How Can I Trust You Not to Hurt Me, When You Can't Trust You Not to Hurt You?

PAST

I’ve realized in perusing prior blogs that I need to correct one statement:

“To me, love is not only when you can put the welfare of someone else above your own needs—you don’t love someone if you will cause them pain to get your needs met—but also when you just love who they are.”

Well. I don’t need to correct it. I need to amend it.

The reason I need to do that is, Chi would have read that and said, “But I AM putting the welfare of someone else above my own needs! I won’t cause them pain to get my own needs met!” while at the same time sitting there with a wife who’s on Facebook for hours all night and doesn’t even appear to notice he’s in the house. 

So, let’s be a little clearer about that.

It’s important to include yourself among those whose needs count. And it’s important to make your needs AS important as other people’s. NOT, “more important than,” AS important AS. There’s a difference, and it makes a big difference to the quality of your life and to all your relationships.

The codependent says, “I can’t do that, because other people ARE more important than me. I can’t see it any other way because I know that I am not good enough. I am subservient to other people’s needs and wants because I am so unworthy that this is the only way I can make myself attractive enough to other people to even have any other people around me.”

But there’s a problem with that.

And that problem is: If you are doing that, you are hurting yourself.

And this is how it works. You have a lifelong dream, say it’s to write a novel. You’ve had this dream almost twenty years. Yet, you’ve never done it, because your significant other does not support that. When she wants to go do social activities or participate in some club you first met in, you WANT to say no, “I really want to stay home and write.” But that person attacks you in some way. “What do you need to do THAT for?” Or, “But everyone will really miss you. What about X, Y, and Z that we used to do together? I will really miss you.” And you go, Why am I doing this? I am just being selfish. (Especially if
you’ve just had an affair. Now you really feel guilty.) And you put the pleasing of the other person and the fulfillment of their needs above the pleasing of yourself and the fulfillment of your needs. 

And you and she agree that in so doing, you are a good person.

And the problem with that is: You’ve just hurt yourself. 

That lifelong dream meant something to you. It was really, really important. It was fun, it was fascinating, you’ve been collecting research for that project for years. You’re not going to be here forever. When are you going to get to DO it??

If you keep saying yes when you need to say no, the answer is never.

Sometimes it may be that you come upon that carton of your old research on the floor, shoved up into a corner. And when you see it, it hurts. Oh, well. I guess that will never be me. When will I ever get to do that? I guess never. Others want me to do other things instead, and I don’t want to hurt them, so I guess that will be never.

Now, let’s get real, here. Is your relationship getting a bit one-sided? And who really is being hurt the worst? Yep, I did the same thing, but my husband was dying. Dying. This is a little bit different. What the two of you are trying to do is live. Harmoniously.

Think of your relationship like a seesaw. In the perfect marriage the seesaw balances in the middle. My needs; your needs. They balance on the fulcrum. When you give up your lifelong dream so the other person gets to have you around in the way they want you to be, you move a weight from their side of the seesaw and add it to yours. Now the other person feels “up” a bit more in their life, and you feel a bit more “down.” Look at the gift of understanding you’re giving. That person is sad not to have you with them. You feel the empathy with that person’s sadness. But when you ask for some empathy: “But this is my lifelong dream. I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life,” what are you met with? “What do you need to do THAT for?” With the subtext, Don’t you know you are supposed to be just like me? Like what I like, want what I want? Be my absolute companion in absolutely everything? Be me with me, and sometimes even FOR me??

You’re not getting back that empathy you’ve just shown. Another weight moves to your end of the seesaw. Now you’re even lower. That person doesn’t understand me. I guess I’m really not worth caring about. Down goes your end of the seesaw again. 

Would it really kill that person to go to an event by themselves? “My sweetie is home writing their novel, they’ve wanted to do it their whole life and I’m so proud of them. Multitalented, that one I married!” 

What a gift that would be! But they can’t give you that gift, the gift of being yourself. You give them the gift of being themselves, but in this area it isn’t returned. And their end of the seesaw goes even higher, and your end goes even lower.

Now imagine you are doing this EVERY time there is a decision to be made, in EVERY area of your life with this person. What are you going to do for a living? Other person’s favor. Where are you going to live? Other person’s favor again. How is the inside of the home to be kept, and who performs what labor? Other person’s favor AGAIN. Do we have sex or not? When? How? Other person's favor A-G-A-I-N.

YOU call this “being kind.” “I can’t hurt that other person by saying no.” 

But at the same time, your end of the seesaw is going waywaywaywayway down. And you feel bad all the time.

Does the other person care that you feel this bad? You don’t know, because you won’t tell. If the other person really doesn’t care about your feelings, is this a relationship you should be in or stay in? You don’t know, because you won’t tell. 

You aren’t talking up, and in any relationship, talking up is your job and your responsibility, and this seesaw example illustrates the reason why. 

