Judy's (dysfunctional) Rules

Okay, here are some rules that I learned from my mother.  Before I get to them, I want to say that my mother is a great woman.  She's smart and caring and giving, and everyone loves her.  She's also a hell of a lot of fun, and I really enjoy spending time with her.  That said, I've had some issues because of the dysfunctional lessons I've learned from my parents' awesome, totally functional, you-can-never-hope-for-yours-to-be-as-good marriage.

I know I sound like I'm whinging, and these are definitely first-world problems. But as I struggle to face my issues head-on and deal with them, I need to unearth those skeletons, right? Natalie of baggagereclaim.com says that what matters in terms of self-esteem is how you internalize what you've experienced in childhood. In other words, it's all about perspective.  So, hopefully writing about this will help me to get and keep some healthy perspective, so I can move on from it.

So...lessons I learned from my mom, who had an incredibly 1950s-era marriage to my spoiled (but also loving and well-providing) dad.  There's nothing wrong with that, and they were extremely happy in it.  However, most people, myself included, can't fit into that mold.

Here are Judy's Rules:

1.  You are responsible for other people's feelings:  If someone treats you badly, it's probably because of something you did.  If someone is treating you badly, the right thing to do is to go up to them and ask, "Are you mad at me? Did I do something?"  Then you have a deep, sharing conversation, maybe there are some tears (on your part), things are clarified, and it all comes out right in the end. If you did something wrong, which you probably did, you change your behavior.  In doing all of this, your own feelings probably get lost, but who cares about that?  If you're too emotional, nobody will want you anyway.

2.  The wife should manage her husband's feelings:  Since she is responsible for his feelings, she needs to learn how to manage them.  She needs to anticipate how he is feeling and how he will feel, and then craft an appropriate response to make sure he doesn't get too upset about things.  This includes being in charge of all meals (so he doesn't get too hungry) and handling difficult discussions, particularly with service people.

3. Falling in love with someone is an inevitable, happily ever after story:  First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. It's meant to happen with your Mr./Ms. Right, and you can look back smugly and tell the story, laughing companionably at the appropriate places. 

4.  Relationships are effortless and seamless:  As a couple, you either agree on everything or joke lightly about the minor matters you disagree on.  The wife is often the butt of the jokes, but it's all in fun, right?  Any disagreements are handled as described in #1 above.

5.  Relationships involve dependence and exclusion:  If you're part of a couple, you need to collapse into the relationship.  Your significant other defines your life and is everything to you.  You rarely, if ever, go out to dinner on your own, because your significant other might miss you and not know what to do and how to do it.

6.  If you don't have a man, you have no value:  If you don't have a man, it means you've done something wrong.  It's not okay to be on your own.  If you stand up for yourself, someone may leave you, which would mean you have no value.  If you leave a relationship you might not be able to find another one, which would mean you have no value.  You'd better think twice about rejecting any potential suitors (particularly Jewish ones) because you may not  be able to find another.  And that would mean you have no value. 

7.  People without significant others can and should be denigrated:  Those of us who are lucky and successful enough to be in a relationship can and should discuss and make fun of those who aren't. 

8.  Feminists think the way they do because they can't get a man.





Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  It's pretty depressing to list these things.  It should be good to get some sunshine on them, right?  And now I suppose I should counter these rules with healthier rules that I can abide by.  Okay, here goes:

1.  The only feelings I am responsible for are my own.  It's okay to have and appropriately acknowledge my feelings.  It's okay to be emotional.  Knowing my feelings helps me to live according to my values and treat myself well.

2.  Sensitivity and tact are good things, but we're all adults here and we should each be in charge of managing our own feelings.  Allowing another person space to deal with his or her feelings is a sign of respect, as opposed to the unhealthy codependency of attempting to get into someone else's head and control them like that little guy in Total Recall.

A corollary to this is that we certainly can't manage people to make them change in ways that benefit our needs.  If they don't or won't, the ball's in our court.

3.  Falling in love is beautiful and inexplicable.  If it happens, look upon it with gratitude and seize it to the extent you can.  Focus on giving and enjoying.  See it for what it is, enjoy it for now, and realize it will last as long as it lasts.

4.  Ha, you expect ME to comment on relationships?  People say relationships are work.  I mean, I know they're not effortless.  I know that much, okay?  I believe they take at least some negotiation from time to time, and that they're not all tweety birds and roses.  Here's the problem...I don't have a good model on which to base my description.  My parents always presented this sleek, shiny, effortless united front of a  marriage, which obviously didn't help me much.  I suppose my homework is to think about the relationships of friends, family, etc., and try to develop some more realistic images of them.

5. Relationships should involve both mutual dependence and independence. Don't collapse into them, but rather, maintain a healthy frame (as they say in dancing).  That way you can move together, without one person being dead weight.  And for fuck's sake, go out to dinner with friends or go to a happy hour sometime.  Honestly.

6.  The most important relationship in your life is with yourself.  You have value no matter what, regardless of whether you're with some guy.  It's important to nurture and foster that value, and to listen to what you need. If you're not happy in your relationship and you determine that you need to leave, it's fine to do so.  You may or may not find someone else, but this person was not for you.  It's better to be happy on your own than unhappy with someone else.  And being happy on your own is the foundation of being happy with someone else.

7.  There are many ways to live and be happy.  Partnered people who denigrate people who are not in relationships probably have some problems of their own. 

