My sister and I have been having some deep conversations lately. We talk about our childhood. And what is beneficial about this (because we experienced many traumas in our family) is the ability to see patterns. Behaviors that may have influenced how we see ourselves now, as adults. And also, how we perceive other people in the periphery. And the few people we invite into our lives.
Katie had such a bad experience with her last boyfriend, and other life events, that she stopped dating thirteen (13) years ago. She’s never been married. Didn’t have any children (even though she is amazing with kids). The hurt ran so deep into her heart, that she decided relationships were not worth the pain. So, she stopped having them.
I still let people into my world. Cautiously. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it does not. But my personality craves the company of good people. Creative and smart folks. Social connection. My sister leans more to the extreme left of introversion.
She finds my extroverted tendencies annoying AF. We’re usually good for a forty-minute conversation before she runs away screaming. Not really. But I mess her up if I stay on the phone for more than an hour. I try to occasionally… it’s good for her to expand her social threshold. Or perhaps, I enjoy annoying my baby sister just a little.
There are a few people who know me. All of me. And over the years, they have told me that I have a hard time receiving love. I thought the notion was stupid. How could I, the person that so much wants affection and genuine connection, wish to push that away. But this weekend was a revelation. A culmination of input from people who really do care about me, and my own willingness to hear it.
I am a person that will give you the shirt off my back if I care about you. I’ll stop at nothing to support, nurture, and warm your life. But I radiate that affection in a one-directional tunnel. You’ll get the full benefit of my affection and loyalty. But I’ll block most attempts you make, to reciprocate in kind.
My Expertise at One-Sided Love
Somewhere while I was growing into an adult, I learned that I needed to belong to loving relationships. The problem is, my environment was not conducive to that. I know, here I go again, blaming my parents. At the age of 48 I can’t decide if this is me being a child, looking backward with bitterness at some of my life experiences. Or if this is me, at the age of 48, wanting to be a better person. Wanting to love more deeply, and more fully. And to learn how to love me the way other people seem to do, without much effort.
Compliments in our house were a double-edged sword. I worked hard to earn them. I always worked hard, from the age of thirteen. So desperate to prove my worth to parents who weren’t frankly receptive to it. They were worried about themselves and their toxic marriage. Neither my sister or I factored strongly in their daily discord.
I loved them harder. Worked beyond my capacity with my dad around the farm. I bucked up, and learned how to split wood, and tried to impress him. I was the one that helped him build our barn. Finish our basement. Piled more wood than possibly any human being in history. I don’t regret it. I owe my work ethic to those years. And both my parents had an excellent hardworking moral fiber, which I am grateful, they passed on to me.
My Dad changed. As kids, he loved us, but he was always extremely critical. Of my weight. Of the fact that I was less attractive than my sister and my cousins. I was the ugly pudgy duckling. And worse yet, I reminded him of his father. My grandfather a deep, existential thinking poet and writer. My father was a flawless pragmatist, with no creative bent. And he saw my creativity as a flaw. A weakness he tried (with every harsh criticism) to beat out of me.
It Originated From Daddy Issues?
My father loved his daughters more than his wife. He made that clear on a daily basis, much to our emotional pain to see it. And the impact of those moments on my mother’s face. I remember those facial expressions, as he too, demoralized her existence. She was not book smart. She could barely write, with a learning disability and dyslexia. She left high school at grade 10 and got a factory job.
I tried to love my Mom and save her, my entire life. Show her that I was loyal. That I saw his emotional abuse of her and knew it was cruel and wrong. But to her, I was my father exemplified. Big words. A big brain. A logical demeanor, and tried to emulate her father to please him. I hid my creativity as best I could. It offended my Dad. And it seemed another facet of my personality that made my Mom feel she was not as good as the rest of us. Not as complex.
