Losing It

I had a total meltdown a few nights ago.

Ryan and I went to see Transformers (it was really good, definitely a good movie for ladies and gentlemen both). I had just switched out my birth control the day before, so I was on the hormonal side anyway. On the way back to Ryan's apartment after the movie, he brought up his moving out this week. Ryan hasn't found a distance running coaching job...people just aren't leaving their jobs in the current economic climate, and there haven't been nearly the amount of openings this year as in years past. He is moving out of his apartment here in my hometown and moving back home to St Louis, about 2 hours away, to try and find a teaching job. Seeing his apartment empty out is depressing, and I had been squashing how sad I was about Ryan's impending departure for a week or so. I'm also really sad that Ryan can't find a coaching job...he's such a good coach, and I know that he was put on this earth to coach. So if you take the hormones and ignored feelings into account, and emotional meltdown was imminent.

Anyway, after the movie he brought up something or the other about the moving process. Here's a re-enactment of the conversation:

(Ryan says something about moving away).

Stacy (me): I don't want to talk about this. If we talk about this I will cry. (starts to tear up, blinks rapidly to try to stop the torrent)

Ryan: (Says something else about moving, I was too upset to remember)

Stacy: I will cry, seriously, so talk about something else.

Ryan: (Continues talking about impending move, clearly asking for emotional meltdown)

Stacy: (wailing) I don't want you to go.... (turns into a 5 year old girl and crys for an hour, wailing things such as/but not limited to "I don't want to come home to an empty house...I don't even want to live in this stupid town.....I need hugs everyday.....")

Oddly enough, I feel so much better now that I got it all out of my system! I'm certainly not excited about the fact that Ryan and I are probably going to be living in separate cities for the year before we get married, but I feel less panicked about it now.

I bottled up my sadness all week because I hate getting really emotional in front of anyone, especially Ryan. I want to be the best that I can for him, and to me that means not losing it emotionally. I have always taken some pride in the fact that I am not a big crier, and I don't have a short temper, so I tend to hide big emotions from people. To Ryan's credit, he was as sweet as can be about his normally well-balanced fiance losing her sh*t for a while. He let me cry it out and talk, which is what I needed. He even rubbed my shoulders and hugged me for a long time, which was icing on the cake.

In conclusion, I learned lots about my relationship with Ryan. I need to not try to be so stoic, and not be afraid to show big emotions in front of Ryan. He's not going to think I'm stupid because I'm crying, which I guess I was afraid of, deep down inside! I think I'm afraid of that with everyone, not just Ryan. I'm marrying him, he's someone I need to be emotional around, even if the emotions aren't nice. Ryan is wonderful, he can handle it and handle it in a way that it makes me feel 1000x better...he knows me so well. I also need to acknowledge my feelings before I have a meltdown. All week I've been telling myself how stupid I was for feeling the way I've been feeling. It's not stupid to be upset that my fiance's moving away, it's perfectly reasonable.

Did you have any meltdowns that helped you learn something about your relationship with your fiance?