8.  Feminism is the radical notion that women are human.

Of Red Flags and Stone Carving

I feel like I need to process.

So....I've started kind of dating Red Flag Guy.  I say "kind of," because of course I'm scared and fighting off a freak-out response.  Why did I start seeing him, despite the red flags?  Well, it's because I felt like it was something I needed.  I was so darn sick of the 30-day love detox approach, in which you don't do anything passionate with a man for 30 days and somehow win his commitment (my words), and then and only then can you have sex.  It just seemed totally unrealistic to me.  I mean, how do you know that you want to commit to someone, or commit to trying to commit to someone, if you keep each other at arms' length, as it were?  And even if you do hold off and try to do everything safely and slowly, to avoid any kind of emotional risk and pain, honestly, it will still get you in the end.  It's like the Appointment in Samarra.  If it's meant to be it will be, whether it's something good or something bad.

That's not to say there aren't smarter ways of doing things, and that's not to say that I'm not trying to pick up on those ways.  I just felt like a New Year's Eve fling with RFG (which is what I said yes to) seemed like the right thing to do for right then.  Also, he's smart, there's chemistry, we enjoy some common things...so, I decided to jump in.  And since then, we've seen each other quite a bit.  The whole situation is kind of broadly defined as me being his "woman."  Saying "boyfriend" freaks me out...it implies things that I'm not ready for with him, as well as obligations that I would have to hold him to that he may not be able to live up to.  So, the concept of "woman" is good for me, because, really, it's what I need right now.  Lesson applied from Dancing Guy a few months ago -- If I have sex with someone on a regular basis, I will start to care about him, or at least think about him more than is warranted by the situation.  I said that straight out to RFG, and he seems okay with it.  I'm glad to be getting to know each other.

At the same time, I'm freaking out.  There are external and internal reasons for that.  The more tangible reasons are the external ones.  RFG's red flags are my strong sense that he likes to fool around and is willing to lie about it.  It's also clear that he wants a regular woman in his life, but I'm not sure if that precludes anything else.  As I mentioned in my previous posting, he talks about going to "strip clubs" with "clients" on a regular basis.  He told me he had "friends" during his marriage who his then-wife didn't know about.  At present, I can push all of that to the back of my mind, but having red flags sitting in the back of my mind isn't a comfortable thing.  I don't feel like we're in a place yet where I would want to bring it up, and I don't think there's anything I can bring up.  Really, it is what it is, so that's something that's clearly keeping me from jumping in with both feet. And there's the idea that I chose someone unavailable because that's somehow more comfortable to me, either because I'm unavailable too or because my script since childhood has been to connect with unavailable people due to my parents' unavailability. (I know I said "unavailable" 3 times in the last sentence...I don't think it's inappropriate, because it's so damn important to this whole mischegoss.)

And this brings us to the internal reasons for my freak-out.  According to my counselor K, it all comes from how my parents excluded and in some sense neglected me.  It comes from being labeled in my family of origin as the inconveniently and overwhelmingly needy one.  According to K, all of this makes me feel like I'm unlovable on my own, and that I need to take responsibility for other people's feelings and lose myself in order to get them to love me.  My mom was somehow able to do that, in a very successful 1950s-type way, but it pisses me off just to think about it.  It seems manipulative and dishonest, and I'm not that good at it anyway (unlike my brother...but that's a whole other kettle of fish).  I'm conflicted by it all, as well as terrified by fears of being abandoned and rejected, which would only serve to confirm my underlying feels of unworthiness and lack of belonging.  That's it in a nutshell, folks.  K says that these emotional responses -- "Please don't leave me!  Please like me!  What can I do to make you like me?  It's my fault of you don't!" -- are deeply grooved in my brain, and that I'm chipping away at it like stone, trying to change my responses.  She says it's not an easy or quick process, and that I shouldn't be upset with myself for being a work in progress.  (She also thinks RFG has some real red flags, and although she doesn't say it, she probably thinks I'm well rid of him.)

So, where do things stand?

Well, here are some things I don't want to do with RFG -- 1) Pine away for his calls, texts, and e-mails.  2) Think about how to get him to like me and follow through by acting manipulatively in some way.  3) Second guess Obsess over things I've done or haven't done.  4) Worry that he doesn't like me.  5) Lack confidence and have that show.  6) Get reactive and freak out in front of him.  7)  Wonder obsessively about what will happen with us, if it will ever work, and why it probably can't/won't.  8)  Worry that he's going to break up with me.

Here are some things that I DO want to do with RFG -- 1)  Enjoy our time together in the now.  2) Be kind and caring, with no agenda.  3) Have my limits and feel okay with them.  4)  Own my story -- tell him (as I've done, to some extent) that sometimes I get anxious and a bit freaky, and that I have some self-esteem issues.  5) Realize that I'll be okay with him or without him.  6) That said, realize there's no protection from pain, and that it's impossible to live life the way I want to live it and avoid risk altogether.  7) Learn from our time together.  8) Realize that whatever will be will be (without the sappy music).  10) Believe that the universe will provide.  11) Keep doing salsa dancing, at times independently of him. 12) Realize that I'm strong and beautiful and I have value. 13)  Try to let go of expectations for how things will progress.
Okay, it was good to lay that out.  Stating a goal is the first step towards achieving it, right? My goal is to be appropriately healthy in relationships, so we'll see how that goes.  I'm blessed with many things, and I feel like I'm moving forward in an iterative way.

Happy MLK weekend!