I’m Worried About My Partner’s On-the-go Lifestyle

Is the need to be busy all the time a kind of trauma response?

When I met my polyamorous partner Nat, we were drawn to each other like magnets, even though we are very, very different in many fundamental ways. Over the 4 years that we’ve been together, I’ve joked more than once that it’s a good thing I live with James and not him because James and I do life in pretty similar ways. He’s an extrovert like Nat, but at least James is also a bit of a homebody like me.

Trying to keep up with Nat on a daily basis would wear me out in nothing flat. He’s a bit reserved, but also a very social person who gets energy from being with others. I’m a super-friendly introvert who needs a lot of quiet and alone time to recharge. But even beyond these differences, I’ve often wondered why Nat and his family are always so on the go. He’s tired a lot of the time and the kids are too, but they keep their overscheduled life anyhow. Once after being snowed in, he commented that they all realized how tired they all were after being forced to slow down, but once the snow melted, they were all right back at it again.

I recently came across something that said that the need to be constantly on the go was a trauma response, a way of not having to slow down long enough to deal with things that are hard to look at and feel. I’ve always wondered if this is what is going on in Nat’s family and what it is they are coping with in this way. The kids probably do it because that’s all they’ve ever known and so it feels normal, but what about Nat and his partner Leta?

As close as Nat and I are, I still don’t feel like I have the right to ask him that directly. And even if I got up the nerve, I don’t know that he’d answer me. This kind of head-on discussion about what’s taking place under the surface is not really something he enjoys or is used to doing. I don’t think he could articulate it because he’s probably never looked at being busy in this way before. Having those kinds of conversation is essentially what I do for a living, but as a life coach, I’m having them with clients who have specifically asked to go there. Nat hasn’t asked for that, and so I’ve never brought it up.

It’s not that his family never has downtime, but overwhelmingly they nearly always seem to be scheduled to the hilt. Nat is a runner, and I know that is a time that he enjoys just being alone, doing what he wants to do, with no mental stress. What it does to his knees is another subject but I also know that it’s a time that he uses for thinking and processing, so I don’t want to make it sound like he’s totally shut down. I do things at times as well to avoid dealing with stuff that’s hard, but still, I worry about him.

I know enough about the kinds of things that are on Nat’s mind and the pressures that he’s under to be able to make an educated guess about a lot of what’s going on for him, but I still don’t feel like I have the right to tell him that I think their schedule is about more than just being a social, active family. I do things sometimes too that aren’t in my best interests either, but I don’t want to feel judged around that, particularly by someone close to me.

James and I talked about this some yesterday while we were floating around in the pool. We’d spent the morning reorganizing some closets and were ready to move into the Being phase of our day, where we didn’t have to go anywhere or get anything accomplished. We were just enjoying being together, outside — something that we spend time doing nearly every weekend.

“I wonder what’s really going on with Nat and Leta and this constant hamster wheel they seem to always be on?” I said to James. He agreed that it looked a lot like a subconscious avoidance tactic to him as well, but we didn’t come to any conclusion about what, if anything, there was to do about it. It’s Nat’s life, and although I’m concerned about him, it’s not really my business, even though he’s my partner. I’m always available for support when he needs it, but I give my thoughts when asked, and don’t when I’m not… most of the time, at least.

Everyone is walking their own path and finding their own way. I don’t think that I have any monopoly on the correct way to proceed. But I do wonder at times about a culture that is so geared around doing and that spends relatively little time in just being. It seems almost a badge of honor to be exhausted from being so busy all of the time, and I just don’t really get that.

James and I don’t travel very often because our young adult son who is on the autism spectrum lives with us and he can’t be left alone. When we do go somewhere, people always ask us what we plan to do on our trip. The answer is invariably somewhere between as little as possible and whatever feels interesting in the moment. We do not plan sight-seeing excursions or other highly scheduled vacations.

What feels enjoyable and restful to us is to eat good food when we want to, to sleep as much as we want to, to have uninterrupted time to really connect, and then to do whatever else strikes our fancy at the time. This might include going to some kind of programmed destination or event, but only if we feel like it. I get that some people are just more active and really enjoy having lots to do. And I still can’t help but wonder, if at least a part of that is a type of socially acceptable coping mechanism for the stresses of life, for Nat, and for others who choose to live that way.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.