You are hurting yourself. And you can’t trust yourself to speak up for yourself, be the real you, and stop your end of the seesaw from hitting the dirt.

Let me tell you a little secret. When your end of the seesaw is deep in the mud, that’s when you decide to have an affair.

And that really hurts the other person, more than it ever would have hurt if you had spoken up about all those million little decisions all those months and years before. 

Some of those decisions hurt you way more than they would have hurt the other person to let them go your way. They really, really did. And you let it happen. Worse, you lied about who you were and what makes you happy and what doesn’t. That person thinks they know you when really they do not. Now you’re trapped in a lifetime of role-playing.

That really hurts.

And you can’t trust yourself not to hurt yourself. In a new relationship, when all these little moments come up, you’re still doing the same thing. “I must make this new person happy. I must make this new person happy. I’m no good if I don’t.”

And your seesaw is going down again.

Let me tell you that no one who really loves you wants either YOUR end or THEIR end to go down. And if you give a living shit about your relationship, YOU DON’T WANT EITHER END GOING DOWN, EITHER. Because the end of that road is, somebody’s seesaw seat is knee-deep in mud, and that person in distress finds someone else.

If you can’t trust yourself not to let your end of the seesaw go down, they can’t trust you not to have an affair.

Which is why I named this post, “How Can I Trust You Not to Hurt Me, If You Can’t Trust You Not to Hurt You?” 

Let David Flynn tell it, if you don't believe me.

And Jane's side of the story... 

I Will Accept It If

FUTURE

So I’m listening to Jerry Wise talk about the stuckness of the marriage after the affair. 

After the affair, the betrayed spouse remains permanently in a tizzy. “What happened? Why did it happen? Will he ever do it again? Who’s that texting him on his phone? I’m going to make him let me into his email and I’m going to read it all before he reads it. Oh, no, he’s going to hurt me again. When will that be?” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Not that they don’t have reason to worry. If you’re Rory and you don’t stop behaving the way I’ve described in this blog, you are creating in your partner active unhappiness and the desire to get away from you.

And if you’re a guy like Chi, and you had an affair out of extreme codependency and the inability to talk up, be heard, and fight for your needs in the relationship so your end of the seesaw doesn’t end up all the way in China somewhere, chances are high that you are going to repeat the same thing in the next relationship, should you somehow manage to get yourself out of this one.

Which gives both the betrayed spouse and the affair partner pause. It doesn’t matter WHO gets him, or if neither gets him and some unknown third party ends up with him down the line. This is a codependent person who will bury himself in untold misery and have an affair before he tells you anything.

If he leaves “her” and you’re the new wife, how the fuck do you live with:  “What happened? Why did it happen? Will he ever do it again? Who’s that texting him on his phone? I’m going to make him let me into his email and I’m going to read it all before he reads it. Oh, no, he’s going to hurt me again. When will that be?” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

For that matter, if he stays with you and you’re the OLD wife, how the fuck do you live with:  “What happened? Why did it happen? Will he ever do it again? Who’s that texting him on his phone? I’m going to make him let me into his email and I’m going to read it all before he reads it. Oh, no, he’s going to hurt me again. When will that be?” and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So you adore the guy and you still want to be with him.

Daunting, isn’t it?

How would I live with that?

That’s when I understood: This kind of situation, should you elect NOT to pass this one by and wait on the next car, requires a very distinct and solid fortitude. You have to be able to say, “I knew this, and I chose this anyway because I loved him and I wanted to give it every chance. I knew the risks. I also know that if worse comes to worst, I can and will just pass it by gracefully and live the rest of my life peacefully all alone. I thought it was worth it to me to take the chance, I took it, and this is how it turned out. Now I’m going to do this, this, and this, and this will be my new life all by myself. And there’s no upset, there’s no devastation, there’s no make-wrong, because I saw this with cool eyes and a cool head, this was one of the outcomes, and now it’s the outcome I’m in.”

I’d NEVER have had to do that with Simon, because Simon was a whole different animal. He’d have stood toe to toe with me forever, fighting like a tiger for what he wanted me to give him in the relationship, but he would NEVER have cheated. (I had other problems with him.) 

Chi will cheat rather than fight. It’s called, Codependency and Low Self-Esteem, and it’s raised and trained in. Obviously I’d require that both of us be in treatment for the rest of our lives, but that may fail. I’d have to totally adopt that credo up there if by some chance I ever married this guy. 

So then I thought, Why don’t I just do that now? If I’m so sure I can do it then, what’s the matter with now? Why am I so sure I can do it then when I’ve spent the last two years completely devastated after having him in my life only four months?

Neil Strauss has written this wonderful book, The Truth: An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships. In it he describes his years-long recovery from sex addiction (and some very raunchy and damn near fatal episodes.) Near the end, he finds himself longing for his one true love, whom he left behind after cheating on her, because he wanted to try an open relationship and she didn’t. He’s understandably nervous about crawling back to her and begging her forgiveness, and anticipating how horrible it will be if she says no and he has to face the fact that he’s lost her forever.

