Description
I have always been a person who loves men. I am older now and have had some really good romances in my life. I have not been with a lot of men, but I choose very carefully with whom I plan to spend any time.
I did not date around a lot in high school. Instead I went “steady” as we called it in those day. I was with the same boy for five years and we almost married, but he made a fatal mistake. He went off to college and one night he called me by another girl’s name. That was the end of that. I was twenty years old and would not stand for him fooling around while going steady with me.
I later married a man I loved very dearly and still do. We built a good life together, had a nice home, set and met goals, traveled, and raised a family. We sort of grew into adulthood together and matured the way so many people do. Slowly our lives grew apart and after twenty-five years, we divorced but are still friends.
I then met a wonderful man who was European. We were introduced by a friend and after a short time, we fell very much in love. We were lovers for twelve years by way of a long distance romance. We had jobs where we could both travel and saw each other three or four times a year but there was not marriage. Eventually life took a strange turn and we stopped seeing each other. However, we stay in contact over the Internet and still have a special affection for each other.
A few years ago my first real boyfriend, all grown up now, contacted me and we are once again seeing each other. We talked about old times together and times when we were apart and agreed that some day we may once again be together again on a more permanent basis.
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One thing I have learned about what is keeping me single is that I truly like myself. I do not feel I need someone to make me whole as a person or to justify my being. The things I have always looked for in a man is intelligence, consideration, caring for another’s feelings, independence, understanding, and the ability to love unconditionally. He must not be looking for a trophy wife, must be fairly close to my age, and good looks help, but are not the most important thing. The eyes can tell you more about a person then any thing else.
Description
This is a big topic because we all want to believe that we are honest people. We have good intentions, play by the rules and try not to hurt anyone. But when it comes to pure honesty, many of us falter. It is only human because we were all conditioned to lie.
When we hide our true feelings, we often think that we are protecting another person from hurt. We gloss over truths or just avoid confrontation altogether. Most of us were taught that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
I felt this way once when I was dating someone who really liked me. He was a very handsome guy but about ten years younger. I just didn’t feel the same way about him but kept stringing him along and telling him I wasn’t sure because I didn’t want to hurt him. I just hoped he would give up on me and go away. I wanted to avoid telling him the truth.
I remember a teacher telling me that what I was doing was not very nice, and that my behavior was actually very mean. She challenged me to tell him my true feelings. I called him up and said, “I am sorry I have been lying to you. I just don’t think we are meant to be together.” Instead of him being mad or hurt he said, “Thank you for your honesty. That is all I needed to hear. Now I know where I stand and can finally move on.” A load had been lifted off of both of us with no hard feelings.
The reason you steer away from the truth is that you are assuming they are going to react the same way you would. If you get hurt when someone doesn’t call or says he’s not interested, then you will shy away from doing that to someone else. You secretly hold a grudge as to why he just wouldn’t call back, but you may often do the same in other areas of your life.
We take things personally when someone doesn’t like us and don’t want to face that pain. We try to buffer ourselves from that hurt by pretending, avoiding and even outright lying. The subconscious doesn’t know the difference between you and others. It makes assumptions based on your programming. If you hold back from dishing the truth out, you have something inside that is also resisting receiving honest feedback as well.
The sad part is that no one really gets close to you when you are lying. They only see a façade of who you are. If you act like the nice girl but hold grudges about doing something inside, you are not being very nice. You deny others of your truth and if they like you it isn’t the true you, so what’s the point? You end up just attracting fake friends who like your persona.
The need for honesty is the main reason relationships fail or why people unconsciously reject them. There is only so much surface talk you can do and dancing around the truth until you get tired of each other. This is the feeling that you get in a relationship when you feel something is missing.
If you hide your feelings as a habit, you will always attract men (or women) who do the same. You will have chemistry with those who match your level of comfort when it comes to speaking the truth. Your relationship will be hot at first but you will both shy away when it is time to have some real conversations.
Being able to openly confront your true feelings with power takes a lot of courage, especially if you were taught the opposite. Every fiber of your being may be pulling you back to safety, but once you start the process, honesty becomes easier and liberating.
Think about someone you need to confront with the truth. What feelings arise inside of you when you think of actually telling them your true feelings? Many times it is a deep feeling of fear. The little you views the other person as a threat to your safety, and the imagined intimidation makes you want to shrink back and avoid confrontation.
