For years now I’ve had the policy that people who sit on the fence can stay on it. I don’t need them. A great rapper once said, “if you don’t know, now you know.” If you don’t know which side of the fence you should be on and you really need to sit and deliberate then I don’t need you on mine.
It took a loooong time to get to that stance. A lot of heartache. A lot of summoning of courage and pride because some of the fence dwellers were people I couldn’t believe were sat there. People I thought would be on my side without question. I was wrong about them. But I was right to make my choice.
You may sit there are think that I’m wrong to feel like that. Please don’t misunderstand me. I understand that situations are very rarely black and white. That people are entitled to sit on fences if they do wish and to give an ultimatum is unfair and seldom works out well for the one posing it anyway.
That’s my point though, really isn’t it? If you feel that strongly about something that you would want to try and force someone’s hand and compromise your own ethics and principles then it’s time to look at it from a different perspective.
That’s what I did. I didn’t need to ask them to choose. I didn’t need the hurt that their indecisiveness was causing me. I didn’t need to make them feel uncomfortable and stuck in the middle. I needed to free everyone from the situation and walk away myself because I did not need people who would not choose me in my life in the first place, I certainly didn’t need to fight for them to stay.
What I didn’t understand was my partner not feeling this sense of injustice, this passionate shunning of disinterest and loyalty from family and friends. I had not thought that he may not feel that way.
I have been happy in my choice and he in his and we have gone on with our lives. Except that For those years I have always held a disquieted feeling about a few of those fence dwellers.
Today it turned out I was right. To be a fence dwellers is to be duplicitous. To be a fence dwellers you are unwilling to stand up for what and whom you believe in, regardless or the ramifications.
It made me so angry to know that I was right. I wanted to be wrong. I wanted to have been unreasonable and petty. I can’t say it gave me satisfaction - no it didn’t. It made me relieved that I was right but then all of the anger and disappointment from that time came back and made me resent the people I’d walked away from all over again. It ruined my peace all over again.
Even worse, it is continuing to do so because I do not know a way of sharing the news. Not because it will make a difference to him necessarily, but because I believe it should. I cannot be reasonable about this and that is unfair. I cannot sit on the fence about people who sit on fences!
Please help!