Dodging bullets -- love in the 21st century

I was married once, years ago, to a man I loved very much but who just wasn't ready to give up his pain pills. It was either them or me and he chose them. Fifteen years later, he's doing better and we're still friends, in fact he called this morning to update me on his Hepatitis C status, which probably prompted this post. Even after all these years, I sometimes still wonder "What if?"

If you're struggling in a relationship, deciding whether to stay or go, there's a little-known but fantastic book that has become my vade mecum as I tilt toward commitment with a wonderful man I met in AA. It's called I Will Never Leave You and is written by a couple, Hugh and Gayle Prather, who are therapists who have been together through years of the ups and downs of marriage, including early in the marriage years of Hugh's multiple affairs.

The one riveting statement they make in this book, and they have counseled thousands of couples, is that absent physical abuse or a few other issues, they have never seen a person walk away from a marriage as a better person because of it. Divorce tears a hole in the psyche, they believe, and although I have worded it to suit myself, I find it true in my life.

I had about five years clean when I divorced my husband, and I left Oakland, where we had been living and I went to college (Mills), to pursue my writing career in Los Angeles. I worked for the World Service Office of NA surrounded by recovering members with multiple years clean who worked fantastic programs. Vida was one such member. I remember complaining to her that I was in so much emotional pain from missing my husband that my body actually hurt. "Of course it does, honey," she said. "Why do you think they call it heart broken?"

I did several years in Naranon and learned to "detach with love." But when a few months after the divorce my husband suddenly decided to get clean and promptly fell in love with another women, years of repressed anger exploded. I was furious. How dare he? After all I'd done for him, including giving up a teaching fellowship at Fordham University to put him through treatment again! The nerve, that he would get clean, my dream for him, not his, as time has proved, and love someone else.

But I moved on, and entered into a few more relationships, including one near-miss with marrying again. I clearly see now that what feels like disaster at the time, in this case my fiancee sleeping with a 22-year old, was a blessing for me. God did for me what I could not do for myself by forcing the issue of abandonment. I also learned that the grief that overcame me after his betrayal was much bigger than his acts. It was all my life's grief compounded--losing friends to the disease; the death of my father, not grieved because I felt I had to stay strong for my mother; the career path glitches; and the decision not to go to graduate school. As I hear one wise women say in a southern California meeting, put on the blues and lean into the pain. There's no way around it but through it.

But I digress, which I'm good at doing. Back to commitment. As addicts and alcoholics, we have a "ditch-it" mentality, I believe. When I had a few months clean, I heard an addict share in a meeting that his cat had kittens and he was ready to take them to the pound and dump them off. He came to the realization, however, that "ditching it" was his typical response to anything that required any real effort. To practice new behaviors is how we become sane, I believe, and that's just what he decided to do: He kept the kittens and found homes for them. Mini-ephipanies are the keys to our spiritual development.

In the Prathers' book, they write "Marriage is a spiritual path. You find someone who is adequate, and you simply make the decision to stay with that person until the day you die. You will suffer, you will go through one hell or another, but you will not leave." It's much like staying clean. You make the decision (Step One), you go through one hell or another (Step Two), but you do not use!

I've found as I've moved from one relationship to another, I drag old boundaries with me. For example, my ex-fiancee was extremely emotionally abusive, although I couldn't pin a name on his behavior at the time--I just knew it hurt and tore me down. When my boyfriend criticizes me or gives me advice, I fight against the thought of "never again will I let someone belittle me." My ego won't allow that and unless I really work at not responding out of anger, the ego's best friend and the emotion that hides all other emotions, the feathers can fly.

"He must think I'm an idiot!" I think when he makes suggestions, even in areas where I know he has more expertise. (This morning it was driving on a low tire.) I tend to demonize the behavior, saying "never again" which stops communication. Only with a Higher Power's help can we work through our "stuff" because at 50, we both come with a gunnysack of crap well prepared to dump it on each other.

But, as the Prathers' say, "It's as if God sent you the box of your missing parts." I'm emotional, he's a bit stoic; I'm verbal, he's more analytical; I have a raunchy sense of humor, which typically upsets him while he's more proper, keeping his humor gender specific; he's had only two jobs in twenty-some years, I've had ten or more. Yes, there's lots to work through, but you know what? I'm ready.

Before my liver transplant last year and especially after, I spent hours and days by myself. I was living in Missouri and I simply didn't have the support system I have in Arizona. I was acutely alone. I realized that I had come to a place in my spiritual development where I was ready for a commitment and God handed me someone so much more than adequate. But what God hasn't removed is the fear.

So we slog on. I'm spending the summer in Missouri and he had planned to fly out and drive back with me next week. Yesterday I was asked by a former employer to go to Ft. Lauderdale to help on an audit, which blew our plans. I called him, knowing that he would be very upset because he doesn't live his life the way I do, which is at a moment's notice I'm comfortable with jumping on a plane and flying off to God knows where to solve a problem.

He was upset, but he handled it very well. He didn't exactly say what I had hoped to hear, full support for my decision, but he did the best he could to support me because he knew it was important to me that I start back to work and feel useful again. This blog ain't paying the mortgage!

So next week it's off to Ft. Lauderdale for a grueling week (don't even think I'll be lying on the beach), then back to finish packing to head to Missouri for a few months. Two dogs barking will stay with a friend, God bless and keep her. So until tomorrow, may God bless and keep you.