My wife is the type of girl I’ve always dreamt about and wanted in my life. If I’d have judged her based on that first day from her stories of self-harm, I never would have gotten to know the wonderful person that she is. I never would have realized that she is what I’ve always wanted in a friend and wife.

One of the easiest reactions for me to have would be to ignore and “forget” about her self-harm. It’s easy to just gloss over the subject whenever it pops up. Sometimes I do this just because it’ll avoid a difficult conversation when I’m not in the mood. But this attitude doesn’t help either of us. She’ll think I don’t care, and if I ignore the problem enough, this attitude will become a very bad habit and we’ll grow distant. Sometimes I feel afraid to bring up the subject of self-harm because I don’t want to make her uncomfortable or make her feel bad. However, every time I’ve brought it up, I’ve never regretted it. After we’ve talked about whatever our concerns are, we’ve felt so much closer. It may have been hard to talk about and she may have seemed reluctant to talk, but it was always worth it in the end. One piece of advice I always keep close at heart during our talks, is that she told me she always wants to talk and that I should just stick with it.

The following is my description of a night when we were together and my then-fiancée became triggered. (December 2000) We both learnt a lot from this experience. Please stay safe and be aware that this description may be triggering to some. Feel free to leave & check out these distractions.

We planned to have some good old fashioned quality time together, making some candles for Christmas presents for her family. This involved melting wax in a pan and pouring it into a mold. I was having a good time while she showed me her expertise in candle making. I’d gotten the grand idea of making a Christmas Tree, possibly with snow on the branches. I wouldn’t advise this of any beginner in the candle making art. I was having serious problems and becoming quite frustrated with it. But I was bound and determined to make it work and I used the majority of my concentration attempting to fix what was turning into a disaster.

A big clump of red wax and been melted and was poured into a bowl to cool. She removed the wax from the bowl by running a small knife around the outer edge of the wax and it fell out nicely in the shape of the bowl. She drew a line with the knife in the smooth rounded bottom of the wax. The wax hadn’t hardened fully, and when she did this the wax “bled.” The center of the wax was still liquid and it dribbled out of the solidified outer layer. I found this extremely disturbing because it looked very real. She didn’t seem to have much of a reaction and then I got distracted by my own blob of melting green wax. I was busy trying to make a decent Christmas Tree green color and that was becoming annoying as there wasn’t one readily available. I was mixing blues and yellows to make green and it just was turning out worse and worse. I barely registered when she took the wax with the knife and sat down at the kitchen table. I didn’t pay much attention when she drew more lines in the wax with the knife. I liked drawing lines in the wax too and watching it crumble, so I figured that’s all that was going on.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to make ‘green.’ As my frustration grew, I began to get annoyed and hurt that she was still playing with the wax and not spending the good quality time together as a couple. And then I heard her gasp. It was a gasp of pleasure and shock it sounded to my ears.

When I’d shut the stove off, I turned around and walked out of the kitchen and into the room where my shoes and coat were. My intention was to go outside and take a walk. I had no key to get back in the place but I didn’t really care. I just had to get out of the place and the weird high tension atmosphere.

As I was throwing on my coat and putting on my shoes, my mind kept telling me that it would be very bad if I walked out of there alone. But then the other side of me repeated that if I didn’t go outside I’d probably snap. Sheesh, the hurt was so strong inside of me. So, I made a deal with myself. I said that I was most definitely going out, but I’d go back into the kitchen and ask her if she wanted to take a walk. If she said, ‘yes’, then good, we could get out of there. If she said ‘no’, oh well that was her decision. I was walking one way or the other.

So I stood just inside the doorway. I leaned against it and looked at her. She was slumped over in the chair with the knife and wax still in her hand. I stared at her head with her hair hanging down over her face. I blocked out the knife and the disturbing hurt feelings shooting through me. I was completely closed off to feelings and emotions.

I simply stated, “I’m going out for a walk. You want to come?”

She didn’t react. She didn’t say anything.

I began to turn around and spoke, “Well, I’m headed….”

I was stopped myself short because she did something that broke through the wall I was erecting between us. She was still slumped over in the chair with her head down and hair all in her face. The only thing that had changed was that one of her arms was completely stretched out toward me. I walked over to her, took her hand and knelt down in front of her. I took the knife and the wax and put it on the table.

I was still emotionally dead however. Still, I wanted out of that kitchen more than ever, but this time I was determined to take her with me. Her reaching out to me told me that she still wanted me and I was taking her with me. I told her that we were going outside to take a walk and get out of there. But she wouldn’t move or say anything. She still just sat there. My impatience got the best of me and I felt the wall go back up. I ended up taking her by the arm and standing up. I then guided her into the bedroom and got her to put on her shoes and coat. All this time she had her head hanging low and never said a word. She put a hat on her head and kept her hair in her face. I then led her downstairs and we walked outside.

I had tight hold of her arm and hand because I knew if I let go she’d just stop and not come with me. I stopped to get her hair out of her face and try to get her to acknowledge my presence. It was like she wasn’t even there. I lifted her head and looked into her eyes and repeatedly said her name. All of a sudden she spoke sharply at me, “Stop yelling at me.”

Once again, being taken back and hurt, I resumed walking down the street and held onto her tightly. This time I was determined not to say a single word until we got to where we were going.

We walked in silence in the cold night. It was shortly after midnight I believe. We were the only people on the street and we could only hear our footfalls. As we walked I thought about what I would say and replayed what had happened over and over again. The walls became stronger and I turned off my emotions even more. I figured if she could act all emotionally dead, then so could I. I knew that how this all played out was going to be a big determining factor in our relationship.

We reached our destination and I was feeling fed up and very cold. We were at the place where I proposed to her months ago. She sat down on the bench right away and I stood there in front of her. I looked around at the darkened building and at the streetlights. I had my hands in my pockets because it was freaking freezing outside.

I said as I stared down the empty street, “Well, this is where it all started.”

She nodded her head and mumbled, “Mmmm hmmm.”

I squatted down and stood on the balls of my feet as the ground was too cold and dirty to kneel on. I looked again at her down-turned head. There wasn’t much emotion in my voice when I said, “You know, I was so close to walking out of that place on my own.”

I was going to say some more but she just started sobbing. Her body began to shake as she cried. I threw my arms around her and spoke into her ear. Whether she heard me or not over her crying I don’t know.

As her sobs subsided I sat next to her on the bench and kept my arm around her as we talked about the whole situation. She told me how she wanted me to notice what she was doing and for me to stop her. I told her I figured that if she wanted to stop she would have or would have come to me if she knew it was getting bad. I figured it wasn’t bad because she never approached me. I told her I’d pay more careful attention to the signs and she said that she’d try and tell me if things were going bad. That way neither of us had to be psychic. Neither one of us could maintain the relationship alone. If we both wanted it to work, we both needed to help each other. We needed to teach each other about ourselves. This opened up huge paths of communication. We both became more open to talking about our feelings and what we need.

If either of us had been selfish and said, “well, what about me?” I don’t know if we could have lasted very long. I can honestly say though, that this one night was a huge relationship builder. We became much closer and stronger.