I'm Back! 2.0

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

Hi everyone.  Thank you for weighing in on my last post.  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3061527.0

I'd like to ride out this snowstorm by getting some more thoughts down.  I hope it brings some clarity to someone or, at least, encourages them to look at their situation a little differently.  Maybe ask themselves questions they've never asked before.

I think there has to be some kind of through-line between us "BPD others", right?  There must be some common thread, some reason why we tolerate what we do, why we continue to touch the stove.

I've spent the last few months--maybe years, even--asking myself: What is this story?

For me it's just as important to ask What isn't this story? and that means moving away from shame language and dispelling with some pop-psych myths:

Myth                                          My truth
I'm addicted to chaos                 I believe true love appears on the other side of pain
Can't be alone                              I'm desperate for an accurate witness
Fear of rejection                          Fear of being rewritten without my consent   
Control freak                                A need to have a shared truth
No self-respect                            I value commitment and covenant over self
I'm codependent                          I believe insight and devotion can fix instability
Savior complex                            True love means not abandoning people
Low self esteem                          Ability to make myself small in the name of connection
Can't let things go                       Afraid to let a counterfeit reality prevail
Fear of abandonment                Fear of disappearing from my own life

And I can see how being in relationships with someone with BPD can play right into this story. Throughout each and every painful chapter I wasn't asking "Is this healthy?" I was instead asking:

"How does this fit what I already believe about love and truth?"

Idealization--->Finally, I'm being seen accurately.  No one who sees me cleanly can hurt me
Threatening to leave--->She doesn't see me clearly.  I must work harder
Suicide attempts--->I can weather this. She'll feel better if I'm a stable partner
Blame shifting--->If we can agree on the truth we can fix it
Gaslighting--->I need to respect her reality, even if it messes with mine
Lying--->The record must be corrected, otherwise everything that stems from the lie is fraudulent
Devaluation--->She's going to leave before I can correct my story

I've learned that these beliefs really stem from just a couple very unhealthy dynamics that I experienced early and often in life.  I was a very, very intelligent kid.  Very high IQ and all of that.  But there was just something about school that didn't excite me.  And multiple times a year I carried my report card home with the same message: "Matt is a very smart and kind young man.  He is a pleasure to have as a student.  But he doesn't do his homework and he is not living up to his potential"

I don't recall anyone helping me understand or reach that "potential".  I was graded, evaluated and judged, and then passed along.  I was never held back, never given extra tutoring, never offered any emotional or psychological support.  It was like: I was important enough to critique, but not important enough to help.  I was recognized as being nice and kind, but ultimately I was a failure because I didn't have good grades.  What did I learn?

I can do things mostly right but still be negatively labeled.  Other people are allowed to tell me who I am.  The good parts of me were never good enough to buy me continuous care.

And this is a label that I've carried throughout my life.  Good enough to be included, not good enough to be protected.  That has kept me in this perpetual state of trying to prove myself, correcting unfair judgements, fighting revisions of who I am, and staying devoted to relationships that have been unbalanced, destabilizing, and unhealthy.

School taught me about my performance, and home taught me about love. A devoted father prone to rage and physical abuse and a mother who was all but totally absent and checked out.  There was no peace, just moments where I wasn't being hit, ignored, or merely tolerated.  Every day of my childhood was not hell, but I adopted another very unhealthy belief:

I learned that relief from abuse and neglect feels like love.

Aside from a lackluster academic career I was a pretty good baseball player and trumpeter.  That was something I enjoyed and was proud of.  I didn't realize it then, but even those pursuits carried a hidden danger:

My worth is determined by how well I support the group.

I look back now and I can see how those hobbies of mine were used to define me.  I don't recall acquaintances, friends or even family asking me about me.  It was often "How's baseball going? Are you still playing shortstop?", or "When are you going to play the trumpet in church again?"  I had been reduced to a role, a caricature, and it was up to me to keep that going.  To keep the illusion alive.  I hated feeling like I was just a baseball-playing trumpeter but, then again, what if they asked about the real me? What was I going to say? "I never do homework, my dad beats me and my mother doesn't talk to me, and I don't know why?"  It just felt easier to practice my scales or hit the batting cage.   

I was learning how to survive by being small and convenient instead of being known.

High school was more of the same.  Terrible grades, zero effort, an unrealized potential.  That was also where I  mastered being a fun-loving class clown who could hold the attention of thousands of kids, and even teachers, at once.  I learned how to read the room--to sense people and attune to them and how to take risks.  I pulled some epic pranks, some of which are still talked about today.  My thesis was simple:

You do not get to forget me.  You do not get to deny that I exist.  You do not get to make me small. 

