About 9 years ago I attended a counseling group session for women with disabilities. I'm not disabled, but a friend I had then was and she asked me to come along with her. At the time, I had just started learning some truths about the person I was dating and I was out of work and living off of credit cards. So I figured I could go find myself some support in the process of supporting her at this group.
The first thing that struck me as I listened to each of the women's stories was how their relationships with men kept them down more so than their disabilities. It was a little unnerving for me because all of these women were at least 15 to 20 years older than me. I can remember thinking, "It doesn't get any better with age?" Eventually, all eyes were on me and the group facilitator was asking me to tell my story, which I did. And then came the profound question of the hour. Mr. Psychiatrist asked me why I (we) was so willing to give up my trust to a complete stranger rather than making him earn it. I replied with some answer about giving people the benefit of the doubt, yada, yada, yada. When he continued to press me, I really didn't have an answer and I just sat there staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights.
I hadn't even remembered that day until this weekend. I was in the shower going over in my head the argument that spanned Friday evening and part of Saturday morning with BD that ended in him telling me (us) to have a nice life because he was done. I was past done and had said anything and everything about his fake ass marriage to his part-time fatherhood, that came to me and I had been holding in over these past few years.
I have to admit, it felt good to know I still had my gift for leaving my opponent curled up in the fetal position mentally (and sometimes physically) without ever laying a hand on him/her.
It felt even better letting him know that I know his secrets, those deep seeded secrets that he even tries to hide from himself 1) he's not perfect and 2) although he knows on an intellectual level the right things to do for family, community, etc. he doesn't know it at his spiritual core hence the two faces of HE.
But I digress from my original story...
I keep an ongoing journal. I started keeping one in junior high or high school as a way of working through situations and continued doing so because, hey, someone has to write my story and it needs to be as accurate as possible. (I would like to take this time to shout out My Girl, future author of MY STORY.) Anyway, recently I went back in my journal to the beginning of my relationship with BD and began reading to try and figure out what had gone so terribly wrong, aside from the obvious, and to figure out what the take home lessons were from this experience.
I discovered that shit was shaky from the beginning. Hindsight is indeed 20/20 because when you are close to a situation you really can't see the fault lines. I gave him chance upon chance "to make things right" even when he didn't deserve it. (I believe this may have been what Da Professa was talking about in his blog about single moms, but I would like to think it was just my nature not my motherhood that lead me to such behavior.)
I was doing in this 'relationship' what I had done in my relationship with my ex-fiancé, the very thing Mr. Psychiatrist had questioned me about. BD would provide a little truth mixed in with a lot of lies and I gobbled it up like a bag of plain Ruffles Potato Chips. He didn't even have to provide an excuse a lot of times for his questionable behavior because I had already filled in the blanks for him. It was like what R Kelly sings about in WOMAN, "Ya'll love us so much 'til our lies become the truth." There it is. I hadn't taken time to learn the lessons from the previous relationship, so I was doomed to repeat them in this one.
A girlfriend advised me that I need to go out and 'find another man to get over this man'. I think not. First of all, she's the last person that I would take advice from and secondly, that's what got me into this mess in the first place. No, I think I will continue to chill and see my part in the whole thing and continue my journey and hopefully come out a better person on the other side of the valley.
2 comments:
Neme, how come you don't live in the A. I could use a friend like you to be crazy with? Ah well, back to my island.
What, you mean he doesn't like the hot and ridiculously humid? Surely, he wants to visit the land of Noah's Arc where in the summer it rains 40days and 40nights and in the winter you're just never sure what might happen.
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