Strauss writes,

     Accept what is.

     With one army vanquished, the next attacks, the terror of self-doubt. What if this is how I sound     when I see Ingrid? What if Ingrid thinks exactly what I’m thinking right now? What if she’s right? 

     What if…Today I will expunge those two words from my vocabulary and replace them with, I will accept it if.  

     I will accept it if this is how I sound when I see Ingrid. I will accept it if Ingrid thinks exactly what I’m thinking right now. I will accept it if she’s right.

And I will accept it if this guy leaves me for someone else.

He’s already left me to go back to Rory. It’s already happened. Two years ago. If I can’t accept it now, I surely won’t be able to at any other time in my/his/our/anyone else’s short time on this earth.

And if you can’t accept it, do not allow it back into your life.

And the KEY to accepting it is turning, I’m just going to die if he cheats on me again, it will tear me to shreds, into, I am strong enough to get through it and I know I will be okay.

And if you’re the wife, this same stance might also be useful for you.

And, yo! 

If you’re the codependent, get yourself into individual therapy with the goal of developing a solid core of self-esteem and childhood trauma recovery so that you don’t do this again to yourself or to anyone else.

Look Out! Your Ghost May Linger Forever...

PRESENT

I knew more about affairs, marital problems, adult child issues, and codependency than most people, at the time that Chi happened along, I think.

But there was one thing I was naïve about.

I thought that if the married guy rejected you, he and the wife would be hunky-dory, would close ranks against you, the enemy; and henceforth their marriage would be strengthened, and your name and memory would be forever mud. 

Turns out that's not entirely the case.

If I had known this when I started up with Chi, would I still have done it? 

I might have. 

On the one hand, I had such qualms about what I knew Rory would go through that I put myself in the hospital having a one-hour panic attack. (Yes, that was all about Rory. I never told Chi that.) On the other hand, I was very angry with Rory. Her behavior was appalling and reprehensible, and worse, Chi did not know that all marriages were not like this and that he did not deserve it. 

I was angry enough at Rory that if I had known I was potentially damaging the marriage forever, I might have done it just to have that extra bit of leverage at wresting him from her. I also faced the possibility that, if I didn’t give Chi the (limited) experience of love that I did, and he went back to Rory and nothing ever got better, he very well might climb into his grave at ninety and a half never having known any better treatment from anyone.

Oh, no. HELL, no. NO WAY was I risking that one. Not with a sweet, smart, good-hearted, lovely, absolutely darling guy like this one.

But now I do know that, and (I know. Horoscopes again. Bleah.) But, should they be correct, I have to consider this if there’s a change in circumstances in the near future.

Do I want to use this fact to, in effect, drive Rory half nuts and force her into pushing Chi away? Because, dear sisters in harlotry, that is what we are doing. Now you know.

For my part, I don’t think so. If I win, I want to win fair and square, not simply because I drove Rory insane. (Especially if I was mean enough to actually do it on purpose.) 

 And if Chi leaves, he learns and matures a great deal more if the decision comes from him and is enforced by him, rather than if he’s forced into it by someone else, or lets the women in his life make (yet another) major life decision for him.

If he shows in my section ever again, it’s going to be Healthy Self And Healthy Relationship Boot Camp or the highway. He’s gonna need those skills for that.

For your part, recognize this. If he leaves you and goes back to his wife (or she leaves you and goes back to her husband)—and the odds are overwhelming that this is exactly what will happen—YOU HAVE DAMAGED ANOTHER PERSON’S MARRIAGE POSSIBLY FOREVER, and you still lose the person anyway.

Do you really want that on your conscience, besides the broken heart you could be nursing, oh, for the next two or so years??

Codependency Runs the World (Or, at Least, MY World.)

PAST


I saw my middle stepson recently. I also purchased The Everything Guide to Codependency. I thought I was just reading Reasons To Stay The Fuck Away From Chi Unless And Until He Applies Himself In Codependency Therapy And Is Legally Divorced, but I also saw two other things, especially after seeing my middle stepson.


One, that boy has serious problems, and blames his dad, my late husband, for EVERYTHING. It really is something else to hear him talk about a family life that apparently was absolutely HORRIBLE, and bears very little resemblance to the guy I fell in love with, married, and spent my happiest years with. I already knew Simon's first wife was diagnosed with BPD. But, I also know that BPDs often pair off with extremely controlling people, including narcissists. In reading TEGTC, I can see how the narcissistic traits can come from codependency. I know Simon's father left the family when he was very young, and the mom, the older sister, and Simon all had to work as soon as the kids were old enough to get jobs. Simon used to joke about having enough money meaning the lights and the water were both on at the same time. And apparently he was a drinker and a compulsive gambler in his other life. In things he said about his background, it was clear that he was working EXTREMELY hard at a very young age. And you can see in his books, how his family was supposed to reflect back to him a perfect view of himself. His son says that, too, and he didn't even read his dad's last book. He said they made him mad. (I used to tell Simon they'd sell better if the main characters had a little deeper and more defined imperfections. And he was sort of getting there in the new series he had started.)