Facing a fear is like being a little kid afraid to look under the bed because of the monster that hides there. As an adult, you can see that it was just a myth and you are no longer afraid to peak under the bed. Just like the deeper parts of yourself, you may avoid the truth within because you fear what lies beneath the surface.
You can start with small truths first before you build your way up to big talks with parents or relatives who have hurt you. I started with my younger man and that gave me the courage to contact my Dad a few hours later.
You can also practice saying the truth in a meditation and face the person in your mind. This will help you desensitize the fear and the subconscious believes it is actually happening. For some people, this imaginary confrontation is all they needed to break an unhealthy relationship pattern.
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Of course, the most powerful act is to be honest externally. By breaking through my fear, I was able to get closer to others and more intimately love myself. A deeper heart opening occurred which led me to meet Roberto a few weeks later.
If you do nothing else, practicing honesty with yourself and others is the most self-loving activity you can experience. The harshest judge in your life is yourself. No one can hurt you without your agreement. Be fearless in your communication and open your heart. This is the path to true, authentic love and unlimited power to face anything in life. The fear of honesty may be the reason why you avoided true partnership all of these years and it is your time to become free and open up to the love that has been waiting for you.
People with addiction issues are not used to setting boundaries, especially when those boundaries involve behaviors we have reinforced for years.
I spent years violating boundaries as a drunk. Particularly when it came to relationships. Piss me off and I’d become belligerent. Let me drink all night and I’d throw up on your carpet. Invite me to a party and I’ll embarrass you in front of your friends. Weddings? Absolutely! Sign me up as the drunkest attendee. For drunks, the people who let us violate their boundaries are the ones we come back to over and over again.
I chose to become sober and dry after drinking made my life unbearable. My fiancé Jill didn’t make that choice. She didn’t have to; she wasn’t experiencing the same struggle with alcohol abuse I was. Drinking was ruining my personal and professional relationships. I spent my days trying to make up for what I destroyed at night. She had a glass or two of wine when she felt like it and functioned fine the next day.
Sobriety doesn’t come with a handbook. If it did, you’d have to be sober first to read it. Perhaps I would have learned about being a decent sober person if I had gone to an in-house treatment program. I did my sobering up in the wild, so to speak. My changes, positive and negative, took place in front of everyone around me.
Jill and I were blindsided by boundary-setting issues early in my sobriety. Our relationship was one of the few things from my drinking days I wanted to save. At best, it was hanging by a thread. We agreed to stay together while I tried to get a firm grasp on sobriety. She gave me support and encouragement as I experienced little successes: one day sober, one week sober.
I appreciated Jill's support. We never discussed the specifics of what I’d need from her. I wouldn’t have known what to ask for anyway. I intended to go to AA every day for the first 90 days and I was seeing an individual counselor and going to a weekly all-male support group. I was bursting at the seams with support; I was exhausted from so much support.
Jill drank wine. Not my drink of choice. I was the typical Philadelphia-living, bearded, tattoo-covered, craft beer drinker. The higher the ABV the better. The more ounces the better. Wine? No thanks. I hadn’t asked Jill to stop drinking or to keep alcohol out of the house but she had naturally done so, initially. I assumed we had an unspoken agreement.
A couple weeks into my sobriety, we had plans to spend a relaxing afternoon and evening together. I was leaving work early to watch a Team USA World Cup soccer match, an event I would have typically used as an excuse to overconsume alcohol on a weekday. Just like football games, tennis matches, holidays, and days ending in a y.
However, my newly-sober-person plan consisted of spending time watching soccer and eating takeout Thai food with Jill.
Jill sent me a text asking if I would pick her up a bottle of wine on my way home from work. It was a reasonable request on the surface; she didn’t have a car, so it was easier for me to pick up the wine on my way home. Pennsylvania has interesting liquor laws: you can’t walk into any random gas station or grocery store and grab an alcoholic beverage; there are special stores for buying wine and spirits and separate bottle shops where you can purchase beer.
Jill’s request didn’t offend me at first. She knew I didn’t drink wine and she was supportive of my sobriety and told me she was proud of me. I knew her request for a bottle of wine meant we were likely going to have sex that evening. I had no issue with that – of course I could bring her a bottle of wine.
On the way home, I picked up the finest bottle of $10 red wine I could find. I guess we weren't going to watch soccer after all.
We had the kind of evening you can only have when you are in a relationship that’s starting to heal after a long period of damage. You know, sexual healing? Jill had a glass of wine or two over the course of the night. I found out later Team USA had won their game.