Near the end of my senior year my guidance counselor approached me with an offer: do some projects or reports and they'll grant me the credits that I needed to graduate.  This was despite a 0.0 GPA. I denied the phony diploma and said "I'll see you next year".  I watched all my friends graduate without me. I returned in the fall to do an additional semester.  And thus another belief was born:

I must deny care that I feel is unearned.  And I will redeem myself via a grand, sometimes defiant gesture. 

I graduated after an extra semester and immediately enrolled in college. I don't know, it just felt like the thing I was supposed to do.  That did not go well either.  Before too long I was skipping most of my classes and attending only the ones that I liked.  One day I woke up late and thought "I have to get out of here."

That day I drove to the local recruiting office and enlisted in the Marines.  I could have applied myself in school, or dropped out and gotten a job, or any number of things.  Instead I chose to join the most grueling branch of the US military without any plan, understanding or frame of reference.  Another grand, redemptive gesture of which my mother was not to happy.  I shipped off to Parris Island (Marine boot camp) the day after Christmas as a kid with far more questions than he had answers.

Whether or not I realized what I was getting into is lost to memory.  But instantly I found a psychological home at Parris Island:

Stripped of my identity--->no problem.  I didn't like the one I had anyway
Viewed as a function and a role, not a person--->I'd been auditioning for this my whole life
Lost the right to express myself fully--->I'd spent years learning to take whatever shape would spare me punishment
Assigned value based solely on my contributions to the group--->Years of team sports prepared me for this
Received care only after suffering pain and demonstrating competence--->NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!

At Parris Island I found rules that made sense to me, even though I didn't like them.  They were coherent.  They didn't change.  I wasn't at risk of being suddenly punished or discarded so long as I was willing to suffer and earn my place.  I knew what to do and, if I didn't, someone told me what to do.  There suffering had meaning.  Endurance was akin to competence.  Pain was indicative of growth.  Effort equaled recognition and recognition meant belonging.  I still remember my last day of boot camp, during our graduation ceremony.  My drill instructor had to look down at my name before congratulating me.  That was one of the things that stuck with me the most: I was strong enough to endure, big enough to matter, but small enough not to leave a lasting mark.

I learned to be big, but not too big.  Endurance equals proof of value.  And the group will protect people of value.

While I was in the Marines I met a woman and was immediately taken by her.  Even today, 24 years later, I still remember that moment.  It was like that scene in "The Godfather", where Michael meets Apollonia while hiding in Sicily.  That look on his face, that speechless awe.  That was me.  I got hit by the thunderbolt. And there was no turning back.

For the first time in my life I felt the lure of romantic love.  The feeling of being chosen, recognized and wanted.  Being a military romance (she was also in the Marines) meant that we spent a lot of time apart.  But that distance gave the romance a unique shape: that the love was timeless, born of a shared belief in duty and loyalty, and that it would be strengthened by enduring distance, longing, and even war.  Its continuity made it feel fated, unbreakable.

I deployed to Iraq in 2003 and the lessons I had learned in my military career became solidified: endurance is competence, competence gets me accepted, and acceptance is safety.  I still remember our first firefight, vividly of course.  And I remember that feeling that I was going to die.  Not someday.  Soon.  Now.  Here it comes.  And I pictured my own funeral.  I envisioned my mom sitting there, next to my grave, dressed all in black.  With my now-fiancée next to her.  And I saw my mother getting handed a folded American flag, a star spangled triangle to commemorate her son who was dead because he was a terrible student.  That moment burned something into me at a cellular level:

Death is real.  It is coming.  It may get me before I have a chance to be fully known.  Love is the only thing that will make me immortal.

I returned home and my folks threw me a party.  I hated it.  I didn't understand it and I didn't want to be there.  It was care that I had not earned.  Love that I did not deserve nor want because I had not suffered for it.  All I did was survive a war, a war I fought in because I was too lazy to do my homework.  It made no sense to me.

My fiancée and I were married a few months later.  But not some courthouse wedding. A real one.  With a real ceremony, a real bridal party, real flowers, the whole thing.  I felt legitimate.  I was no longer a misguided kid.  I was a combat veteran, a Marine and a husband with 150 witnesses to prove it.  The vows were delivered by one of my high school teachers, in fact.  I was undeniable.  I had arrived.

A year later I was in bed with another woman.  Drunk, lonely and afraid.

My then wife had deployed to Iraq herself a few months prior.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn't know how to handle this.  Of course I knew that extramarital activity was wrong; I didn't know how to handle myself.  I was alone in an environment fueled solely by alcohol, pressure, machismo, stress and sex.  And I fell victim to it.  It was a one-time thing and I regretted it immediately.  I was ashamed, scared and unguided.  I decided that I wouldn't say anything.  I wouldn't tell anyone including her.  I would bury this, punish myself mercilessly and press on.