I think his life task was overcoming the narcissism. He had traces of it with me, but NOTHING like he had in his first family. I seem to be attracted to codependent men, and they seem to be attracted to me. My boyfriend before Simon had these tendencies, too. By the same token, Chi seems to be attracted to women whose fathers died when they were very young, leaving their overwhelmed mothers to manage multiple young children alone. The difference between Rory and me is that Rory's mother was high-functioning (held a job outside the home, etc.) and Rory turned out low-functioning (doesn't know her own feelings, only works one day a week, sickly and dependent on Chi for everything); and my mother was low-functioning and I turned out the opposite. Interesting.


It seems as if, all my life, people come to me when they're ready to do better. Look at my grandparents. They royally screwed up raising my mother and her brother and sister. Both girls were seriously psychologically messed up, and I know my uncle had his problems, too. My grandfather even knocked my brother around some when he was little. (When no one else was present; I didn't even know about it until we were grown.) But my grandparents treated me the way my mother should have. I think they are a big reason I have been able to make the strides that I did and why I've been able to make steady progress in my life. I hear the stories and think I must have had a charmed life: "Am I the *only* person these people didn't hit or molest??"


And Simon was a way different person with me than he was in his first family, too. I'll never forget him in the bathroom, barely able to stand up, wiping pee off the toilet rim while trying not to fall down in the last days of his life--something I had been begging him to do since he moved in. I had to stop him and tell him he didn't need to do that anymore. One of the things he said to me was, "I haven't been much help to you, have I?" in the last months of his illness. Interesting.


Out of all the people Chi could have picked to have a "flirtation" with, he picked me. Somebody committed to wellness. He must have actually considered getting well at some point.


BUT HE NEVER WILL IF I'M STILL CODEPENDENT MYSELF. (Neither, for that matter, will I.)


It's as if the relationship with Simon was a sort of cosmic break. "Okay," said the Universe. "You've been having too tough a time, here, and if we don't throw you one, you're never going to make it. So here's this 'easy' relationship, where the bumps on your head fit the holes in his, you're aimed the same way in life together, you've got the love he needs and he's got the humor, fun, and optimism you need, and all your interests are the same and you'll be best friends...juuuust long enough for you to gain some confidence in yourself and your ability to get along in the world alone, and then, we're taking him away and we now return you to your regularly scheduled program...


CODEPENDENCY! Now, here's the weakest, sickest codependent you could ever find, so you can go back and fix the last few codependency problems you got from Mom. 'Cause they NEVER would have shown up with Simon, and you thought you were fine!


Muahahahaha!!!"

Oh, that Universe. What a tricky little fucker.

I'm studying hard. I thought I had all the reasons I need to stand firm if the person in question does, in fact, make a reappearance as scheduled. Nope. Didn't have them all. I sort of feel like I'm taking a final exam.

Maybe this is one reason I'm all alone and can't seem to find the right people. Life doesn't always give us what we need. Especially when we're old, many, many, many, many people find themselves all alone. It's sort of like being a hermit in the wilderness or something. If you can't survive on your own, you may be a codependent. I'll need to be able to do that very, very well, or else I'll just fall prey again to Chi or any other codependent male who happens down the pike. Or, if Chi could otherwise do better, I'll be the one who messes him up!

I'm learning a lot about codependency I never knew before. People think if they've read Melody Beattie they know it all, but, um, no. That isn't the case.

If there's Some Great Fate that's assigned me and Chi to each other, only we have the choice to Do It Poorly, or to Do It Well, I need to know this stuff. If he's never going to get well and I Need To Run For My Life, I need to know this stuff. If I Just Go And Pick Out Another One, I definitely need to know this stuff.

Life was a lot happier four years ago. But if Simon had lived, I never would have progressed in the curriculum, here. That aspect of life really, really blows some stinky, green CHUNKS.

I hope wherever he is, Simon knows I'm thankful for who and what he was in my life.

@ Chi: Are you ready to progress in the curriculum, here? 'Cause if you're not, we need to never see each other again.

That would be a sad waste.

But I can't change that.

That would be codependent.

Fear of the Future

FUTURE

2017 is here. In my horoscopes, it coincides with the entry of a very difficult relationship into my life. One that sounds suspiciously like the one that left in 2015. It could be anybody, but when I look at Chi's horoscopes, they are showing me the same thing at the same time, from the other side of the fence.

At first, I was happy! 

And then I went, Now I'm expecting this, and fall will roll around and it hasn't happened. And I'll be dejected.

Then I went a little bit further. Apparently, in whatever dysfunctional relationship that's supposed to present itself--and yes, it's two girls and one guy--in a few years, I win. 

