February 14, 2011
Ten years ago tonight my marriage of nearly fourteen years ended.
It didn’t come as a surprise or a shock. I had known for several years that things were in bad shape. The only reason I didn’t have end things as early as 1995, or if I really want to be honest about matters, years before that, when I really knew that the differences between Audrey and I could never be reconciled, is that fact I didn’t want my son to end up in the same situation I had when I was a small child. My Mother, and as I typically refer to him, “my Mother’s First Husband” divorced when I was about eighteen months old. My Mother married my Step-Father, the person most people know as my Father (and whose last name I have used since childhood, although I was never formally adopted) a little more than a year after this divorce was final.
I fought as hard as I could against this from occurring. Because I was (and has been recently pointed out to me, still am) terrified of being abandoned, I allowed myself to give in on every demand Audrey would place upon me. It became a reign of terror in my mind, where my needs, wants or desires were subsumed into what Audrey wanted.
In retrospect, I should have seen this pattern developing as early as when we first moved in together in early 1986. At the time, I was working in Sonoma at a job that I really liked (although it didn’t pay much) and was pretty close to getting a place of my own. Audrey and I were dating for about a year, and we would see each other most weekends, as she was living with her sisters about 90 miles away, so there wasn’t a daily and face to face interaction between the two of us. Audrey at the time was in the process of attempting to get her first Master’s Degree in anthropology. She decided to move back to Southern California in order to seek a job as a museum curator, a job she ended up never finding. I was so afraid of being abandoned (do you start to detect a pattern?) that I decided to leave the job I liked, my family, the friends I was starting to develop, and move back to the great unknown of the San Gabriel Valley.
I know now that the reason why I made this decision and in the end, a large part of the reason why I didn’t end things with Audrey in late 1985 was that I was afraid that I would end up alone, and have no one ever fall in love with me again. I was still scared by the aftermath of the end of my previous relationship, while I was at Long Beach State. We had gone out for some time, and one day we were planning to have lunch. I received a call from her saying she was in bed, sick. Being the caring and compassionate person I am on my best days, I decided to surprise her with some soup, flowers and TLC. When I got to her apartment, she was in bed…she was moaning…but she wasn’t sick. Being with Audrey I now know was a result of being scared from being cheated on as well as being frightened of being abandoned and unloved. It was the reason why, despite the emotional abuse, I ended up marrying Audrey. The fear of being alone or almost as worse, the fear of being with someone and being afraid they would cheat on me.
Perhaps I should have walked away shortly after moving to the San Gabriel Valley. Audrey threatened to leave me about six or so months after moving in together (at which point she did not have a full-time job) if we didn’t immediately start to plan our wedding. But I didn’t. Perhaps when we were having difficulty conceiving a child, and she said if we didn’t have a child right that minute, she would leave me. Or perhaps when she decided to quit her job to go back to school and become a school teacher, during which time she was out of work for more than a year, not even looking for a part-time job after she quit her job, and forced us to deplete our retirement savings. Clearly, by the time I received the call at work on December 26, 1995, when she told me that her mother was being foreclosed upon, and that her mother, Audrey’s meth addict brother, and his two children were facing being homeless, and that the only salvation was if we bought her house, a place that dilapidated and should have been torn down, that should have been the signal that I would have been better off ending things with her and moving on.
But I didn’t.
While I did not appreciate being pressured into having a child, I’ve never regretted Stephen being part of my life. I know that the last 6-7 years Audrey and I were married, the only reason I didn’t walk out the door is that I didn’t want Stephen to grow up in a broken home. I was scared that things would end up as they did with my Mother’s First Husband, where I would have literally no relationship with Stephen, and I would be demonized as a physically and emotionally abusive person who would be used as a threat to get Stephen to behave “properly.” In my case, my Mother’s First Husband would typically bother to contact me once a year, on Christmas Day, where he would usually show up drunk. (Is there any wonder why I so dislike Christmas?)
