Dancing alone

I am in the midst of getting out of my relationship and it is damn hard. They say that in an abusive relationship, the average woman attempts 7 times before she successfully leaves. I might venture to say that for me, within the span of 3 years, I've probably thought about it many more times and have struggled with doing it because of the finality of what break-ups are and the loss of the person: the bad, but also the good.

In my quest for self-understanding, I've also realized that there are many terms used to describe people in unhealthy relationships like me: codependent, love addict, love avoidant, abused etc. etc. When my therapist described my relationship as abusive, I initially felt offended, but have slowly gotten around to realizing that she is more accurate than I thought. And that the dynamic is so much more painful than I ever allowed myself to think. So, I have tried really hard to focus on the dynamic between us rather than shoulder all of the responsibility to blame myself and to secretly call myself nasty names for not living up to who I thought I could be.

Unfortunately, I have spent the past few years shaming myself and losing valuable opportunities to be vulnerable with friends and families for fear that they will see right through me and find out my achilles heels.  I have feared their judgment that I stayed with someone who cheated on me twice (that I know of).  I have hated myself for staying in a relationship that drains me rather than strengthens me. So, I have hidden from myself and from others and done as much as I could to avoid reaching out.  I have said little about this relationship, few know that I am/have been in a relationship. Now I am trying to reach out. I am trying to stop blaming myself and to start seeing that this is me within an unhealthy dynamic.  Do I contribute to the dynamic? Yes. Am I the dynamic and should I take all of the responsibility for things being bad? No.  I'm trying to say no, but this is a work-in-progress and I am a work-in-progress.

So, getting back to my main point about all of these vocabularies and all of the self-help books I've read about being in an unhealthy relationship, I choose to reject the focus on being pathological and instead relinquish some of the responsibility to the dynamic caused by two people, personalities, histories, and intersections. I do have an exception though. Robin Norwood's book, "Women who love too much" speak to codependency, but I do enjoy her book title and the positive re-frame that I am not sick as I am overly loving, overly optimistic, and overly invested in happy endings for my partner(s) and myself in each and every relationship. What a positive re-frame! I could not have arrived at it even one month earlier.

I choose instead to see relationships, and specifically my relationship(s) as being in the dance of intimacy.  Perhaps the dance of intimacy gone wrong.

The dance of intimacy requires two people: a dynamic, a combination of forces, effort, and collaboration to move together.  Whereas one leads, the other follows in order for their movement to flow.  When one pulls back, the other moves forward so they can lean in and out and depend on one another, emotionally and in terms of their literal bodies moving together on the dance floor. This weekend, I thought especially about the dance of intimacy when my partner angrily accused me of fighting.  His exact wording was, "why do you fight so much? why do you like to fight so much? why do you always have to offer a different perspective, idea, or opinion to what I am saying? Why do you always have something to say to add to me?"

As usual, his accusations silence me, because I typically find myself in a state of shock. To begin, can 1 person fight alone? Can 1 hand clap alone? Isn't fighting/communicating -- heck -- doesn't a relationship require two opinions, personalities, people to take responsibility for themselves? I have finally come to accept that I have been dancing with someone who blames me for every step we take and who now openly expresses his contempt and disdain for all that I believe in, offer, and worked hard to work up the confidence to share with others. This same person has built me up really high and has now reached down to tear away at all the positive feelings I once thought he had toward me.

It is ironic to realize that while I struggle so much with trying to make this relationship work, I have been dancing alone all this time. It hasn't been fun for me. For the most part, he has been a heavy weight that I work hard to move around, dragging us here and there and doing my best while he critiques, blames, accuses, and tells me to work harder. Whatever the term: codependent, love addict, love avoidant, it all rings true to me that that I have loved him more than I loved myself.  That I have prioritized his needs above mine, his happiness above mine, and I have been and am utterly alone when the dancing gets tough.

Journey to self-compassion

Me? Have power? In a relationship? For the most part, the relationships I struggle with are romantic. Until recently, it didn't occur to me that I had any power in my relationships: to be mad, to leave, to do whatever it is that I feel or think because in a "good" relationship, others' needs come first. Isn't that the essence of a healthy relationship? Compromise? 

So, when disagreements come up, I end up wanting the other person to be happy and wanting things to be OK so I bend over backwards and take the blame. I swallow my feelings of injustice and hurt, and I push forward with whatever it is he wants because I want peace and it feels easier to comply than to rock the boat. I constantly walk on eggshells, not in terms of any physical danger, but because emotionally, I am always scared and fearful of him leaving and of me feeling abandoned. I am scared even when when he is mean. Cruel. Taunting. In relationships such as these, my partners are usually unbelievably sweet, kind, and romantic when thy want to be. So I ride the ridiculous roller coaster that can be excessively high and excessively low. Unpredictably so, he can be my knight-in-shining-armor.  In the next moment, he can sound as though he is an evil stepmother or stepsister. And because I want everything to be OK, and because my partners have generally come from backgrounds that have trauma and substance use, I rationalize to sacrifice myself: my thoughts, my feelings, my voice, my identity, my entire being-- because my boyfriends have tended to prefer being in the spotlight and with me on the sidelines: seen but not heard. They need the ego boost, not me.

What a delusion that is, believing that I am stronger than my partners when they are the ones that have hurt me. But the thing is, I'm not always the only casualty. I know that my current partner is unhappy, but it's too scary to leave, so we stay. We stay in an unhealthy cycle of resentment and dependency and what we think is love but sometimes borders on such intense dislike that I wonder if it could be hate. From both of us.

So I have to wonder why it is that we victimize ourselves. At least, speaking for myself, why is it that I have such low self-worth that I'm afraid to leave. To be the one that admits it first, or that leaves first? Why do I feel guilty thinking about leaving those who are mean, alcoholics, verbally abusive, emotionally abusive? And why is it that I have just as strong of a fear that he may leave and abandon me? Why do I continuously choose such unhealthy partners who make comments that belittle me, who chip away at my sense of self-esteem, and who eventually lead me to critique myself and my worthiness as a lovable human being?

So, I created this blog because I want to begin/push through my painful journey of realizing my role in relationships. But rather than punish myself and blame myself for choosing partners that have emotionally hurt me, I'd like to to re-frame my relationship with myself to become more compassionate. I don't want to feel so ashamed anymore. I don't want to feel shame all the time for staying in a relationship or for thinking about leaving. Rather than blame myself, I'd like to believe that from now on, I have the power to recognize what is healthy versus unhealthy for me: 

What are the things that I consider to be acceptable versus not acceptable when it comes to making sacrifices to make someone else happy? And what are my deal-breakers when it comes to screening out the people I allow into my life? In order to answer these questions though, I have to first find a healthy relationship with myself that is grounded in compassion and self-acceptance so that I can recognize that I am worthy of being loved. I need to find empowerment from within, and this is something I didn't know I had to work on in my relationship with myself.