Except she found out somehow.  And she spent the next year punishing me.  Pushing me away.  Ignoring me.  Confusing me.  It was like I was married to a stranger.  Because I didn't know that she knew.  This continued for a year, exactly a year from the date of the affair.  And then she told me: "I knew the whole time.  You needed to suffer.  I want a divorce."  The lesson was clear:

Reality can exist without me knowing it.  I can be punished without trial.  My mistakes will ruin love.  My failures no longer hurt just me. It's nobody's fault but mine.

As fate would have it, within days of her revelation I was fired from my job, broke (she emptied the bank account), soon to be divorced and on the brink of homelessness.  I limped back home to my parents with nothing but a dog and a ton of shame.

I got back home and was confronted by something that would become just as formative to my story as the affair and divorce.  I arrived and met...nothing.  Silence.  Not judgement.  Not anger.  Silence.  It seemed that no one knew what to say or do, so they said and did nothing.  There I was, steeped in shame and embarrassment, humiliation and confusion, and there was no one to guide me.  No one helped.  No one counseled.  Just silence.  I was suffering and all those witnesses from a year prior were gone.  I was my only living witness.  My belief that pain begets love had been broken. 

I was welcomed back home with open arms and closed mouths.  Good enough to be included, not good enough to be protected.  If I am left to suffer alone then I will become damn good at it.

And I did.  The shame and guilt that I felt, that I still feel today, took on a mythic quality.  I actually became attached to it, like I replaced my wife with it.  Internally I made the connection that if no one helped me through this then I didn't deserve help.  Or maybe I didn't need it.  So I figured this was exactly where I needed to be.  Mid-20s, divorced, aimless and confused.  I bound myself to the shame and refused to let it go.  I could no longer be devoted to her, so I decided I would be devoted to myself.  But not in a way that one would hope:

I will stand guard over this pain, as a testament to what she meant to me.  The shame is what will keep me honest.  The guilt will keep me from ever hurting anyone again.  It is the last living memory of a love lost.  It is what keeps her alive. I cannot forgive myself; forgiveness betrays the very magnitude of the pain I caused.

(I'll continue in another post within this thread)

[M604V]

Hi everyone.  Thank you for weighing in on my last post.  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=3061527.0

I'd like to ride out this snowstorm by getting some more thoughts down.  I hope it brings some clarity to someone or, at least, encourages them to look at their situation a little differently.  Maybe ask themselves questions they've never asked before.

I think there has to be some kind of through-line between us "BPD others", right?  There must be some common thread, some reason why we tolerate what we do, why we continue to touch the stove.

I've spent the last few months--maybe years, even--asking myself: What is this story?

For me it's just as important to ask What isn't this story? and that means moving away from shame language and dispelling with some pop-psych myths:

Myth                                          My truth
I'm addicted to chaos                 I believe true love appears on the other side of pain
Can't be alone                              I'm desperate for an accurate witness
Fear of rejection                          Fear of being rewritten without my consent   
Control freak                                A need to have a shared truth
No self-respect                            I value commitment and covenant over self
I'm codependent                          I believe insight and devotion can fix instability
Savior complex                            True love means not abandoning people
Low self esteem                          Ability to make myself small in the name of connection
Can't let things go                       Afraid to let a counterfeit reality prevail
Fear of abandonment                Fear of disappearing from my own life

And I can see how being in relationships with someone with BPD can play right into this story. Throughout each and every painful chapter I wasn't asking "Is this healthy?" I was instead asking:

"How does this fit what I already believe about love and truth?"

Idealization--->Finally, I'm being seen accurately.  No one who sees me cleanly can hurt me
Threatening to leave--->She doesn't see me clearly.  I must work harder
Suicide attempts--->I can weather this. She'll feel better if I'm a stable partner
Blame shifting--->If we can agree on the truth we can fix it
Gaslighting--->I need to respect her reality, even if it messes with mine
Lying--->The record must be corrected, otherwise everything that stems from the lie is fraudulent
Devaluation--->She's going to leave before I can correct my story

I've learned that these beliefs really stem from just a couple very unhealthy dynamics that I experienced early and often in life.  I was a very, very intelligent kid.  Very high IQ and all of that.  But there was just something about school that didn't excite me.  And multiple times a year I carried my report card home with the same message: "Matt is a very smart and kind young man.  He is a pleasure to have as a student.  But he doesn't do his homework and he is not living up to his potential"

I don't recall anyone helping me understand or reach that "potential".  I was graded, evaluated and judged, and then passed along.  I was never held back, never given extra tutoring, never offered any emotional or psychological support.  It was like: I was important enough to critique, but not important enough to help.  I was recognized as being nice and kind, but ultimately I was a failure because I didn't have good grades.  What did I learn?

