Love's
Lessons Learned
I was in a warehouse bookstore the other day. It
was one of those huge places full of sad stacks of remaindered books on
table after table - kind of like a garage sale, only just for books. The
reason it's sad is that this is where unwanted books go to die, just before
they hit the recycle bin. These are the books that have been sent back
to the publisher because the chain stores couldn't sell them in a month,
maybe two. They are then returned to the publisher, and the publisher
then sells them out again at less than the cost of printing, just to get
rid of the things.
I found a couple of treasures, and picked up one
book I did not buy. It was a set of instructions on what a woman at 40
needs to know to conduct the rest of her life. I'll sum it up for you.
The author's message, in a nutshell, was 'stop wasting time!'
Coincidentally, in an effort to stop wasting time on useless emotions
like, say, regret, I had been doing a little mental house cleaning. When
I was younger, I promised myself that I would never regret an experience
- I would only regret not having an experience. I would only regret not
know what life could've, might've tasted like, if only I had had the courage
to take a bite.
Somewhat older and one hopes, wiser, I have collected
some experiences that I would rather I not have had. Memories that continue
to haunt me. The memory of the man with his hands around my throat because
I would not marry him. The memory of the man who told me I should think
of an abortion as nothing more than getting a tooth pulled. The memory
of being first used, then rejected by people who told me they would stand
by me forever. All night shouting matches. Sleeping in closets. Sleeping
in my car. Keeping a bag packed so I could run away at the earliest possible
moment. Other things - worse, and more complicated. But in reviewing these
past relationships, I notice something of myself that emerges in every
single one. A core pattern. You know, the old 'What never changes in this
picture?'
Me. In each of these pictures I am there.
There was a movie, produced in 1968 called 'Sweet November' - and I guess
it was produced again in 2001. I haven't seen the second film. It's about
a woman who falls in love with men and changes their lives - one month
at a time. At the end of that month, she kicks them out to draw from the
experience what they may. Until November. 'November' refuses to leave
and finds out what none of the other men knew - that she was dying of
cancer and she was, in her abrupt way, trying to spare them the grief
of attachment and loss.
I always loved that story, sadly, because I saw a little too much of myself
in it.
From 16-30 I was never meant to be anything but someone's temporary girlfriend,
because - quite frankly - I was easy to fall in love with and impossible
to live with.
'Don't cripple your children by making their lives too easy,' my dear
old dad used to say. Well don't cripple them by being so strict that they
never learn to make decisions on their own, so strict that they never
learn in any way deal with the outside world. When I was released from
the cell block that passed for my home , I arrived in the world without
a single clue as to how it worked.
I was the emotional equivalent of a toddler - with a big vocabulary and
a nice set of tatas. A dangerous combination.
You would think, growing up as I did, that I would have trouble loving
people. In fact, I had the opposite problem. Every gesture of kindness
was thrown into bass relief against the gloom of having been hated for
most of my life. I loved every one. I loved everything. Taste, touch,
smell, color, music, books, films, forests - a whole array of experiences
lay in front of me and almost all of them were overwhelmingly good.
In fact, all I could see was goodness, all around me. People around me
were bathed in a glow of a near worship for what I could see in them from
the subtlest of kindnesses.
People loved it. Men loved it. Lots of men loved it. I had trouble picking
which one to be with. I had trouble picking which one to stay with.
But once they were living with me, I showed them a whole new set of experiences.
In fact, I warned them prior to getting too close, but nobody listened.
I told them that loving me was no prize to covet, because coming that
close would mean taking up my burdens as well as my joy. They all thought
they could handle it. So they got nightmares, the flinching at unexpected
gestures, the refusals to go out in public, the refusal to look in a mirror,
the inability to work. He would lose his temper over some ordinary thing
as people often do, and I would curl up in abject terror - every bit as
real to me as the awe had been. As much as I brought out the best in my
lovers, out of sheer frustration with me, eventually I brought out the
worst in them.
Sooner or later that anger and frustration would build to a boiling point,
and I would leave. They would try to hang on, try to recapture that instant
when I made them feel like a hero. And I would flee. Nobody could live
with my 'cancer'. In my case it was fifteen years of severe child abuse
compounded by undiagnosed manic depression.
I got good at leaving early, at not letting them get too attached before
I skipped out of their lives. But I learned along the way. Each relationship
for me was a watermark through my stunted childhood development. Nathanial
taught me how to sleep though the night. Isaac taught me how to be responsible
for how I treated those I perceived to be less gifted than I was. In fact
this was a particularly humiliating lesson - I no longer think in terms
of hierarchies among people anymore.
Everyone has something to teach me. Bill taught me that character is more
important than intelligence or education. Scott taught me how to feel
innocent and clean - something I had never really felt before. Alexander
taught me how to trust and how to accept help. Matt taught me all the
adolescent nonsense I missed out on in high school. Marcus showed me how
to use my talent in the modern world. Eric taught me stability.
There were more men. There were more lessons. All the names have been
changed, but the debt I owe them can never be repaid. I learned so much
from them. And they all loved me, if only I could stop being so slippery,
so illusive, so frightened, so sad. But I couldn't. Sunshine and rain.
If you only want the sunshine, let me come to you - otherwise, stay away.
I should have had 'do not enter' tattooed to my forehead.
Yet none of these relationships are failed relationships. In as many cases
as I could, I came back and healed the breach - creating friendships that
have lasted a lifetime.
What I did not know was that I could probably learned those same things
from those same people without breaking their hearts first. I mean, it's
not as if I was promiscuous, exactly, I had serious relationships with
each of these men. It's just that I couldn't be tied down. And I don't
mean the way some people are afraid of commitment, I mean the way some
crazed wild animals are afraid of being trapped.
