The one that got away, or is it more the one that had a lucky escape? Maybe it is the one everyone should have had just to keep them driven into finding a good un? Or just the one that should never have been but it becomes a romantic idealisation when things are tough?
I think I have been all of these things for others,I indulge in this knowledge now and then in some narcissistic cocktail. It plays into my own belief that I am capable of breaking or making others. It plays into my own script that no one should be trusted and that the other always assumes my stupidity and naivety. Probably many more but we would be here forever. Why is a thought always some layered onion? Because onions stink and so does life.
There was the ex ex ex, the father of my daughter. I loved him in the truest form of teenage love.The relationship was a volatile, passionate and a dangerous one. The only one that fed my love of politics and people and this played out in our multi cultural relationship. I married him in some religious ceremony and a year later ended it finally and overdue. He went on to become a junkie, dug an artery out from his wrist, and after a stint in hospital returned home to his family. Broken. This did continue and he eventually lost his passport through his suspicious activity. He has never been able to settle down,never had security and whilst I enjoy his life of karma I feel guilty. We were young and faced things adults would not have managed, the suicide of his sister being one. We still keep in contact and he grew to be very respectful and kind towards me. I see the pain on his face of losing everything he had and everything he could have had and it stirs an equal pain. So.. I was the one that got away.
Then the ex,the father to my boys,the one that raised my daughter,the one I had known through school and was so normal and out of my league in his own normality I felt lucky to have him. Over a decade I built a life and a family with this man. Turns out he was also a compulsive liar, irresponsible, never put his family or relationship first in the times he was needed the most. A workaholic who would sacrifice everything around him to play a role,ultimately he sacrificed his whole life and like the ex ex his future. He begged, pleaded ( I am not heartless this had worked a few times)but by the time I had got to this point nothing would have saved us. I took what he may have had left to remember me by and smashed it into the ground in some petulant, passive aggressive manner. I committed the ultimate relationship sin, letting him know it on the way out of the door. Not my finest. It also robbed me of having his actions to blame, I had in my fury and hurt acted in a way that took the fall for a decade I did not have responsibility for. This man was drapped in grief for two years, he found settling impossible, relationships impossible,continously attempted to please me and at times harm me in his own frustrations. The result of this was familiar. He learned to grow up a little, and again when I see him the pain is etched on his face, his eyes glaze sadly and I feel the dagger in my heart and the knife in my back. I definitely make him feel lucky for the escape despite the pain he felt on his way down. I too am pleased an exit appeared with flashing lights.
See how this is working out for me?
I have to acknowledge that I have therapy and responsibility for that part where I choose men who must have something similar. I play out my own script. What is beginning to interest me is the way I respond when something different is offered to me. I remember the most gorgeous ICU doctor showing an interest, at the time I did not register his advances,I thought he was being kind and caring, in a way that he knew he was better than me in everyway and was just taking me under his wing. That definitely was a one that got away.. Forever kicking myself.
Similar to a very old school friend, never sexual, friends for years. He would repeatedly tell me I was the one for him one day and would regularly propose in a way I did not think he meant. He is still my friend and he has a lovely family now. So these types go nicely into the box set of romantic fantasy which I watch in my head occasionally.
Is it that cycle of “I’m not ok your not ok” that I stay comfortable in. Sometimes the “i’m ok and your not ok”. All transactional analysis theories would indicate that neither of these cycles are a thumbs up. I would also say for someone with no parent ego what so ever I would do well to choose someone with a more dominant one, (or one atleast in an attempt at lowering my expectations). Instead I attract the other children with no parent egos either, between us we just about manage an adult one.
Now to get to the one that baffles me, the one I am unsure as to what happens or happened. It is not as simple as rejecting someone that actually cares and loves you, or the one I fear may actually go against my script. That would be too easy to understand and correct. I have played with this persons heart for years now and through no understanding that I can apply.
He is known to my friends as “security” because this is the role he takes with me, physically and emotionally.
Security I met five and a half years ago through friends, he is four years younger than me which I never liked as it goes against what I believe to be what I need. I believe I need someone older than myself to match my own old head and can understand things from a mature level. He is of a different class to me, the one I have been raised to deem unacceptable. Questionable as although my mother was raised in a middle to upper class we were brought up in a financially lower class until I was a teenager. My father was raised in a lower class with middle class, Catholic, values ( I mean presently on paper I am in the lowest class known to society. Stigmas). Security has always worked yet never manages to stick to one job for long enough. He is from a broken family home ( I was not. I am now), a home that experienced domestic violence, violence he too experienced as a child (snap). Hypocritical of me to view these as red herrings seeing as my own life has mirrored this way, my upbringing being the unjust snobs.