I can do things mostly right but still be negatively labeled.  Other people are allowed to tell me who I am.  The good parts of me were never good enough to buy me continuous care.

And this is a label that I've carried throughout my life.  Good enough to be included, not good enough to be protected.  That has kept me in this perpetual state of trying to prove myself, correcting unfair judgements, fighting revisions of who I am, and staying devoted to relationships that have been unbalanced, destabilizing, and unhealthy.

School taught me about my performance, and home taught me about love. A devoted father prone to rage and physical abuse and a mother who was all but totally absent and checked out.  There was no peace, just moments where I wasn't being hit, ignored, or merely tolerated.  Every day of my childhood was not hell, but I adopted another very unhealthy belief:

I learned that relief from abuse and neglect feels like love.

Aside from a lackluster academic career I was a pretty good baseball player and trumpeter.  That was something I enjoyed and was proud of.  I didn't realize it then, but even those pursuits carried a hidden danger:

My worth is determined by how well I support the group.

I look back now and I can see how those hobbies of mine were used to define me.  I don't recall acquaintances, friends or even family asking me about me.  It was often "How's baseball going? Are you still playing shortstop?", or "When are you going to play the trumpet in church again?"  I had been reduced to a role, a caricature, and it was up to me to keep that going.  To keep the illusion alive.  I hated feeling like I was just a baseball-playing trumpeter but, then again, what if they asked about the real me? What was I going to say? "I never do homework, my dad beats me and my mother doesn't talk to me, and I don't know why?"  It just felt easier to practice my scales or hit the batting cage.   

I was learning how to survive by being small and convenient instead of being known.

High school was more of the same.  Terrible grades, zero effort, an unrealized potential.  That was also where I  mastered being a fun-loving class clown who could hold the attention of thousands of kids, and even teachers, at once.  I learned how to read the room--to sense people and attune to them and how to take risks.  I pulled some epic pranks, some of which are still talked about today.  My thesis was simple:

You do not get to forget me.  You do not get to deny that I exist.  You do not get to make me small. 

Near the end of my senior year my guidance counselor approached me with an offer: do some projects or reports and they'll grant me the credits that I needed to graduate.  This was despite a 0.0 GPA. I denied the phony diploma and said "I'll see you next year".  I watched all my friends graduate without me. I returned in the fall to do an additional semester.  And thus another belief was born:

I must deny care that I feel is unearned.  And I will redeem myself via a grand, sometimes defiant gesture. 

I graduated after an extra semester and immediately enrolled in college. I don't know, it just felt like the thing I was supposed to do.  That did not go well either.  Before too long I was skipping most of my classes and attending only the ones that I liked.  One day I woke up late and thought "I have to get out of here."

That day I drove to the local recruiting office and enlisted in the Marines.  I could have applied myself in school, or dropped out and gotten a job, or any number of things.  Instead I chose to join the most grueling branch of the US military without any plan, understanding or frame of reference.  Another grand, redemptive gesture of which my mother was not to happy.  I shipped off to Parris Island (Marine boot camp) the day after Christmas as a kid with far more questions than he had answers.

Whether or not I realized what I was getting into is lost to memory.  But instantly I found a psychological home at Parris Island:

Stripped of my identity--->no problem.  I didn't like the one I had anyway
Viewed as a function and a role, not a person--->I'd been auditioning for this my whole life
Lost the right to express myself fully--->I'd spent years learning to take whatever shape would spare me punishment
Assigned value based solely on my contributions to the group--->Years of team sports prepared me for this
Received care only after suffering pain and demonstrating competence--->NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!

At Parris Island I found rules that made sense to me, even though I didn't like them.  They were coherent.  They didn't change.  I wasn't at risk of being suddenly punished or discarded so long as I was willing to suffer and earn my place.  I knew what to do and, if I didn't, someone told me what to do.  There suffering had meaning.  Endurance was akin to competence.  Pain was indicative of growth.  Effort equaled recognition and recognition meant belonging.  I still remember my last day of boot camp, during our graduation ceremony.  My drill instructor had to look down at my name before congratulating me.  That was one of the things that stuck with me the most: I was strong enough to endure, big enough to matter, but small enough not to leave a lasting mark.

I learned to be big, but not too big.  Endurance equals proof of value.  And the group will protect people of value.

While I was in the Marines I met a woman and was immediately taken by her.  Even today, 24 years later, I still remember that moment.  It was like that scene in "The Godfather", where Michael meets Apollonia while hiding in Sicily.  That look on his face, that speechless awe.  That was me.  I got hit by the thunderbolt. And there was no turning back.

