Dear Extroverted Husband from Your Introverted Wife – ryan

To my extroverted husband, from your introverted wife,

Thank you for getting me, for knowing me, for seeing me, and for knowing I love people—I really do. And thank you for also knowing that sometimes, I need to be around no one. Even just for a little bit.

Thank you for your knowing glance from across the room when we’re out and about at a social gathering, when your eyes meet mine, and you intuitively know that it’s time to go.

I can even be smiling and chatty, and you still know that your introverted wife is at capacity and needs a moment to breathe or process or dump or just sit in quiet and sort through all I absorbed from the environment.

Thank you for understanding. When we get home after being social for a while that I might seem short-fused, touched out, or irritable, and it has nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with you.

Thank you for covering me and picking up the extra slack. For telling me to sit on the couch and relax while you clean up the accumulated messes from the day.

Thank you for taking the kids outside so I can sit and sort laundry in silence and quiet even as I sort and process through the interactions of the day.

Thank you for knowing that sometimes I need to dump and process. Sometimes I need to cry and vent raw emotions. Sometimes I just need you to hold me and run your fingers through my hair and let me say nothing at all until my anxious breaths slow and become calm.

Thank you for knowing and getting that I love deeply and I feel deeply. And when we’re out somewhere, I will unintentionally take things on from where we are. From the burdens of people and the truths I see behind their eyes to the intuitive, unspoken words I hear people say. I hear and see so much—and it goes deeply into my inner world, unprocessed and unresolved, until I can have a moment away to raw dump and process and to sort and surrender to the Lord.

Thank you for understanding that after all the interactions, I need a place to release the valve from the pressure that has built up all day, from seeing and carrying all of this.

Thank you for holding my heart, for covering me in this double-edged sword of intuitive introversion with deep feelings. For supporting me in all I lift and carry. And for being present and connected to help and encourage me to lay it all down.

I know you love social settings, and being around people energizes and brings so much life to you. Thank you for giving me full permission to be me and not be you. And for helping create that safe cocoon, inner circle, and haven for me—my heart’s home where I can let down my all—my good, bad, ugly, and all the feelings in between. And know that you will be there to cover, hold, and love me through it all.

I know you cover and carry so much. You cover me, our family, our kids, the running of our household, especially when I’m in introverted depletion, social and sensory overload, and seem beyond return.

I promise your currently MIA wife will be fully back with you in just a short while, and when I’m back, I’ll come out and be willing to do it all again. But for now, thank you for covering me, for drawing a peaceful bubble bath with flickering candles.

In this quiet place where intuitive introversion meets the needs and emotions of a big and hurting world, thank you for letting me go deep. For not just giving me space but creating space for me to contemplate to love deeply and fully.

Thank you for blessing the way God wired me, for letting me know that my heart’s needs at the end of a long and social day are not too much. And thank you for giving my heart a safe place at the end of the day to breathe, to reflect, to unwind, to rest.