I got reminded of my step-father tonight...I wasn't going to write in my blog, because I need sleep, but if I don't get this off my chest, I won't be able to sleep. Bare with me. In any case, I haven't seen the man in a year, year and a half. It's not that I don't care about the guy, it's that he doesn't seem to care, or at least doesn't seem to care enough to reach out and give me a call or anything. We kept up, meeting now and then, for the first year or so after my Mom died, but he's just too wrapped up in things, or too something to call. I don't know.
If I ramble or something, it's because I've had too much to drink, I should be honest about that...I may erase this the first chance I get.
Anyway, three years and some odd months ago my Mom died. It was tragic for us all, but my step-father couldn't handle it alone, I guess, and so he hooked up with another woman right away. He said that it was because her husband had died earlier in the year (which he did) and that they "understood each other" and what they were each going through. Mind you, this bothered me, tremendously, at first because of the fact that he was "seeing" someone else (even though he contended that it wasn't anything like that, that they were "just friends"), but later on because of something else, or a couple somethings I guess. First off, this woman became his sense of happiness. He couldn't be happy himself, he could only be happy in confiding in and mutually dealing with the issues of losing his "soulmate" with someone else that had gone through the same thing. He became a shell of a human being. He lived his life in "happiness" by being in denial of his loss by sharing his grief with another person. Instead of just coping, instead of allowing himself to heal, instead of allowing himself to fully grieve, he tried to replace that hurt with another person. In doing so, he wasn't allowing himself to fully absorb the tragedy, the pain, and the loss, instead sitting around and talking with someone else who had lost someone and instead trying to help them cope with their problems (that person using my step-father for the same purpose). Under the guise of "healing" they tried to form something new by pushing all that they had to deal with aside. They thought that what they were doing was healthy, they thought what they were experiencing was something more than friendship. Instead, it was nothing more than co-dependent bullshit. "I hurt and you hurt, let's make out" is not cool. Pushing aside the hurt and the pain by hooking up with someone else who's gone through the same thing doesn't "help" in the long run, it may mask the pain, maybe push it aside, maybe honestly make you feel better for the time-being, but in the end it is hurtful and phoney. Plastic: pure, unadulterated polyetheline. A farce. Happiness is deeper than that, and true Love is three-thousand times deeper than that yet. But they decided that it was best for both of them...and I played along whether or not they knew that it was not good for them in the long run. As far as I know, they're still together living a sham of a love life.
The other thing that gets to me about the whole thing is that in his dependency upon her for his happiness, he gave up everything else in his life. For awhile there was an attempt to keep in touch with me and others in the family, but that soon faded. He needed his new "girlfriend" for his survival, he needed her to be happy, he needed her just to wake up in the morning. Instead of dealing with life as it had presented itself to him, instead of dealing with fate and the loss of love, he had to shroud himself in her. Gradually, nothing became nearly as important as her. Spending time with his friends and family and everyone else became a far second cry to spending time with her. He became hooked on the "happiness" (co-dependent and fake though it was) that she brought him (which was nothing more than a mere coping mechanism and pain-reliever) and it became such that nothing else mattered. Fuck his friends, fuck his family, he and she forever and ever amen -- there was no need, no room, for anything else in the end -- this became his creed. Any time spent away from her was a time of unhappiness because it meant that he was forced to open his eyes to the world and cope with reality instead of basking in the warm glow of mutual hardship, sadness, and loss. And so he slowly walked out of our lives.
At first I understood, problems with his "finding someone new" aside, I thought it was good for him to find someone else that had gone through the same things, who truly understood what he was going through. But then it became too much. Life, for him, lost meaning outside of her and he died inside. The man that married my mother became someone other than himself -- a co-dependent sycophant that had to leach off of the misery and "love" of another. He thought that he was "in love", that they were placed in each others' lives by God so that they could help each other cope with their problems, that what they shared was deep and meaningful. To some extent, I could see that, I guess, but the thing is, there are millions and millions and millions of people that go through the exact same thing every year. There are billions that go through the lesser, though still hurtful, experience of breaking up, divorcing, or otherwise losing touch with the most important people in their lives. It's a common thing, it really is...but he latched on to her because she was the best available thing at the time, because she had her arms open, because they were already friends and it became too involved -- to the point where they needed to pretend that they were in love, or would eventually fall in love, in order to keep each other. And the thing is, I think they both really felt that there was something really there. But he could have gone to anyone for support...I would have helped him, my Uncle would have helped him, the people in his church would have helped him, reading any one or two of a gazillion books dealing with that sort of shit, fiction or not, would have helped him and he would have realized that he was not alone just that simply instead of having to fuck up his entire life -- estranging himself from those that cared about him -- just because she was pretty and she "understood" and they were friends. That is absolutely no basis for a relationship. None, zip, zero. Love should be the center of all relationships -- not sympathy or lust or confusion or hurt or pain or advice or a warm body or any of that, but Love. And the thing is, those things are often confused for Love, as is the case with my step-father.