For the first time in my life I felt the lure of romantic love.  The feeling of being chosen, recognized and wanted.  Being a military romance (she was also in the Marines) meant that we spent a lot of time apart.  But that distance gave the romance a unique shape: that the love was timeless, born of a shared belief in duty and loyalty, and that it would be strengthened by enduring distance, longing, and even war.  Its continuity made it feel fated, unbreakable.

I deployed to Iraq in 2003 and the lessons I had learned in my military career became solidified: endurance is competence, competence gets me accepted, and acceptance is safety.  I still remember our first firefight, vividly of course.  And I remember that feeling that I was going to die.  Not someday.  Soon.  Now.  Here it comes.  And I pictured my own funeral.  I envisioned my mom sitting there, next to my grave, dressed all in black.  With my now-fiancée next to her.  And I saw my mother getting handed a folded American flag, a star spangled triangle to commemorate her son who was dead because he was a terrible student.  That moment burned something into me at a cellular level:

Death is real.  It is coming.  It may get me before I have a chance to be fully known.  Love is the only thing that will make me immortal.

I returned home and my folks threw me a party.  I hated it.  I didn't understand it and I didn't want to be there.  It was care that I had not earned.  Love that I did not deserve nor want because I had not suffered for it.  All I did was survive a war, a war I fought in because I was too lazy to do my homework.  It made no sense to me.

My fiancée and I were married a few months later.  But not some courthouse wedding. A real one.  With a real ceremony, a real bridal party, real flowers, the whole thing.  I felt legitimate.  I was no longer a misguided kid.  I was a combat veteran, a Marine and a husband with 150 witnesses to prove it.  The vows were delivered by one of my high school teachers, in fact.  I was undeniable.  I had arrived.

A year later I was in bed with another woman.  Drunk, lonely and afraid.

My then wife had deployed to Iraq herself a few months prior.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn't know how to handle this.  Of course I knew that extramarital activity was wrong; I didn't know how to handle myself.  I was alone in an environment fueled solely by alcohol, pressure, machismo, stress and sex.  And I fell victim to it.  It was a one-time thing and I regretted it immediately.  I was ashamed, scared and unguided.  I decided that I wouldn't say anything.  I wouldn't tell anyone including her.  I would bury this, punish myself mercilessly and press on.

Except she found out somehow.  And she spent the next year punishing me.  Pushing me away.  Ignoring me.  Confusing me.  It was like I was married to a stranger.  Because I didn't know that she knew.  This continued for a year, exactly a year from the date of the affair.  And then she told me: "I knew the whole time.  You needed to suffer.  I want a divorce."  The lesson was clear:

Reality can exist without me knowing it.  I can be punished without trial.  My mistakes will ruin love.  My failures no longer hurt just me. It's nobody's fault but mine.

As fate would have it, within days of her revelation I was fired from my job, broke (she emptied the bank account), soon to be divorced and on the brink of homelessness.  I limped back home to my parents with nothing but a dog and a ton of shame.

I got back home and was confronted by something that would become just as formative to my story as the affair and divorce.  I arrived and met...nothing.  Silence.  Not judgement.  Not anger.  Silence.  It seemed that no one knew what to say or do, so they said and did nothing.  There I was, steeped in shame and embarrassment, humiliation and confusion, and there was no one to guide me.  No one helped.  No one counseled.  Just silence.  I was suffering and all those witnesses from a year prior were gone.  I was my only living witness.  My belief that pain begets love had been broken. 

I was welcomed back home with open arms and closed mouths.  Good enough to be included, not good enough to be protected.  If I am left to suffer alone then I will become damn good at it.

And I did.  The shame and guilt that I felt, that I still feel today, took on a mythic quality.  I actually became attached to it, like I replaced my wife with it.  Internally I made the connection that if no one helped me through this then I didn't deserve help.  Or maybe I didn't need it.  So I figured this was exactly where I needed to be.  Mid-20s, divorced, aimless and confused.  I bound myself to the shame and refused to let it go.  I could no longer be devoted to her, so I decided I would be devoted to myself.  But not in a way that one would hope:

I will stand guard over this pain, as a testament to what she meant to me.  The shame is what will keep me honest.  The guilt will keep me from ever hurting anyone again.  It is the last living memory of a love lost.  It is what keeps her alive. I cannot forgive myself; forgiveness betrays the very magnitude of the pain I caused.

(I'll continue in another post within this thread)

[M604V]

I moved forward as best I could, just me and the dog and a futon at my dad's house.  I got hired by our local police department and was excited to embark on a new career.  A career that values endurance, honesty, restraint, toughness, strength and devotion.  This should be a walk in the park for me.  I can work nights and holidays, withstand blizzards and heat waves, tolerate long hours and dangerous situations in my sleep. 