I loved a Dad whose approval I could never earn. With all the great marks, and academic awards in school? Nothing. I loved a Mom who I had compassion for. But to her, both my sister and I were the focus of my father’s (toxic) affection. And she resented both of us. But mostly me.
And I resigned myself to keep loving them harder, until maybe, one day, they would love me the way other kid’s parents did. That day never came. And instead, what I learned is that it was my job to love someone, but I was not worthy of reciprocity. It was my job to love mightily, and it was my fault, I wasn’t worthy of love in return.
The Paradigm of Unreciprocated Love in my Romantic Life
One man. A best friend, who saw me, knew me, and cared for me, to build a life with. The prototype of what married life was supposed to be, was all around me. I saw happily married couples in our family. The kind that still held hands, hugged, touched each other, and smiled warmly and often toward each other. I saw it so frequently, I developed a sense of what a balanced love looked like.
So, that was my goal. Except that behavior learned from the rejection of my parents, bled into my romantic OS. I was good at loving people. Not everyone. I was very selected about who I let in. But once I did let you in, I was the consummate “ride or die”. You walking through Hell? Cool. I’ll be there with you. You win? I will be elated in your victory and happiness.
But I began to notice, for the girl that seemed to be in everyone’s corner, I really had no one in mine. And that acceptance of one-sided love? Over time, through high school and into college, it invited one type of person into my world. The Taker. The man that saw that great need for love and true acceptance meant I would give 300% of myself to the relationship. While he didn’t have to return any of it. Because I didn’t think I was worthy of that anyhow and was used to not receiving it in return.
Lessons in One-Sided Marriages
My first husband was not a taker. And that might have been why I decided to marry him. But over the years, I also learned that he was in his own glass box. He didn’t want to take, but really, had no idea how to give depth to the relationship either. He was neutral. A happy fellow, simplistic, not complex in his persona. Not existential. A little creative, but more analytical. We married because we liked each other. In retrospect, I don’t remember ever feeling like I fell in love with him. And I am still not certain today if he had those emotions for me either.
I liked PC games, dogs, and cats, cooked well, kept a very clean house, ironed his shirts and was outgoing. That was enough for him. And he didn’t yell or scream at me, belittle me, or make me feel deficient. That was, back then, as close to a peaceful love as I had ever experienced. So we married. But after ten years, I was numb.
It wasn’t enough for me to be in that perfunctory role of the wife of a successful IBM dude. Money? Yep. House? Yep. Vacations? Yep! Passion? Nope. True relation? Nope. Connection? Not beyond the marital contract… I performed my duties as a wife with affection. Inside, I was dying because there was no true bond beyond the construct of legal marriage. He felt like a brother, not a lover, or husband. I took care of him through the divorce, as best I could.
My second marriage came along 7 years after my first divorce. And I dated prolifically. Coffee dates. I was rarely intimate with anyone. I was looking for that connection and not finding it. But I thought the marker of that kind of connection would be really good sex. Or, what I thought was really good sex. I mean, that would be reciprocated love right?
The Second Mistake in Marriage
Because the sex that was missing from the first marriage, was present in the second marriage, I thought I had solved the problem. But the emotional deficit I felt with my second husband grew and grew. He was selfish and arrogant. It really was always about Kevin. His life. His friends. His day. I learned so much about him when I got sick. When I needed him to be there for me, as I had been there for him. And he performed, begrudgingly, to help me get back on my feet physically.
Except I was the ‘cash cow’ of the relationship. It wasn’t love. It was a necessity. And he had no problem with me working on my laptop in the ICU repeatedly. Nor did he attempt to take the financial pressure off me at all (i.e., get a second job, or get a real job that made more money, other than his failing family-owned business). The divorce felt more like an exorcism, as I separated him from the resources he had so become accustomed to.
Kevin said once “so, I was talking to my brother and he said… ‘take the twenty-grande and run… screw the marriage’. I stared at Kevin, unable to process what I was hearing.
Me: “What did you say to Kirk?
