Sit down for a second. Let me try to explain something to you.
I have made close to a hundred attempts to write the truth of what is happening inside of me right now. If I didn’t have a filter that prevented me from disseminating more negativity into the world, you likely would’ve received this yesterday morning—like all of my other articles.
Trying to write this without sounding angry or like I was feeling sorry for myself was like trying to tune a 12 string guitar while listening to Carmina Burana. Every time I got ready to wrap things up, I would read it back to myself and realize that I was indulging a bit too much in darkness. To put it mildly.
It was hard not to. When my first daughter’s mother moved her new man into the house, I was petrified. It seemed so obvious to me–even twenty years ago–that my shot at fatherhood was riding off into the sunset. Children are very malleable and the guy who sees them for a few hours every week can not possibly compete with the importance of the male figure who is always there. When you also consider the fact that the new man is going to be held in a much better esteem than the former boyfriend, it’s fairly obvious how all of this usually lands.
I remember back then, I was so despondent over what was happening that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue living. All of my friends, my ex and my family kept trying to convince me that things just don’t work like this and I was just being irrational.
“Sure, he’ll be her stepdad, but you will always be her father.”
I must’ve heard this line hundreds of times. Either way, you can probably imagine how it felt for me to hear my child refer to this guy as her “dad.” For some reason, in that house, I came to be known as “Billy,” and he came to be known as “dad.”
And I’m saying “…for some reason” to be respectful. I know exactly what the reason was. It was a parenting decision that I wasn’t consulted on. We’ll leave it at that.
So, that was traumatic, but as the proprietor of a large collection of trauma dating back to the seventies, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t block out. Shutting off bad memories has always been one of my better survival skills.
But trauma has a way of tattooing itself into our psyches. You can’t scroll through Facebook for ten minutes without seeing some quote from Gabor Mate–and it goes beyond using alcohol and substances to quell the pain.
When we walk through life never feeling like we are good enough, we develop people pleasing tendencies. We never set boundaries for fear of being disliked. It’s the exact thing that causes a man like me to leave the house at 5 am and return at 7 pm all week long. The manifestations can be many and varied, but these are mine.
And now, watching what looks like the same thing happening for a second time is making me insane. And because of my past experiences, any sort of comfort or consolation people try to offer just sounds like the same lies I had to hear twenty years ago. It almost feels like someone would have to be some kind of jerk-off to fall for the same thing twice.
It’s not that I never expected that this could happen. My friends from the 12 step rooms always reminded me that if I left, I had to emotionally prepare myself for some stranger to fill that vacuum. That fear is what kept me in a sexless and cold relationship for years.
Inevitably, healthy human needs won out.
Well, that, and the desire to not live in someone’s mother’s house as a 47 year old man. One thing was just as emasculating as the next.
So now I set to the task of continuing to live with this lingering in the back of my mind. The endless movies of precious family moments between mom, grandma, sisters and some dude who probably has a lot more free time than I do.
(And yes, if you remember, I realize I have no one to blame for this but myself.)
As a matter of fact, let me clear this up before I go. I realize that it sounds like I am mad at the world or blaming someone else for my situation. This is not so. I understand that some things are really no one’s fault. They just are.
I can look at myself in the mirror and know that I tried harder than most to stay in an untenable situation because I knew this was the other shoe. I went to meetings for years and shared about my sexless existence. I talked to sponsors until they just couldn’t listen anymore. I begged and pleaded for us to go to counseling because I did not want this eventuality to happen.
But right now, none of that makes any of this easier to live with.
Right now, I continue to sit inside the confines of my worst nightmare.
It’s just déjá vu. All over again.
Continuing the love and support...hugs
There’s no advice needed or appropriate for this, so I’m just giving you love.