One incident snapped me back into reality pretty soon after I graduated the Academy.  Simply put: I had a minor encounter with a civilian who was recording police activity on his cell phone. It turned a little heated.  I smacked the mirror of his car and it broke.  I immediately gave him my name and went back to the station.  I found my supervisors and told them exactly what happened.  There was no point in lying, and I didn't want to lie.  I told them the truth, just like I should.  Plus the incident was recorded on the guy's phone, so what was the point in lying?  I was prepared to be punished for my behavior, but I was proud of my honesty.  The honesty that I hadn't lived with in my marriage. 

What a fool I was.

As it turned out I was sent home on administrative leave for six months while the bosses "sorted everything out".  I wasn't sure what needed sorting; I already admitted to everything.  It was on tape.  My statement ("I heard a car horn honking and I approached the man in the blue car...") matched the civilian's.  What was the issue?

The issue was that my honesty made me inconvenient.  Finally I had my day "in court" before Department brass, Internal Affairs, and even the Mayor (who is also the former teacher that officiated over my wedding).  The Chief said he wanted to fire me for lying in my statement.  Lying? Lying about what?

"We watched the video.  We didn't hear a car horn honking.  The man's car isn't blue, its green.  You're lying, and we're going to fire you."

Next was the Deputy Chief's turn: "Matt is not suited for police work.  He is a combat veteran, and I know that combat vets are not cut out for law enforcement.  I know that because I read it in a magazine."  They couldn't fire me, even with the most generous interpretation of their own rules.  I ended up getting a 30-day suspension.  But the message was clear:

What matters isn't the truth, but how the truth looks.  The group will sacrifice you to save itself.  Your devotion, integrity and commitment will buy you nothing.  Good faith is meaningless.

I saw this pattern repeated numerous times throughout my career.  Eventually I grew so exhausted and disillusioned by it that I quit after 17 years.

(I'm going to get some sleep and pick this up again soon.  I hope it answers some questions for people out there.  Maybe lends a little shape to their own story.  I know it helps me.  Good night.)

[M604V]

By this point in my life I was carrying a belief system that I didn't realize was a belief system.  Life had taught me that love was something that only followed suffering, but suffering didn't automatically beget love.  I was learning that truth wasn't the truth if no one believed it.  I was desperate for someone to believe my truth.  That special someone who could certify me as real.

Will truth win? Will devotion matter? Will someone see me accurately if I can hang in there long enough?

I had learned to adapt, to bend towards stability, to prove my worth through loyalty, competence and sacrifice.  Yet I was always arriving one iteration too late, misunderstood despite good faith effort.  Institutions, relationships, family, even romantic love had taught me that reality could change without warning, that today's rules weren't tomorrow's rules, and that devotion did not guarantee protection.

As a kid I attuned to others-->prevented abuse
I was attuned as a young student-->punished for poor performance
Attunement + competence-->great teammate
Attunement + competence + esprit de corps-->proud Marine
Proud Marine + dishonesty-->kicked out of my marriage
Proud Marine + shame + honesty-->punished by the police department

To this point in my life, each environment rewarded a different survival skill, and I mastered each one so completely that I carried it into the next environment after it stopped working.  And every time I thought: "The payoff is coming.  This time it will work.  I can stop running."  And it didn't.  So I adapted again. And learned to run faster. 

I learned how to belong to everyone else except myself.  I learned to quickly figure out which version of me spared punishment and earned me acceptance.  I was growing more and more convinced that I was about to get it right, and more and more vulnerable to the people who would prove me wrong.

Enter J1 (the first of two women in my life with the first initial "J").  We met on St. Patrick's Day 2009 at a local bar.  She was there with her mother, I had been invited out by a coworker.  I knew of J1 because she was a nurse at the local hospital and I'd see her from time to time during my shift.  She and I were being setup to meet by coworker/mom without us knowing it.  We hit it off and started dating.

Someone cared enough about me to coordinate this meetup.  She's the nurse I never had the nerve to approach.  Is this fated?

I soon learned that J1 had been sober for many years before we were introduced and had recently "started drinking again" (see: relapse).  Making matters even more fraught was that her own mother accompanied her to a bar on the busiest drinking day of the year.  The red flags couldn't have been more obvious.  And a new operating belief is forming:

Red flags are not warning signs.  They are invitations.  They are opportunities to finally confirm that my steadiness, endurance and devotion will earn me safety.

This is a key distinction I want to make.  Lazy analysis and pop-psych love to brand us as addicted to chaos.  I just don't believe that's true.  That's reductive and insulting and risks pathologizing something far more nuanced.  The real takeaway is this:

I had learned how to survive chaos, instability and uncertainty through loyalty, patience and emotional attunement.  Those felt like unique, undeniable skills.  So my brain did what brains do: it searched for a place where those skills mattered.  I was looking for a place where the person I had learned to become would finally work.