I speak from experience, and I myself have passed the tests that these trappings present to us all in life. Shortly after my Mom died I too was offered this sort of relationship with a girl who, months earlier, had experienced the death of her sister. I said no because I knew that it would only push away the pain for so long, making it bigger in the end, and that it was destined to be a shallow relationship based in nothing deeper than sympathy, pity, and mutual compassion. We were friends before, sure, that's usually where it begins, but to bump that friendship to something more would have done nothing for either of us short of hurting us in the end when we found that all that was holding us together was the fact that we both had experienced similar rough times in life. We were not alike enough to be more than friends (alike enough to be friends, good friends, but nothing more): we had totally different personalities, personas, and everything else that is necessary to makes a deep relationship work. Sure, we would have been "happy" together, but it would have been a fake happiness that would have worn out over the years leaving us both more hurt than we were in the beginning. Sometimes pain is a learning experience and though it may hurt -- a lot -- it's something that you have to do to move on in life (I'm reminded suddenly of the Biblical story of Job).
I am glad that I passed that test, because it is the one thing in my romantic life that I can be proud of, the only test that I have passed (to much credit that it's one of the few that has been offered to me...but that's a different story). Too many people fall into that trap, the world is full of co-dependent and rebound relationships -- some that have gone on too long, but none that end happily -- where both people wrap themselves up in each other because it's the only thing that brings them happiness...it's the only thing that can push off the demons that at some point they have to fight in order to be truly happy. My step-father one of them.
He did not pass that test and he has more or less ruined everything else in his life as the result. We tried to stop him, because we all saw it coming, but he wouldn't listen...he was "happy" and that's what mattered and he knew what was good for himself and blah blah blah...bullshit. Now I'm minus a step-father and though I'd pick up the torch where he dropped it in his co-dependent stuper if he was willing to offer the chance, I am the exception to that rule (being a good person and all), he has effectively lost all else in his life in his compulsive search for meaning and happiness...
If I ramble or something, it's because I've had too much to drink, I should be honest about that...I may erase this the first chance I get.
Anyway, three years and some odd months ago my Mom died. It was tragic for us all, but my step-father couldn't handle it alone, I guess, and so he hooked up with another woman right away. He said that it was because her husband had died earlier in the year (which he did) and that they "understood each other" and what they were each going through. Mind you, this bothered me, tremendously, at first because of the fact that he was "seeing" someone else (even though he contended that it wasn't anything like that, that they were "just friends"), but later on because of something else, or a couple somethings I guess. First off, this woman became his sense of happiness. He couldn't be happy himself, he could only be happy in confiding in and mutually dealing with the issues of losing his "soulmate" with someone else that had gone through the same thing. He became a shell of a human being. He lived his life in "happiness" by being in denial of his loss by sharing his grief with another person. Instead of just coping, instead of allowing himself to heal, instead of allowing himself to fully grieve, he tried to replace that hurt with another person. In doing so, he wasn't allowing himself to fully absorb the tragedy, the pain, and the loss, instead sitting around and talking with someone else who had lost someone and instead trying to help them cope with their problems (that person using my step-father for the same purpose). Under the guise of "healing" they tried to form something new by pushing all that they had to deal with aside. They thought that what they were doing was healthy, they thought what they were experiencing was something more than friendship. Instead, it was nothing more than co-dependent bullshit. "I hurt and you hurt, let's make out" is not cool. Pushing aside the hurt and the pain by hooking up with someone else who's gone through the same thing doesn't "help" in the long run, it may mask the pain, maybe push it aside, maybe honestly make you feel better for the time-being, but in the end it is hurtful and phoney. Plastic: pure, unadulterated polyetheline. A farce. Happiness is deeper than that, and true Love is three-thousand times deeper than that yet. But they decided that it was best for both of them...and I played along whether or not they knew that it was not good for them in the long run. As far as I know, they're still together living a sham of a love life.