And it's a disaster.

He's disappointed with me. I'm not what he expected. And I am the recipient of some very unsettling behavior *I* never expected. 

Reality sets in, and in this case it truly does bite.

I didn't know WHAT to make of all this. I've known Chi for almost twenty years! He isn't like this!!

And then I just happened to stumble upon a video by the Fabulous Jerry Wise of Family Tree Counseling, about "Being Married to an ACoA." Halfway through the video, the horoscopes all made sense.

NOW I see why the horoscopes look so bad. 

He has mood problems I don't expect, more than likely occasioned by PTSD-type reactions to things in the present that seem like things that happened in his childhood, and I don't know what's going on. I enter the relationship believing that now that he's FINALLY left Rory, everything will be hunky-dory--and then I get hit with these, possibly intractable, mood disorder-type problems, and I don't know what hit me. And I'm determined to stay with him, because I've promised myself  and him that he's my whole life and I love him forever and ever and he's the only one for me, and now I'm all enmeshed and he's all enmeshed and the problems don't get addressed properly, and I'm not taking care of myself.

I MUST NOT grab an arm and pull if he shows up again with Rory still on his other arm.

IF I DO, I damage him irreparably, and I'm only doing it because I'm damaged myself. Because I'm soooo attached to my initial fantasy of him that I can't move on. Because I can't see any other way to be happy in my life and I'm depending on him to "make" me happy. 

If you ask my charts, anyway, I wear Rory down and get him, but I'll still be so obsessed with him "making" my life and me being able to think of myself as a hero for it; and he'll be so destroyed by the seven years of angsting and back-and-forthing, instead of being in treatment, that he won't get well. 

And it all ends in hell and disaster.

So, what needs to happen is: If he melts down suddenly and comes back. I'll say no. I'll have to tell him all this. And he'll go back to Rory, and either it will be so bad he'll leave her, or he'll make the compromise to stay whether he is or isn't happy.

And I have NO timeline as to how THAT will go, so I'll need to assume I've seen him for the last time and just move on with my life. It's entirely possible we never see each other again. 

Unless he surprises me, which I doubt. If he does, I have a guidebook for the rest of the relationship. And I know I can't be there unless both of us are much, much healthier.

WHEN I refuse to take an arm and pull, whatever outcome happens, just happens sooner. He'll see Rory is a mess and leave sooner than seven years, or I'll meet someone else sooner, and that will turn out to be the right relationship.

If he comes back this year, all it really means is I get a do-over...a chance to DO THE RIGHT THING this time, send him back to his marriage, and walk away. I have that job to do, and if he shows up again, it's my responsibility to do that job to the best of my ability, then see what my next assignment is, him or someone else.

                                                 ***

But it may very well be that my assignment really is to just spend the rest of my life alone. I'm forty-eight, and I'm getting fat and losing my hair. I don't meet many--make that ANY--people who even look remotely suitable. Ever.

So let's just get on with spending the rest of my life alone.

                                                  ***

The whole reason I did this is I'm afraid of being alone. I was left alone emotionally my whole life, with an emotionally unstable mother who turned me into a mini-her and cruel schoolmates who made me feel like dogshit. So I envisioned a beautiful life where everything would one day be perfect and make it all up to me, where I would be vindicated as a better person than all those who had wounded me and treated me so terribly, and where I would finally find the love and the good relationships I had always needed.

But I got older, and life wasn't working out that way. I was having problems in my career, and I was terrified of being unemployable and homeless. When Simon came along, it looked like my dream was finally coming true!

And part of it did. I really did have that supportive, perfect-enough, happy, wonderful, loving relationship, but other things didn't go right in the world. I got stuck with the care of two mentally ill, handicapped people. We didn't have much money. And then cancer happened, and my Simon died and left me.

And I was still convinced I couldn't make it in the world alone, and I was still scared of being alone.

And all that got dumped onto Chi.

Poor Chi.

If the relationship ever happens again, it needs to be two people committed to honesty and becoming healthy, not two people committed to achieving fantasies of perfect meeting of needs. That's not the real world. Either we're two authentic people committing to growing and working on health--while also enjoying life--or I need another relationship that works like that.

And if I don't find one, then I'm alone.

There's no point being scared. Unless you die first, someday you're going to be all alone no matter what. Just like I am now.

It may be that I am only with him for as long as it takes to learn this lesson, and once I've learned it, he's gone and I never see him again. My horoscopes only look as awful for as long as they do because I originally intended to take my entire lifetime to learn this lesson. 

(Boy, is THAT a frightening thought.)

I'd SO much rather than he can get well and I can get well, and we link hands and choose to get well together. Assuming Rory doesn't wake up and do this sooner. (She's not healthy, either.)

Guess we'll find out.

What can your affair (AKA disaster) teach you?

