Not so Catastrophic

As I continue to get caught up on things here, I was reminded of something that happened about a week before leaving for Israel.  There was a massive relationship landmark, which for many, would now consider Rabbit and I, nearly eight months in at the time, to have a real relationship finally.  Amusingly enough, we didn't even realize it at the time, but we wound up having our first fight.  And of all things, it was about money in a way, which makes it count double.

Leading up to the trip, I had wanted to send Rabbit money to cover expenses.  His parents wanted me to pay them back for the ticket, which I was prepared for, and likewise intended to pay for everything else I did.  We both use different platforms to send funds normally, so I asked him to set up one so that I could send him money, and brought it up regularly, in the months and weeks leading up to the trip.

Well, while many times he legitimately forgot, and I try to stay patient because he can't juggle as many things as I can, I was getting anxious.  As far as I knew, his parents were waiting for me to pay them back, and I had the money sitting there.  I wanted to get money to him so that I knew he had funds for the trip, and that no one was waiting on me.  It dug at me, and was not so slowly becoming a real problem in my brain as we got closer and closer.

A week or so before we were set to leave, while on a phone call I had brought up that he needed to grab and set up the platform for me to send money.  He sort of brushed it off, and instead suggested I set things up on a different platform.  I expressed some anxiety, and that we were leaving soon, and it needed to be done.  I told him how I felt like people were waiting on me, and that it was doing some not great things for me mentally.  He said that he had some worries about the money being there and him accidentally spending it due to bills being taken out, even though it would be replaced with his own paychecks, but created some other anxiety on his end.

Knowing that, we made a plan for me to absolutely send money on a set day.  He confirmed that his parents had no set timeline on when I needed to pay them back, and knew that I had the money.  Creating a set plan helped me feel better, as well as being assured that there was no expectation of when I needed to pay.  He started jumbling through trying to say it was ok if I send money sooner, and I assured him that having a plan helped on my end, and things were ok.

Of course, because I sent the funds so close to us leaving, they didn't clear until we were almost about to head back to the states, but it wound up ok in the end.  

Once the conversation was done though, lasting far longer than this makes it seem, I looked at what we had said.  I thought about how it all unfolded, and realized that was our equivalent to an argument and fight.  Rather than it being me versus him though, it was us versus the problem.  We shared our own anxieties, and wanted to simply solve them rather than blaming the other person wanting them to change.  It was relieving, and energizing.  We no longer had to dread the idea of fighting, based on our own past experiences.  We knew that we truly were team oriented, and that it wasn't something to fear but rather feel strengthened by, because we had such a focus on healthy interaction.

I think, maybe, we actually are meant to last the long run.