The other thing that gets to me about the whole thing is that in his dependency upon her for his happiness, he gave up everything else in his life. For awhile there was an attempt to keep in touch with me and others in the family, but that soon faded. He needed his new "girlfriend" for his survival, he needed her to be happy, he needed her just to wake up in the morning. Instead of dealing with life as it had presented itself to him, instead of dealing with fate and the loss of love, he had to shroud himself in her. Gradually, nothing became nearly as important as her. Spending time with his friends and family and everyone else became a far second cry to spending time with her. He became hooked on the "happiness" (co-dependent and fake though it was) that she brought him (which was nothing more than a mere coping mechanism and pain-reliever) and it became such that nothing else mattered. Fuck his friends, fuck his family, he and she forever and ever amen -- there was no need, no room, for anything else in the end -- this became his creed. Any time spent away from her was a time of unhappiness because it meant that he was forced to open his eyes to the world and cope with reality instead of basking in the warm glow of mutual hardship, sadness, and loss. And so he slowly walked out of our lives.
At first I understood, problems with his "finding someone new" aside, I thought it was good for him to find someone else that had gone through the same things, who truly understood what he was going through. But then it became too much. Life, for him, lost meaning outside of her and he died inside. The man that married my mother became someone other than himself -- a co-dependent sycophant that had to leach off of the misery and "love" of another. He thought that he was "in love", that they were placed in each others' lives by God so that they could help each other cope with their problems, that what they shared was deep and meaningful. To some extent, I could see that, I guess, but the thing is, there are millions and millions and millions of people that go through the exact same thing every year. There are billions that go through the lesser, though still hurtful, experience of breaking up, divorcing, or otherwise losing touch with the most important people in their lives. It's a common thing, it really is...but he latched on to her because she was the best available thing at the time, because she had her arms open, because they were already friends and it became too involved -- to the point where they needed to pretend that they were in love, or would eventually fall in love, in order to keep each other. And the thing is, I think they both really felt that there was something really there. But he could have gone to anyone for support...I would have helped him, my Uncle would have helped him, the people in his church would have helped him, reading any one or two of a gazillion books dealing with that sort of shit, fiction or not, would have helped him and he would have realized that he was not alone just that simply instead of having to fuck up his entire life -- estranging himself from those that cared about him -- just because she was pretty and she "understood" and they were friends. That is absolutely no basis for a relationship. None, zip, zero. Love should be the center of all relationships -- not sympathy or lust or confusion or hurt or pain or advice or a warm body or any of that, but Love. And the thing is, those things are often confused for Love, as is the case with my step-father.
I speak from experience, and I myself have passed the tests that these trappings present to us all in life. Shortly after my Mom died I too was offered this sort of relationship with a girl who, months earlier, had experienced the death of her sister. I said no because I knew that it would only push away the pain for so long, making it bigger in the end, and that it was destined to be a shallow relationship based in nothing deeper than sympathy, pity, and mutual compassion. We were friends before, sure, that's usually where it begins, but to bump that friendship to something more would have done nothing for either of us short of hurting us in the end when we found that all that was holding us together was the fact that we both had experienced similar rough times in life. We were not alike enough to be more than friends (alike enough to be friends, good friends, but nothing more): we had totally different personalities, personas, and everything else that is necessary to makes a deep relationship work. Sure, we would have been "happy" together, but it would have been a fake happiness that would have worn out over the years leaving us both more hurt than we were in the beginning. Sometimes pain is a learning experience and though it may hurt -- a lot -- it's something that you have to do to move on in life (I'm reminded suddenly of the Biblical story of Job).
I am glad that I passed that test, because it is the one thing in my romantic life that I can be proud of, the only test that I have passed (to much credit that it's one of the few that has been offered to me...but that's a different story). Too many people fall into that trap, the world is full of co-dependent and rebound relationships -- some that have gone on too long, but none that end happily -- where both people wrap themselves up in each other because it's the only thing that brings them happiness...it's the only thing that can push off the demons that at some point they have to fight in order to be truly happy. My step-father one of them.
He did not pass that test and he has more or less ruined everything else in his life as the result. We tried to stop him, because we all saw it coming, but he wouldn't listen...he was "happy" and that's what mattered and he knew what was good for himself and blah blah blah...bullshit. Now I'm minus a step-father and though I'd pick up the torch where he dropped it in his co-dependent stuper if he was willing to offer the chance, I am the exception to that rule (being a good person and all), he has effectively lost all else in his life in his compulsive search for meaning and happiness...
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