Present


I think Chi is showing me:


1.) where my self esteem still needs healing, and


2.) that I'm really, really, really, really needy. And that isn't good.


Why do I think all of this?


1.) When the astrologer told me Chi was "activating my house of self esteem," I assumed that was good. He thought I was beautiful, sexy, loved how well we communicated, and told me the night he broke up with me that I "had set the bar high." 
 
Never did I think that he might be "activating my house of self esteem" in a BAD way--showing me what was still wrong with it! I thought, I had a great marriage with Simon! therefore I am capable of one, so nothing is wrong with me.


Maybe not. I was writing in my journal the other night, noticing that one reason I'd feel pulled to resume an affair with Chi is that I feel a great need to prove I'm a worthier choice than Rory, when I remembered a couple of things.


The whole reason this started in the first place is, the night I decided to tell Chi how I felt, I had a stack of reasons not to on one hand, and a stack of reasons to tell him on the other.


The thing that broke the tie was that CHI KNEW ME. He saw me with Simon for eleven years; he KNOWS I'm excellent, quality material, and that I treat any man I'm with very, very well. And I know he knows this. 

I chose to tell him how I felt that night because he was telling me he felt repulsive to women and unlovable. I knew if it was ME telling him that he wasn't, that I in fact adored him: HE'D BELIEVE ME. And I was as good to Simon as I know how to be, and everyone who knew me and Simon (including Simon) agreed that that was considerable.


I remembered that I DO NOT HAVE TO PROVE TO HIM THAT I'M GOOD ENOUGH TO LEAVE RORY FOR.


He knows that already, and this is not in doubt. I can't offer any better proof of that than I already have.


So, any waffling about taking him back someday is unnecessary. I have already proven to him that I am pure gold, and there is no need to demean myself to prove that any further. 

He knows what's over here.


That really made me feel a whole lot better. I felt better for two whole days.


Until I remembered this picture I saw online. It occasioned a comment from one of Chi's friends about a possible mid-life crisis, and Chi's reply was something about having gotten over that. Smiley-face emoji.

I felt punched in the gut when I saw it. (Everybody knows what most men do during their "mid-life crisis." And, in Chi's case, I was it.) 

Now I remembered that "mid-life crisis" comment and felt punched in the gut again. Every time I thought of it.


I had to wonder where that came from. Why should I care so much if this person has written off the best I had to give him as nothing more than a "mid-life mistake?"


Apparently, I care very, very much about what this man thinks of me.


I love him very much. And when I receive evidence that he thinks I am not valuable, trash, a mistake, throwaway crap, it really, really, really, really hurts.


It hurts as much as when my stupid mother would start screaming at me about grades that weren't high enough, calling me lazy or something when the truth was that pre-algebra was just damn hard and I didn't quite get it. One time I was sitting there during a screaming match like this--she was angry because some other child had gotten a better grade than me, and I retorted that that child's mother was a teacher at that school--and all of a sudden my face stung. Really hurt. And I was like: What the hell was that?


Until I happened to look over a few minutes later and see the plastic comb she had been combing her wet hair with lying on the floor. She had thrown that comb and hit me in the face with it! And then got angry with me a few days later when my grandfather asked me how I got that bruise on my face and I didn't lie for her. (I didn't tell what she did, I just didn't say anything.)


During episodes like that, when my parents would scream and yell at me over things like this, I would start to cry because I was so upset. And then my mother would say, "Look at her, crying. She's just trying to manipulate us and get out of trouble."


And that would make me cry even harder, because it hurt so damn much. Here I was, so hurt and upset by the things they were saying to me, so upset that they thought so badly of me, and then they misread me so badly and I couldn't do anything at all about it. Nothing I could have said would have helped. They had me pegged as a bad, mean, manipulative, hateful little child, when I just wanted them to love me and I was trying so hard to be good.


And that is exactly how ripped apart I felt reading those words, "I'm well past that," with a  smiley face. The very same punch to the gut. 

As if Chi was doing the same thing to me and feeling the same way about me, that I had just been manipulative and mean, and that I was worthless, not worth caring about. That the best I had looked like trash to him, just like it looked like trash to my parents. When I loved them, I really was having trouble in math and I was not lazy, and I was trying so hard to be the best child I could be. To have that called something terrible and not have who I really was recognized at all, and then be treated so cruelly and meanly on top of that, is a horrible, horrible experience. 

And this experience felt to me exactly like that one. And that's why it is still upsetting me, even though I know I have shown this man that I am pure gold and that when I love a man, I do a pretty good damn job.


It feels horrible to be so misunderstood, and to be called cruel names, when you gave the best that you had to someone you love.


But worse, here, is that some of it is true. I loved Chi, and I did all I could to show him who he really is--a person supremely worthy of being loved. 

But I was selfish, too. I WAS trying to hook someone into taking care of me. I WAS afraid I couldn't manage in the world by myself, especially financially, and part of it was that I WAS trying to hook him into taking care of me. And, yup, he had every right to be angry and upset about that. 