If I allow myself a moment of self-congratulation, one thing that I am proudest of is that I know that I was a better parent to Stephen than my parents ever were to me. I know that many of the sacrifices I have made over the last eighteen or so years was for him to have a better and happier childhood than I had, to never abandon him, to allow him to dream his dreams and to help him see them through. My parents were and remain extremely flawed and self-centered people. Too often they placed their own needs ahead of what was best for my sister and me when we were children. When your own parents in essence tell you that they would rather see you abused physically and emotionally at school rather than risk “rocking the boat” and causing problems with my Step-Father’s work, is it any wonder why I have these feelings of abandonment? Is it any wonder why I have felt too often unworthy of being loved? Why I shy away from relationships, unless I feel absolutely safe? (I take no satisfaction from the fact that one of the people who were abusing me at that time ended several years later attacking a young couple, killing the girl and leaving the boy for dead, while violating the dead girl, and it is my understanding that my Step-Father, who at the time was a homicide detective, screwed up the investigation, so that this person didn’t end up on Death Row, a screw up which permanently damaged his career.)
By the end of 2000, my life was in shambles. I looked literally like the Last Days of Elvis. I felt like I had no control over my life and no love. Audrey and I spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to put lipstick on the preverbal pig of a house. She decided to go back to school to get another Master’s Degree (at least this time I didn’t think it was a bad idea, as she would be paid enough money to pay back the costs in a few years). But my dreams and hopes were extinguished. I was stuck in a job that I absolutely hated and felt that I had to work an insane number of hours, because I felt that I had to be responsible for making sure that the bills were paid, and we saved money for Stephen’s education, and make up for the time Audrey hadn’t been working and for the money that wouldn’t come in during the summers when she was not teaching.
I literally collapsed. I had a nervous breakdown, and sat in a chair in almost a catatonic stupor for a month, trying to figure out what to do. I knew that Audrey and I needed to make a concerted effort to try to work together to save things, or it was over.
After some much needed therapy, I gave Audrey some flowers on Valentine’s Day 2001 with a note saying that I wanted to work things out, but if we couldn’t I wanted to end things as civilized as possible. I didn’t want Stephen to suffer any more than necessary from this.
Her response: throwing the flowers in my face and telling me to “GO F**K” myself. (Emphasis hers.)
So, this is why I have not been a big fan of Valentine’s Day for the last few years. When I started to write this, it was from a position that my life is again at a crossroads, where I need to decide to do what’s best for me, or what is best for others, who if they were totally honest, could care less about me.
In thinking about this and remembering what led up to Valentine’s Day 2001, I now know that I should celebrate it as the day of my liberation from an abusive relationship. Although it is a relationship that still has some slight hold on me (and of course, will as long as Stephen is around), in the last few months, its hold has started to come to as final an end as I can have. Most of it has to do with the fact that Stephen is now an adult, and has recently moved to New York City to start college. I have now no particular need to ever contact Audrey or to be in her vicinity (e.g. coming over to her house to pick up Stephen). Since I learned last summer that Audrey several years ago embezzled a large portion of Stephen’s college savings to buy a house, one that she almost lost to foreclosure herself a year or so ago, which led to Stephen having all sorts of problems at school, I went from a place of extreme anger, frustration and betrayal at her breaching her promise about that money, to realizing that she is not a responsible person, and that allowing myself to have those feelings about her only serves to have the lingering pain from this relationship maintain control over my life.
It has taken me some time, but recently when I have attempted to come to grips with my desire to correct the error I made in 1986 and move back to Northern California, I have come to realize that I know that at my core, I have been frightened that if I give my heart to someone, I will end up being abandoned. As Stephen is now an adult and has moved across the county, there is literally no compelling reason, other than a job (which if necessary, can always be replaced) for me to stay in Southern California. While I know of people who in the same situation decided to move great distances even when their children were still quite young, I just couldn’t do it. I would feel like I was abandoning Stephen, which I could not do.
