I know he didn't come up with the expression but lyrics from Rick Springfield's Ordinary Girl (a completely underrated beautiful song about this wife) have been going through my head a lot lately:
Another day, another battle
We shake the cage, our sabers rattle
Nothing that matters comes easy
and nothing that comes easy ever really matters
After the 1 year mark, I was doing pretty good. Even though I STILL haven't had a period, I have been gaining weight (and losing it, like a yoyo), hot flashes on maximum blast...in other words hormones are crazy!
Yes there's a but....or rather a then.... when things catch me off guard is when I find my brain not doing the job of keeping things in perspective, focusing on the future, keeping the past in the past. Sometimes it's a song out of nowhere, sometimes a TV show throws in an unexpected line about cheating and sometimes all those things pile up on the same day and are followed with a random woman running up to Dave in Aldi and hugging him. She seemed nice enough, but I have been burnt before by underestimating women. I think him not realizing the extent to which it hurt me bothered me more than the hug. And that precipitated a bunch of ugly crying, mixed in with some milder screaming than usual and a whole lotta fear. Fear that I will always be haunted by this. And I will. And I need to stop beating myself up over it. That's the real problem. My expectations for myself. I want to be as strong as some people give me credit for, and to me that means...no more crying...no more screaming...no more hurting. And THAT is completely unrealistic.
Which brings me to the song. Prior to the hug incident (which I am now over), I compared my life to one of my harshest critic's. If I followed her suggested lead, it would look like this....Dave was upset when his grandmother died and left me...guess I gotta dump him and move on...now I am on relationship 4 of my life, what's this new guy gonna do? Is he making me happier than Dave? No, but hey at least I didn't stay with that imperfect, vulnerable guy who didn't handle his emotions properly.
(This part is more a description of her life and how she does things) Ok, new guy isn't working out because he doesn't like how I parent, he has treated me better than any other man in my life but hey I gotta dump him, no sense trying to work through this and see his side of things. OOOhhh new guy, looks like a hot mess, I should try to save him, marry him right out of the gate...damn, he turns out he's a liar...aww fuck it, I will marry him anyway. Oops...he's a cheater, gee that one guy is starting to look really good now, better dump him and jump to someone new. He doesn't seem to get what I need, but fuck it...I will marry him anyway....
Telling my thoughts in written form is hard because my line of thought was intertwining my life with hers and I can't really do that here. My point is I could have dumped him after the grandma thing, could have dumped him for the Holly email, and I could have dumped him now....but the difference between my life and her life, that she can't see, is he was never like the men she dumped. Maybe her men sucked all along (and whether they did or not isn't relevant, I know she wasn't happy, I know because I was on the receiving end of hours of phone calls telling me how unhappy she was BECAUSE of them...and now I question, what is the common denominator? Did she really pick all of these horrible guys...or maybe, she's the one who doesn't know how to make a relationship work?)
And I know telling this will seem like I am attacking her. I am not. I am just trying to point out that if you have something worth saving you can't compare it to something not worth saving. I'd like to say that I'd never be in a relationship that wasn't worth saving, but you would all know I was lying, if you have read every blog. I married a man who cheated on me for 8 months before our relationship ever really even started...I gave up then. I gave up thinking good men existed, or more accurately that I could have everything: good looks, be number one to him and have him love me. Somehow I came to my senses and realized I deserved better...and that was before I had therapy and realized my self worth. Dave came along and he was soooo good looking and wanted to be with me, that I probably would have sacrificed everything else I wanted in a man just for that. I loved my arm candy. Shallow, but completely honest. And the icing on the cake was he at least TRIED to be romantic (successfully too!). I felt like the only thing in the world that mattered. Yet, I still couldn't fully believe it would be forever. Until Costa Rica. That was the turning point, 15 years into the relationship and I finally felt as safe as a woman can feel. But that's not to say that every one of those years weren't great. He had the misstep with his grandmother, but that was it. We didn't fight like so many couples do. Tiny little things, but no huge gaping holes that we just couldn't agree on. We wanted exactly the same things, and we evolved at the same time. We both figured out that happiness didn't come from things. So
when the Holly thing happened, I blamed it on the move. I blamed it on his self esteem and we resolved to repair it, and it seemed like he did. And I relaxed again. I trusted again, because I was led to believe that nothing was ever really in danger....that I had overreacted. I allowed myself to feel just as I had after Costa Rica, because nothing has ever felt that good. To feel that safe with someone. To finally believe in happy ever after. Once you have it, you will fight for it. It's THAT good. So I feel bad that's she never had that. And I understand why she doesn't think it's worth risking another try.
She is worried I will "look like a fool" should it happen again. And that's where I feel even sorrier for her. She is more worried about what others THINK than how I feel. She would rather me save face than try to get back to that exquisite (yes, exquisite) feeling of safety. God, I know it's a long road. It took me 15 years to get there, while he was doing everything right. I fought it so hard. But...oh when I let go...I was so happy. I have said it before I connect my happiness to his faltering. Because they have been related, it's no coincidence that it was barely 2 years after Costa Rica that he first fucked up. And then 2 years after I forgave and trusted and was at my happiest again that he did this. We have learned that it's true. My confidence robbed him of his safety. But we know that now. I can't even imagine how good it will feel if we can get to the point where we both feel safe at the same time. All I do know is that it is worth trying.
Reading the book Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love, has helped me so much. It's an insight into how we protect ourselves from pain, how we fight, how to stop.
It has also taught me that it can be applied to more than just a sexual relationship. I can apply it to my sibling relationship. I see that she hasn't felt safe with me. She felt I left her when I went to college and then she felt that again when I moved across the country. Her way of dealing with it is to say horrible things to me. Things that she thinks will hurt me. But I see through the words and see her pain. That doesn't change the fact that as the relationship stands now, it is toxic to me. I can't help her. And, I am sorry to say that I don't have the will to deal with it any more. There isn't an "exquisite feeling" to lure me to try. I have been hurt repeatedly by her outbursts and I have witnessed her outbursts hurt the men she claims to love. My hope for her isn't that someday she doesn't "look like a fool", my hope is she can somehow find peace and happiness and see that the anger (the "Demon dialogues" is what the book refers to them as) only hurt her relationships, they don't protect her. All of the people in the book who do this claim it is for attention. They aren't getting attention when behaving in a loving way, so they lash out, just for some type of reaction. That it's better than feeling ignored or alone. I can't reward that behavior anymore. I won't enable it. I hope she learns a healthier way of asking for what she wants and realizes she may get it, without the temper tantrums.
I am in a good place now but still fighting for what matters and it isn't easy. And I need supportive people surrounding me, not more things to fight for or people to fight with.
Bottom line is I know had I bailed at every failure on his part I'd be on guy number who knows what or on the other hand if he bailed on me for my failures he'd be god knows where with who. I'm not perfect, he's not perfect...but we are perfect when we work together. He knows to never forget that and that's what we are doing, fighting together...because we matter. Now go listen to this awesome song and understand he isn't calling her ordinary at all....quite the opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuMxVLT6NIs
No comments:
Post a Comment