So when I saw a relapsed alcoholic with an unhealthy family system, beauty and charm and a big chip on her shoulder I didn't see danger at all.  I saw a job for which I was perfectly qualified:

Pain--->she needs someone soft
Unhealthy family--->she needs someone steady
Instability--->she needs someone steadfast
Childhood wounds--->she needs someone attuned
Fear--->she needs someone brave

I was not trying to save her.  I was trying to secure a home for myself.  One where my presence mattered enough that it could not be erased.  This was my chance to prove my thesis that endurance, loyalty and devotion would prevail.

J1 put that thesis to the test almost immediately.  Before long she told me that whatever "stage" we were in wasn't good enough; the relationship must move to the next stage.  So dating wasn't good enough; we must live together.  Living together isn't good enough; we had to get engaged.  And so on.

She demanded more of me.  More devotion, more proof, more security.  To me that meant I was becoming indispensable.  I was securing connection.  I didn't sense danger.  I sensed an opportunity for promotion. I felt that permanence was just around the corner.  And that meant I could finally rest.

But this promotion came with a built-in escape clause.  J1 explicitly told me that she wouldn't get seriously involved with someone who had been previously married.  And I had been.  Just like that this connection became conditional and revocable at any time.  Except conditional love didn't scare me.  Conditional love has rules and I knew how to follow rules. 

I can't outrun my past, but I can't integrate the lessons learned from it either.  My history can be recalled at any time and used to punish me.  I am now on permanent probation.  This felt like a new embodiment of an old label: "Matt gets it mostly right, but he doesn't do his homework so he is failing."

Leaving wasn't an option.  That would shatter my hard-earned belief system.  Staying was dangerous, but I knew how to manage danger.  So progressing was the only sane choice available to me.  True love is revealed on the other side of pain.  I believed my bravery would be rewarded.

One night I went out with a close friend of mine.  Nothing scandalous, just two buddies catching up over a burger and a beer.  I don't remember the details, but I remember the incessant calls and texts from J1.  She was angry, suspicious and accusatory.  She was threatening to leave me.  A new thread was starting to appear:

My sovereignty threatens the connection.  My autonomy kills the bond.  Just like with the police department: the truth will not save me.  Only compliance will.

I went back home to find that she was gone.  She was at her mother's, back in her childhood bedroom.  Drunk. 

I knew that the connection was in danger but this time I had agency.  I had time.  I could fix this before it dissolved.  It just required more of me.  More proof, more devotion.  More.  And then I can rest. 

The next day I bought an engagement ring.

I thought I had secured us more time, but life had other plans.  J1 and I were scheduled for a summer wedding, but by the spring I felt something shifting.  A self-protective instinct was kicking in.  A voice was in my head. It was my own voice.  One that I barely recognized.  It was whispering to me:

Marriage will require that you disappear.  You cannot adapt your way out of this.  There's not much left of yourself to give.  This will not absolve you of the affair.  You don't want to do this.  Stand down, Marine.

Around this same time my first wife and I reconnected.  Not physically or sexually, not romantically.  She lived a few hundred miles away.  We exchanged the occasional friendly, platonic text and that was it at first.  But before too long I realized that I was still haunted by the affair, I was drowning in shame and regret, and I was desperate for absolution.  I was just seeking it from the wrong person.  I didn't know if I missed her or just the Matt that existed before the affair.  But I knew I was trapped.

One night I went out with some close friends.  We played cards at a friend's house and I was home by midnight.  Nothing improper at all.  I came home to a familiar scene: J1 was drunk, suspicious and thirsty for a fight.  I remember screaming, crying and accusations.  I tried to ride it out.  I tried to get as small as I could.  I got in bed and pulled the blankets up.  That made it worse.  She threw things at me, hurled insults and a wedding dress.  She was threatening to call off the wedding.

My autonomy is costing me again.  Except I can't escalate commitment anymore.  I have nothing left to offer.  No gesture to appease her.  Unless we get married right then and there: I'm out of options.

In that moment my inner voice, until now merely a whisper, transformed into a scream. "SAVE YOURSELF!"  And for the first time in my life I decided to listen to it.  I told J1 "I'm leaving.  We're through.  Don't be here when I get back."  I couldn't save us anymore.  Fidelity wasn't going to save it.  Honor and devotion were out.  I couldn't adapt my way into safety.  I couldn't fix this. I learned a new theme, one that would reveal itself again over the coming years:

Some people need to see me incorrectly in order to survive.  My endurance will not be the solution.  It will become fuel.

The dog and I drove through the night to see my ex-wife.  I didn't know if I was running to something or from something.  You know what? I didn't care. I didn't care that people were going to be upset with me.  I didn't care what story J1 was going to tell.  I didn't care what it cost me.  I turned the phone off and drove as fast as I could with Rascal Flatts' "I'm Movin' On" providing the endless soundtrack.

