his knowledge and insight to work out what is too much because it needs to be too much for me or rather it needs to feel like too much but he knows it is enough to bring me home again.