March 13 2014
We always like to say that we’re exact opposites – cats and dogs, book smart(ish) and street smart(ish), college and not-so-much college, codependent and addict, empathic and narcissistic; but increasingly, I question these ways we’ve defined ourselves. Not that they’re not true -they are- we’re just more fluid than these narrow definitions allow.
The proof is that we found each other.
Scott, lately, upon being asked this question obsessively by me, has been calling it destiny.
[And all I can think when I hear “destiny” is: “You are my density” a la “Back to the Future”.
Because I am a jackass.]
But the question remains: how the fuck did we even end up together?
[I was supposed to be happily married…
…and yet] I think I might have loved him from the moment that I saw him – August 14th, 2005.
I didn’t mean to love him, and given his juvenile personality I wanted to hate him.
But I didn’t.
I think about this a lot lately: how the fuck did we even end up together?
I think we could both sense in each other a deep pain that nobody else had ever been able to see before.
I truly don’t mean to glamorize our relationship because lord knows there is virtually nothing to glamorize.
We were both damaged to the core, probably with more in common than we have in difference, and somehow, we managed to meet.
Having both lost mothers, both being black sheep, having both experienced conditional love, we filled a lifetime-sized void that even at the time we didn’t quite realize needed filling.
Our love was almost instant, both at the time and in recollection; an addiction that sizzled with intensity.
And it sounds *so* stupid.
Seriously.
Even as I write it I know it sounds as ridiculous as any doomed Hollywood relationship (minus the fame, of course) in the absurdity of it. How would this possibly even work? Even if all the stars aligned – How. Would. This. Work?
I know alcoholism is alcoholism, and this is probably an unpopular slash un-AA-sanctioned opinion, but there are degrees. Some alcoholics just drink too much. But for us, sometimes, Scott just wouldn’t come home. I’d be frantic and pissed and crazed and I literally could not separate myself from him. If he loved me, how could he do this TO me?
In time, I’ve come to realize that he wasn’t doing it to me, he was doing it to himself. That it wasn’t a reflection on me, it was a symptom of his illness.
But, when you’re in it, who cares about that shit? I didn’t. And nobody could convince me otherwise – not that I ever told that many people. Because how can you? How can you tell people that sometimes your husband just doesn’t come home without him being judged? Or worse, how can you tell people that sometimes your husband just doesn’t come home without being judged yourself?
Most will condemn, like staying with an abusive partner. Others will tell you to relax, boys will be boys, or it’s not a big deal.
But you know what? It is. It is a big deal. But that doesn’t change the love, right? Over time, maybe, but not right away.
And then eventually, it got to be too much. I was worn down, he was worn down – we were both shells of who we used to be and I’d think, “How the fuck did we even end up together?”.
At the gym the other day I caught the end of some movie – with Vince Vaughn and that guy from Mall Cop? (To be fair, I only know him from the Mall Cop *trailers* since I haven’t seen an actual movie in years…) The Vince character is a gambling addict and whatever – there are lots of addicted or recovering addicts on tv these days, not a big deal.
The thing is, there are only a handful of scenes in all the shows that I’ve seen that involve an addict (The Closer, Law & Order, Cheers, etc.) that actually get it. Somehow, they were able to tap into that place in my heart that only fellow addicts and those who love addicts know. That, in between all the sadness and anger and horror and disappointment, there is an intense love.
So I’m running on the dreadmill, tears running down my face for this fictional couple who are having the same conversation that we’ve had a million times about the lies, about the dishonesty; how can we continue to live like this? Of course this conversation was done much more respectfully. I probably missed the part where she was crazed and he was an asshole. Maybe not. Maybe they never asked each other how they ended up together.
I’m so glad that we’ve been writing this down and elongating this process because I’m starting to forget the day to day details. In some ways that’s good, kind of. But it can be dangerous to forget. I can get complacent. The Vince character says something about how she doesn’t trust him “and he’s earned that. And it’s my job now to un-earn it”. Amends are living things – they are not simply an “I’m sorry” and quickly moving on. Living amends is behavior change.
In the beginning of recovery all I wanted, in desperation, was an “I’m sorry” over and over and over again, but I’ve since realized that living amends is much stronger. I know it could change in an instant, but right now I feel blessed.
How could I be so lucky?
How the fuck did we even end up together?
shaaren pine 