Everything was perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
There were a couple things I hadn’t told Jill about my trip to the wine store. First, I had broken out into a panic while I was in the store. I’m no stranger to anxiety attacks, but this one hit me hard.
Making matters worse, I chose to get her wine from a store directly across the street from the meetinghouse for the AA group I was attending. I felt like I was sneaking behind enemy lines as I came and went from the wine shop. I expected to see someone I knew from meetings standing outside smoking. I bent my head down and rushed back to my car.
To hell with them, I thought at the time. If someone sees me, I’ll tell the truth. I flashed back to the time my middle school friend told his parents the open beer he was holding was for a friend. Not a believable story then, still not a believable story as an adult.
No one from the group had seen me, but mentally the damage was done. I tend to ruminate on things until they drive me crazy and I spent the next few days stewing on what Jill had asked me to do. How rude. How disrespectful. Didn’t she understand my position? How absurd I should have to say that I don’t want to go into a wine shop as an alcoholic.
I decided I needed to tell Jill about my boundary issue when I picked her up from work that Friday. Every Friday I’d pick her up from the University of Pennsylvania campus where she worked, we’d get Indian takeout and go home to Netflix.
“You really screwed me over the other day,” I started the second she sat in the car.
“What are you talking about?” She asked.
“Why did you think it was OK to ask me to pick you up a bottle of wine?”
“You didn’t have to say yes. I could have gotten it myself.”
Our conversation spiraled into an argument.
“I don’t want that poison around me right now. What would I have done if someone from AA saw me?”
“I won’t ever ask you to pick me up wine again. That’s easy.”
“Oh, I’m beyond that,” I told her.
“Are you asking me not to keep alcohol at home? That’s easy too.”
“That’s the least you can do.”
“You can’t ask me never to drink. That’s too controlling for me. I’m a grownup.”
“Fine. I’d appreciate you not doing it around me for a while.”
We drove home without getting our food.
I told the story of the bottle of wine and our argument at my next men’s group meeting.
“I’d say I did a good job setting my boundaries,” I proudly told Counselor Gary and the group.
“You did a piss poor job setting boundaries,” Gary replied. “You willingly crossed your own unstated boundary. And then you got mad about it.”
“At least she knows now what I won’t stand for,” I shot back
“You don’t have a right to tell her what you won’t stand for. I’d say you have a lot of work to do on yourself before you get to that point. Especially with Jill.”
“Why should she get to drink still if I can’t? How will we get along?” I asked.
“You can remember she’s an adult and she can do what she wants. That includes choosing to stay with you. You should focus on that, and not nit-picking behaviors she has no idea rub you wrong.”
“I have boundaries, damn it!” I said.
“Right. That’s new for you. That’s new for the people around you. People can’t read your mind. You’re responsible for setting your boundaries. You’re responsible for maintaining them. Not Jill.” Gary shut me down.
I sat, arms crossed and unreceptive the rest of the session. Gary’s words stung. I was responsible for setting my boundaries? How could I do that? I drove home wondering how I could verbalize the things I was feeling.
I worked hard as my weeks of sobriety turned into months; hard at my work, hard at my relationships. Jill and I turned a corner. We found a way to work with each other and communicate our needs. Sometimes you’ll need to set match preferences, but you won’t have to answer a long questionnaire like on Easyhookups.
We set some basic boundaries, ones that would have made sense to a sober outsider. I would never be asked to handle alcohol in any way. No purchasing, no opening a bottle, no carrying a drink to her across the room. The tradeoff, although Jill didn’t ask for it, was that wine could exist in our house without upsetting me. She could have a glass of wine at a dinner out and I wouldn’t feel affronted.
Other boundaries were a little less perceptible. We had to negotiate the boundaries needed for a healthy relationship. I communicated my needs to Jill more often. She began to open up more to me about her needs. We found ourselves more in periods of harmony as we strengthened our bond.
Gary was instrumental on my end. He provided an unbiased view of my unacceptable behavior. He gave me feedback on how I could approach situations without sabotaging them. He coached me on identifying situations I wasn’t comfortable with, and how to better communicate them to my friends and family before things got out of hand.
Today, Jill and I are married with a three-year-old daughter. I recently passed the fourth anniversary of my sobriety. Parenting and being a husband are rewarding and challenging roles that require setting and respecting boundaries. It’s something I’ve gotten better at in my sobriety and something I’m thankful for the opportunity to continue improving.