Kevin: “I told him it probably wouldn’t be $20k because the house isn’t worth that much.”
Me: “Uh… did you say anything else?”
Kevin: “No, why?”
[Insert look of abject horror].
I think that was the final piece that broke my heart. The last shred of affection I had for Kevin died in that moment. And I started planning my exit. Taking into account that the spouse who had never really provided well for himself, would need some time to get ready.
He didn’t use that time. Sometimes I think “yeah, you got your $20k or close to it… are you happy now?” He apparently blew through the money in a matter of weeks. Got impaired and into a car accident where he was disabled. Threatened to seek alimony until I consulted with a lawyer. Nope. Nice try.
Once I walked into the office in McKinney that he and his Uncle were renting. I had brought lunch for Kevin as a surprise. And overheard a conversation that I should have paid more attention to.
Uncle Mike: “You have it made now. You have a girl that likes to make money. You have two incomes. You can do anything now.”
Kevin: “Yeah I know. Things will be a lot easier now. She likes to make money.”
That was three months after our wedding. After I left behind everything in Toronto, to move to a small, crappy town in North Texas. After sending him $400 per month for over a year and a half so that he would “have groceries” while he struggled financially alone. After I paid for every flight, every meal, every trip, rental car, every expense of immigration, our entire wedding, etc. So desperate to be loved (and be a mother) that I allowed myself to be exploited for that one purpose.
And as much as Kevin protested that was not the case? His life crumbled like a house of cards in a moment, once my infrastructure, hard work, responsibility, money, and leadership were removed from his life. Returning him to his previous existence, with nothing to show for his own work (including no education) by the age of 43.
I was that stupid. In that moment of realization, where I was so willing to allow myself to be abused, for love? I was my mother’s daughter. Absolutely. And it killed me to finally accept the paradigm.
Accepting Affection or Having Things Done for Me Remains Hard
After years of therapy during my first marriage, I realized I had a problem. Besides crippling anxiety that I had to grapple with on a daily basis. I get better at it every day because I work hard on it. Every. Single. Day.
The problem I identified with my therapist, was the inability to trust affection. Self-reliance is a really good thing. It is! But what if you are so self-reliant that you don’t accept things from others? Support? Affection? Small acts of kindness? I used to be able to trust that. Welcome it in. Somehow through the adverse events of my life, I had built this big freaking wall around me. And from within, I would shower those I loved with affection and support. But accept none in return. With few exceptions (aka: Diane).
Give me something? I’ll dodge the act. However, I can. Insist? And I will feel very uncomfortable. You see, if I rely on no one but myself, then nothing can be taken away from me, right? I have control. No one can pull the carpet out from under me, by withdrawing something I like. Or need. Or want.
Now, imagine you are in a relationship with me. And you like me. I will give and give and give. Think of ways to delight and excite you. Indulge you. And when you want to return the favor? I will negate it. Discourage it. Discount it even, to dissuade you from that kind of gesture. The girl who wants to be loved and seen and appreciated so much… won’t allow you to reciprocate.
And then as she is sitting under a pile of chihuahuas, dipping a banana into a jar of Nutella and watching a horror movie, she has a moment of loneliness. Where she wonders why she blocks the things she so desperately wants and needs to be happy?
If you give me nothing, and you go away, I will be able to recover faster. More efficiently. But that assumes that all relationships have an expiration date, doesn’t it? Anticipating the end of things, right at the beginning? That is pessimism I guess? I am an idealist and an optimist at heart. Please let me love you. That makes me happy. Please ignore the walls… I know how they were built. I know every single brick.
Maybe I am just tired of giving everything I have, doing all the right things, and ending up alone. Maybe I feel like someone who is not good enough for the enduring kind of love that I used to dream of. And the kind of relationships I see all around me.
It’s not that I see people as disposable. Far from it. I let so few in. But the ones I do, go all the way in.
I think I am the disposable one.