There I was swinging between the polarity of the terror of being abandoned
and the terror of someone else having control of my life again. Nobody
could win with me. So what is the value of these experiences - this endless
replay of the same drama over and over again?
Well, first of all, it was never the same twice. Each relationship was
a little bit healthier than the last, except for a couple of trips I think
of as backsliding. And there really wasn't any way I was going to grow
up other than through trial and error. And I sure as hell tried and I
sure as hell erred. And now I'm happily married. It was a long road getting
here.
My husband is a man who stuck around through a couple of turns of the
roller coaster, constantly providing a stable and loving environment,
until I began to see that the emotional swings could occur with no outside
stimulus whatsoever. It was only then that I was able to get help. And
looking back on this long and arduous road, I carry a few good things
with me. Maybe by sharing them I might spare you some of the hard-earned
parts of hard-earned experience.
For example: The most important lesson is, look to myself first. I am
the constant in every relationship. I was the thing I could change. If
your relationships have patterns, chances are you are creating those patterns.
I would go one step further and say that its not necessarily by choosing
bad partners - although that happens too - but it is entirely possible
to take a perfectly good relationship and turn it into a bloody mess.
Remember all those nice guys - girls who just didn't 'do it' for ya? Check
yourself, you may have become addicted to drama. I really actually hated
that phrase, when people used it to describe me. I was no more addicted
to drama than I was to breathing. It was, in fact, the only air I has
ever breathed.
But for those of us who cannot see any other way - I can tell you, there
is peace out there to be had. A person who is addicted to drama, or more
specifically, just never seems to be able to live without drama, doesn't
really know that life outside drama exists. Trust me, I know this one
very well from experience. I could see other people having perfectly healthy
lives, and they started out with more advantages than I had - I was completely
sure that none of the mire of my life was of my own making.
Well, my life has been pretty drama free for some time now, and yes, it
does have something to do with having a minimum amount of survival needs
met - but I had had those needs met in the past, and inadvertently threw
them away. In the past, I couldn't give my money, security, possessions
away fast enough - always keeping myself on the razor's edge of survival.
The same thing was true of men. I hung on to the ones whose approval I
would never get (just like dear old Dad), and let go of the ones who earnestly
loved me, but whose behavior didn't make sense to me.
At some point I decided to find a good man, and make a life with him,
even if it meant rewiring every circuit in my brain. And let me tell you
what I found out - there is an over abundance of good men out there. Women
too. They just pass each other by every day without a second thought -
looking for the drama, that masquerades as a spark that we think is romantic
love.
Thing number two I learned: He is not responsible for my happiness. Happiness
is something we bring to a relationship, not something we siphon off from
it. I mean, its really nice if being in our partner's company makes us
happy, but really the way that works is that if we start out happy, our
partner's company can deepen the happiness, and if we start out crabby
or sad, our partner can, at most, relieve some of our symptoms as we dump
our garbage on them.
Number three: A partnership is not a 50-50 proposition. It is a 100%-100%
proposition. If I give myself to my partnership 100%, then maybe I make
80% most days - and he makes 80% most days - and I have a wealth of love,
affection, energy and all good things. But if he hits a real low, or you
do -- and there will be times - I will be prepared to bridge the gap without
resentment. This method only works if both parties agree to the principle
ahead of time - and then don't keep score on the other party.
Number four: Love him the way he wants to be loved, not the way I want
to be loved. Remember the old golden rule: Do unto others as you would
have others do unto you? Well, one of the first things I had to learn
was to ask my partner what love meant to him - because it wasn't the same
as it was for me. So my husband provides me with very different things
than I provide him with. I give him space and time to draw. He sets special
time for us to be together each day. I ignore him until he comes to me.
He comes to me on a regular, if not scheduled, basis. Our time together
is sacrosanct. Our time alone is equally well respected. And we own each
other's friends, so that neither of us has to choose between getting our
social needs met and our spouse.
Number five: A man is not a property object any more than a woman is a
sex object. It is not his responsibility to see to it that I am supported
in the manner to which I would like to become accustomed.
Number six: A man is not going to meet all my needs. That is what I have
a life for - writing, work, friends, art, the ocean - whatever I need
to seek out to fill up my heart, my mind and my soul. Then I bring him
a full cup to drink from.
Number seven: The man I married yesterday is not the man I am married
to today. He is going to evolve, and I have to take on finding out who
he is turning into as he grows.
Number eight: You can't ever appreciate someone too much. People glow
in the warmth of recognition and will return again and again to the source
of that which makes them feel psychologically visible. We are all the
heroes of our own stories. If my husband can see the hero in me, he will
find me being more courageous every day.
Number nine: Face hostility with calm. When my husband is angry, the most
important thing is getting to the bottom of what is upsetting him, not
figuring out who's right and who's wrong. As a quote from the movie 'The
Zero Effect' (great film) says: There aren't any good guys and bad guys,
there's just a bunch of guys! (Or guys and girls, or girls and girls,
but you get the idea.) I love him when he's hurting, addressing the upset
with patience, looking at it from his point of view. Then, when I am upset,
I get the same compassionate treatment.
Number ten and last: Love without condition. Any strings I attach to my
love actually pull little pieces of my love away with sharp hooks. I give
myself over to loving my husband, whatever that looks like, whatever he
asks of me. And, by some universal balancing equation, he doesn't ask
for very much, very often. But he has no fear that there is anything about
him that might cause him to loose my love.
And for all the men I was unable to give that gift to, I am sorry. The
teenager was wrong. I have my regrets. It was not my heart alone I was
risking with my appetite for experience.
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