The inner him is what i find the most baffling. From the very moment we met something crazy and unexplained occurred, a pull, a connection. A knowing of something we knew and did not know all at once. From that moment on we spoke every single day,more developed. Everything that went against what I stood for was thrown into the air. At times I would throw his care and love back at him, I would do everything i had the power to do, to turn him away. I would attempt to make him question himself and his own feelings and not once did he fall into my ploys. He is by nature alot more confident in his feelings and he stands by himself with conviction, this he poured onto me. No matter what I did he stood by me with a passionate conviction even when it came at his own sacrifices.
I promised him my heart with one breath and took it away with another, over and over. He still remains stood by me in my relationships and despite his. At times I can share my tears with him and after his initial anger he will comfort and talk to me, and I mean really really talk to me.
He got his nickname because he had this uncanny ability to find me at the strangest and latest hours if he sensed, knew, had reason to believe I was not okay. Many a pre therapy time I would manage to put myself into ridiculous situations or make myself stupidly vulnerable whilst out, I would turn to find him towering over me with a look that required an explanation but actually a softness in his eyes that allowed me to feel safe to stop, collapse or throw up. He would walk me the trek home and chat away with me until I formed some sense of myself and life in a way that would keep me okay for the moment.
This all sounds lovely doesn’t it? There are things about him that drive me crazy. Up the wall, throttle him crazy. He knew not to tell me what to do, it has an opposite effect and makes me young and deviant. So if we were out and my behaviour needed reigning he will hold up one finger. This was my first warning. This continued until his third and at the point he would go. It was not to control, infact he tolerated alot. So I could chat to men but the second I became too friendly a finger would appear from across the room. How dare he have this ability?! He would also have a go at me, he still does this, he will give it to me straight and harsh. Again. Who does he think he is?!?!
Despite our ” non relationship” if I am out and not dancing with him he gets a strop on. Which annoys me because actually we dance well together and the annoying part being that because he gets annoyed is why I do that anyway. It actually makes me worse and then I act like I have not understand his upset.
Then there is the way his jealousy rears its half head. If I go away and he suspects with duck or even WORSE, next duck! He loses his mind. He accuses me of things that actually make me so incensed it becomes dangerous. He sets out to hurt me and the very second this happens I become hurt that he would hurt me. I do not consider the years of hurt I have inflicted on him in these moments and I do not tolerate them. Why should I? From anyone? Should I? How many times can a person apologise?
We then argue and do not talk for however long we each can go. Weeks at best. Both equally stubborn and petulant.
He also will do what ever his stupid mind can think of to provoke jealousy. Which it does not,it winds me up that he consciously goes about attempting it. So much so I want to grab the skin under his arm and twist it. Maybe the arm he had my pet name tattooed on. I mean who does this without a ring?!
The thought of him with others does not plague me as I presume my own ability to split bits, ignore and forget allows for this to be easy. So long as I do not lose him. So long as he is always there like a best friend through good times and bad times. Through us not talking or talking. I like to know that he is mine, could be mine , would be mine, and in my fantasies will be mine. What if I choose will be and he is not there?
I am using these clips because it is something we once acknowledged as being similar to us. We are together, apart, with others, move on, do not move on, yet continue this merry dance of friendship and unknown. I say unknown. To me it is unknown but I suspect not so much for him.
Then of course children. I have mine and he has his one,they have met once and actually their very similar kids. They do not argue, they have similar humour and ways and likes(unlike Mr Ducks duckling and mine)my children liked him. Alot. Is this because he posed no threat, no hostage of attention, no disappearing to fear. I really liked his child too, a child raised against the odds to become a lovely being. Damn, I actually even liked his ex. I hate Mr Ducks ex because she is a constant spanner. So are these all different because their currently not applicable?
What ever it is. What is actually wrong with me? What is this?
I have driven my self crazy for years trying to understand the feeling of something that just does not make sense.
What ever it is I guess time will tell. Or you will tell me? Or therapy? I can’t tolerate the never ending questions and curiosity.
But the best way to describe it is..
And his best way to describe it would without doubt, because he tells me when drunk texting me..
Yet here I am, struggling through a mud patch with Mr duck. Someone I cannot dance with. Not because neither of us can but because he will not go out with me the same way, ironically holding me accountable and responsible for. Crutching him through his troubles,sacrificing my own self and needs and exhausting my own few skills. Constantly extending the goal posts.
Without a shadow of a doubt there is definitely something wrong with my left phalange.