Recently, because of some major miscommunications with the people I work for, my plans had to have been put on hold for a bit. Briefly, I was operating under the presumption that my moving to Northern California was, for all intents and purposes, resolved with work. I had placed my condominium up for sale in mid-January and within two weeks of it being placed on the market I had two offers, including one for more than the list price. While trying to update my work on this development, I went ahead and made a tentative offer to buy a brand new home. This was on a Friday. When I arrived in the office the next Monday, I was greeted by an e-mail from my supervisor basically saying that I might have jumped the gun and that my moving was never actually approved (or for that matter, never even processed).
This did not go over well with me. Adding to my frustration, anger, or however one wishes to describe my emotions, is the fact that no one was around for several days to talk to me about what happened, or in fact for several weeks prior to this. It frankly fed into my fear of being abandoned, of having my hopes brought up, only to have them broken and dashed, without any consideration for my feelings.
When I eventually learned that there was a series of mutual miscommunications (or failure to communicate), I didn’t feel so abandoned, but the fundamental fear still remains. This, along with this anniversary today has made me realize that much of my life has been governed by this, at times overwhelming fear of being abandoned, of not being worthy or deserving of being loved and respected.
While I know intellectually that it is incorrect to feel this way, that there are now and will be in the future, people who sincerely care about me and want me to be happy and at peace, the task I now face is to go from this being a thought to it being a core belief, and to relegate the fear of abandonment to the dustbin.
Over the last ten years, I have been in love with three women. The first was someone I had worked with, who I started dating in early 2002 for about a year. She was and is a very lovely person but unfortunately, we were both coming out of very bad marriages (mine marred by emotional abuse, hers by a husband who cheated on her throughout the entire marriage). Sadly, it was probably doomed to failure from the start. Neither of us was in a place where a healthy relationship would thrive. I am happy that she found the right person and is now married with twins.
I was in a semi-formal relationship with the second person for probably 2 ½ years, but there was another 2 ½ year period before and after our relationship where things were a bit more blurry. While there are many positive things I can say about this person and the impact she had on my life for those five years, it fell apart for a number of reasons. At first my wanting to save her from a very bad relationship with a guy with drug, alcohol and violence issues, which was not emotionally healthy for me. Then, when he finally exited the picture and I tried to make things work, it never fully fell into place. Recently, I had dinner with a couple who are two of her oldest friends. The wife and I were talking about the fact that I have been avoiding San Diego for a year (and she correctly guessed it was because I was avoiding the painful memories of this relationship). She told me that she was disappointed that things didn’t work out in this relationship, because she saw how much we loved each other and that in many ways, I was the best relationship this woman ever had.
However, in the end, we both agreed that what we wanted in a permanent relationship would never be the same thing. After that, things dissolved into a pattern of abuse, which I believe was fueled by our lingering feelings for one another, combined with her increasing dependence upon alcohol, which in the end forced me to tell her to get help for her drinking and other issues, to which she responded in the exact same words as Audrey did ten years ago today.
The final woman is perhaps the most painful, not just because it was the most recent, but because I know I was so close to finding a truly happy and lasting relationship. The tragedy is simply that had I not moved from Northern California in 1986, and we re-entered each other lives in the same time and manner as it actually did, I know that things could have been different. While I am not sitting here hoping that the situation will change today or in near future, or when (not if) I move back to Northern California things will overnight turn the dreams I had into reality, I do sit here right now comforted in the knowledge that we are close and dear friends who trust, confide and believe in each other, and that one day the right person, in the right time and place will enter my life—the person I have gone through so much to find. The person that will love me unconditionally for the unique and special person I know and now I need to accept that I am. When that day comes, it will be this last women to whom I will owe the greatest debt for helping me see exactly what a happy and fulfilled relationship can be.
I am worthy and deserve to be loved, respected and appreciated. I know that it will take time and a great deal of more hard work to purge myself of the demons who come back and darken my life on occasion. But I know that I deserve so much to be happy and that I need to work every day to stop these forces from continuing to control my life.
Thank you for reading this. If you think about it, please spare a kind thought for me and my dreams.
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