If he wanted to call me trash on that account, and put me down as nothing more than a mid-life crisis, well, he'd be well within his rights on that front. The affair wasn't ALL that, not by a long shot, but it was about 15% that. I was scared of being all alone to take care of myself financially for the rest of my life. I wasn't doing well enough at work then to do that. And now I had no one to fall back on. 

And I actually remember thinking, early, before it all started, that he obviously was someone who could be easily strongarmed into taking financial responsibility for a woman, and God knows I'd offer him a HELL of a lot more help--a HELL of a lot more, period--and treat him a HELL of a lot better, than Rory. 

I just wanted some damned HELP and support in my life, a real helpmate, instead of ending up struggling on my own all the time to take care of myself and a bunch of old, sick, feeble, dying people.


White Knight shit. (So-called after the book, White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself from the Need to Rescue Others, by Marilyn Krieger and Mary C. Lamia.) Sometimes part of White Knight Rescuing really IS self serving. And on some level, Chi knew that. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever seen about Neptune (and Chi is heavy on the Neptune) is this:


The answer lies in an aspect of Neptune that provides the key to really understanding it. Neptune is a totally selfless energy, not readily harnessed to the demands of the human ego.  If you have a strong ego-wish that something be a certain way, Neptune's involvement becomes dangerous.  The more your ego needs to enforce a situation, the more Neptune will delude you about it.  

This is ACoA stuff. Chi is so exquisitely sensitive to what others want from him in a relationship that if he wants the caring and the love from you, he just sniffs your dream out and presents you with it--voila! And he even deludes himself.


How many years had I been hearing how fascinating a certain hobby of his was, only to be hearing now that his heart really wasn't in it, he really wanted to pursue other activities, and he just got into this other hobby in order to get through gatherings of hundreds of people when he was such an introvert and really didn't enjoy it. He was just doing it because of Rory and the kids.


Here he was asking me how I felt about moving in together and sharing expenses, or him moving upstairs and helping me with expenses anyway even if he wasn't living in my space! At the time, I was shocked. (And happy.)


And now I'm just ashamed of myself. I am doing fine at work. I can take care of myself. I never, ever needed to manipulate or ask this of him. 

Yep, on this front, I AM a bad decision, and a "mid-life crisis," too! Rory may have lived in that house in a very lopsided situation regarding who does the most work and contributes the most to keep their life going, but she was the stay at home WIFE who raised the kids and that was the dynamic they agreed on.


I was just the interloper Jezebel. And a calculating, selfish one at that.


So, it's both things. I react to Chi's opinion of me just like he's my family members--the threat of whose shaming kept me in professional school even though I knew I wasn't going to be happy--and I'm ashamed of myself for being selfish. For USING HIM. When I was very, very angry with Rory about the same thing.


I would like to know what to do about this leftover parental shame. I know how they treated me was bad, and that I don't deserve it. Why does this keep cropping up? How do I get rid of it?


I never had to deal with it with Simon, because it never came up. With Chi...it's coming up. Along with the White Knight shit.


(And that's exactly what that is. Shit.)


I'd like to figure out how to root these things out of my personality. They are causing me trouble.


I guess here's where I have to ask for advice, since most of the time I can figure it out. This time I am having a bit of trouble.

Grieving the Married Man

PAST

 

If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you will have seen that recently I, yes, attracted yet ANOTHER married man.

WTF?? Do I have a sign around my neck or something?

I wanted to like the guy (well, before I found out he was married), I really did. Every time some new guy shows up at a club meeting, I think, maybe this one will be interested; if so, I should give him a chance. Maybe this will be the new healthy relationship with an available person of like mind who will make me forget about Chi.

That’s the litmus test for a man these days. If he can make me forget about Chi, he’s got real potential. I try to give ‘em a chance, I do.

I didn’t like this guy before I found out he was married. Well, no, I don’t mean that. He’s a perfectly personable human being. Before, I guess, he started IM’ing me incessantly in that annoying way, and then at the end of one meeting he turns to me and finds an excuse to invade my space and stroke his hand up and down my arm. That was about the moment that, “I’m trying to like the guy,” turned to, “Ewwww!!!”

He's a smart enough person, and definitely accomplished. It’s just that everything about his personality reminds me of everything Chi was and this person is not.

When a guy you loved more than anything dumps you, and then you realize the emotional problems the guy had, do a little research, and find that some manifestations of these problems are downright scary in terms of the health and longevity of a relationship, you start to think maybe you dodged a bullet. And it’s easy to accentuate the negative, and separate yourself from the situation.  


