*Introduction*

I’m an outsider. I’m someone who cares about someone who has self-harmed. In this section I’ve pretty much just written down my responses to self-harm. These are just my thoughts and feelings, uncensored, that have evolved through my relationship with my wife. For those who read this, I hope this does not deter you from confiding in someone, because you do not want to hurt them. I have had both good and bad feelings and thoughts. Fortunately, the good ones have outweighed the bad. Some of my thoughts have been selfish, and some of my feelings have been hurt, but so goes life. Sometimes, I feel so overcome with impatience that I want to just yell out. My point is nobody is going to be 100% wonderful all the time. I try my hardest to be caring and loving to my wife. If I stumble and become impatient with her or say something selfish, we cannot crawl back in our shells and hide. My wife and I rely on each other to keep the lines of communication open. We both tend to create distance when we feel bad. But we try, no matter how much we may not want to do it at the time, to reach out and bring ourselves closer. Never once have we regretted coming out and telling our feelings. The hardest times have been when we kept our mouths closed and said nothing.

These page are about my experiences and may not apply to everyone. My reactions may be unique only to me or perhaps they are felt by many people. I can only write about my own feelings and reactions. I can’t say for sure how anyone else would react because it depends wholly on the type of person they are. But I hope to offer some insight.

In the following sections, I will talk about the first time I ever heard of self-harm. I’ve also written a section on the difficulties I’ve had understanding self-harm and also the difficulties my wife and I have encountered along the way to becoming best friends and eventually husband and wife.