I was lucky, you think. This person can never have a healthy relationship with anyone, not without a whole, whole lotta work he didn’t seem willing to contemplate (and frankly, his therapist didn’t seem to have a clue, either. Was one senile or the other less than forthcoming?) How would I ever know when he was being real with me and when he wasn’t? How will I ever know that this decision he says is OK with him now won’t come back and haunt me in ten years: “I’ve never really been happy with that. I just acquiesced to please you, because I was too afraid you wouldn’t love me if I didn’t. And then I couldn’t be myself, so I talked about you instead of to you and now I’m cheating on you.” 


I love you, you love me, stuck in codependency!

Then a guy like this Ewwww Dude comes along and makes you remember, by comparison, all the things you fell in love with. I was having a hard time, for a while, remembering Chi’s voice. I remembered his face, all right. He has such a handsome face and the most beautiful blue eyes. But suddenly his voice came back to me. He really does have a lovely voice. And I remembered what it was like having him around. He has such a nimble mind. Such a sneaky and original sense of humor. He’d come up with some one-liner nobody else would ever have thought of, and it was always just so funny and so right. He was so smart, so curious and so interested in everything. He knew so much about books and movies I’ve never heard of, music I’d never heard of. Every year or so he’d come to a club meeting talking about some new hobby or activity he was into that I’d never known existed. He was multitalented and very good at all he did. He could debate anything and everything with a keen intelligence and no trace of ego or superiority. Long before we got together, while I was still married to Simon, even, I’d notice when Chi wasn’t there, and I’d miss him. And I adored Simon. He was the love of my life.

And this oaf made me remember all this. Not that I’d forgotten it, but in my fear of How Chi Could Destroy My Life (Not To Mention: His Own), it had gotten a little fuzzy.

It isn’t fuzzy anymore.

My therapist says I am experiencing a wave of grief. Yep.

Like I haven’t had enough of that already. I’m a young widow, for fuck’s sake.

I know that I truly love Chi. Yes, mixed up in that at the beginning was some pathological stuff. I was afraid for my future, afraid of facing life alone, attracted to his competence in the world and the things he can do so well that I was afraid of doing. I was addicted to the wonder-woman high of trying to save my mentally ill mother since early childhood. I was chuffed that such a smart, such a funny, such a sweet, nice, tall, handsome, well-off, good-looking, sexy, adorable guy with such a beautiful voice would actually want me.

But get over all that (and I did. It’s clear to me now that I am doing just fine, and I can survive on my own quite well, thank you. And I know now that I am something special, and he would be lucky to have me.) Get over all that—and there’s an awful lot left over.

To me, love is not only when you can put the welfare of someone else above your own needs—you don’t love someone if you will cause them pain to get your needs met—but also when you just love who they are. When that quality of mind that that person has, the tenor of their voice, the way they furrow their brow when they concentrate…the way you know something that just happened is going to draw some original and funny dry barb out of them and you wait to see what it is, and then it just hits the air like a little firecracker, and you just sit there and say, Wow…

That’s love. When every way of the person’s being who he is is just precious to you, and you know you will be forever poorer for his loss. And you cry just typing the words.

Who knows if horoscopes are correct? Maybe Chi and Rory found each other again, maybe they got excellent help, maybe they’ve both worked their asses off in therapy and their marriage is very, very happy now. Maybe Chi is looking back on me now with shame, embarrassment, and regret. Maybe I will always be the villain in their story, not only to Rory, but also to him. But the love I gave him and still do was a true gift, whether he is ashamed of it or not. And as I sat there in tears in therapy today, I knew that. I’ll always be glad I gave it, and I’ll always be glad I knew him, whether I’m just shameful and embarrassing to him now, or not.

None of this pity party should suggest in any way that Chi should have picked me. Chi should not pick me because I’m sad. Not because I’m crying, not because I miss him, not because I appreciate the way he has of being in the world, not because I’m unhappy without him. Those things are MY problem, not his. The only reason Chi should consider picking me is if I’m the right one for him. If, in his judgement, I’m the right one for him. That’s the only reason anyone should choose anyone. We all have that right to make that choice for ourselves. We don’t make it because of other people, we don’t make it for other people, and it’s never good to allow other people to make that choice for us. The only reason to make it is when it’s the best choice, for US. If Chi picked me, he’d have to live with me. Nobody else would have to do that.

I have been blessed twice in my life by men with these fabulous minds and personalities: Simon and Chi. Both precious, wonderful souls, both fascinating, extraordinary men. Most women don’t even get blessed to be with a guy like this once. So I know how lucky I’ve been. Knowing what many women, friends of mine, have been “blessed” with in this  department, I know I have no right to complain.

The truth is that, for each of us, one day will be the last day we have sex, the last time we hold the one close to us, the last day we ever have the love of a special other in our lives again. For me, that day may have already come and gone. (Unfortunately, I’m very hard to please.)

But when the guy is married, and he goes back to his wife—and 99,999 times out of 100,000, they do, no matter what he says or what the situation is, how long you knew him, how much you know he really doesn’t want to hurt you, or how good a person he is—this is the special flavor of the grief you will be left with.

And that is why you stay the fuck away from married men.