"I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't.  Stopped to fill up on my way out of town...Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road.  I'm movin' on."

I sped south with a million questions and zero answers:

*is there a version of me that is still redeemable?
*will she receive me?
*has my suffering been worth it?
*does shame buy me anything?
*does pre-affair Matt still exist anywhere?
*have I been foolishly guarding the memory of something that is gone forever?

This was not about romance.  It wasn't sex and it wasn't even reconciliation.  This was about absolution.  It was time travel.  It was a desperate attempt to relocate an old version of myself and rescue it from extinction.  I felt like Marty McFly, feverishly trying to put the past back together and restore coherence.  To bring himself back into view. 

Incoherence will haunt me.  An unfinished story will become a ghost.  If I can fix the past, the present will stabilize.  I must go back to the last reliable witness and pray that she gives me back to me.

I finally arrived at her house (lets call her "K") after driving all night.  Not our house, but her new residence.  I climbed the stairs with my dog--our dog--and I can still picture the scene clearly.  She opened the door and immediately reacted like someone who was too surprised to trust her own vision.  Like the Publishers Clearinghouse people were there with balloons and a giant check.  She covered her face with her hands, quickly turned away, then returned her eyes to mine and threw open the door.

I found old Matt again.  My witness returned.  She gave me my story back. 

There's lots of things I remember from that weekend.  I'm not even sure that relief is the right word.  It's part of it, but there's more to it than that.  I felt powerful.  Strong.  Like I actually had a say.  I had agency.  I could change the story with just gasoline and a willingness to drive all night.  I didn't need courage.  I didn't need to be strong or brave or tough.  I just needed movement.  I just needed to give myself permission.

I remember the trinkets.  Little artifacts from our life, replanted in hers.  Mementos and relics.  I can still see them in my mind.  It was like being at my own funeral and suddenly popping out of the casket because I decided I wasn't yet ready to die.  I could see my life.  And I could feel how the memory of me lived on even without me there to see it.  She had carried parts of us into her new world and I was a part of it.  And now there I was, standing among little vestiges of the me that I once knew.  The me that existed before the night where everything went wrong.

And I remember a conversation we had.  Sitting on her front porch.  I can see it still so clearly.  I looked at her and said: "I've said it a million times and I'm going to say it one more.  I'm going to look you in the face and tell you how sorry I am.  'I'm sorry'.  And now I have to stop saying it."  She answered: "I forgave you a long time ago.  Now you have to forgive yourself."

And finally I remember taking a nap with her. Laying down in her bed to relax into rest.  I remember it was so peacefully quiet in her house.  And it was peacefully quiet in my own head.  It was raining.  I can still hear the rain hitting her metal roof.  After the nap she told me: "You know, I was laying there, behind you, with my face against your back.  And I pressed my face against your skin and breathed.  You smell like I remembered.  In that moment I was young again."  I won't ruin that memory with psychoanalysis.  I don't think it needs any.

And I realized then, and I still realize it today, that the one person in the world who was perfectly positioned to punish me didn't.  No one would have blamed her for slamming the door in my face.  For defaming me and disowning me.  Discrediting me and shaming me and sending me home with my tail tucked between my legs.  She didn't.  This may have been one of the first and only times in my life I ever felt forgiven.

For the first time in my life I felt like I was loved despite my suffering.  I was loved for being me.  I was loved simply because I existed.  I was seen and loved and I didn't have to earn it.  It had already been earned.  Could I finally stop running?

That weekend helped rearrange my nervous system in a way I wasn't aware of then but I would become painfully aware of later.  Nevertheless I returned home to a mostly empty house.  J1 had all but moved out and moved on.  K and I made no definitive plans or commitments but planned on seeing each other again soon.  I was fully prepared to leave my life behind to be closer to her. 

Not so fast, Matt.  You don't always get to choose your own life.

A few weeks later J1 ended up at my house.  It was a Sunday, and she was drunk.  A discussion ensued, it grew more heated and it turned into an emotional autopsy of our relationship.  She returned from the bathroom and confessed: "I downed an entire bottle of pills.  But don't worry.  I threw them up."  Only she hadn't thrown them up.  Before long her intoxication intensified.  Then the hallucinations started.

No. No. NO NO NO NO.  You do not get to hijack my life. You cannot do this to me.  I had just found my way back to me.  I do not want to save anyone.  I'm tired of being strong.  You cannot kill yourself on my watch.  This cannot be happening. 

I'm learning, in agonizingly slow real time, that:

Some peace is short lived.  Maybe I'm not meant for rest.  My story can be taken from me.  Violently.  Without my consent.  It's happening right before my eyes.

(I'll post this and return to it soon.  Thanks for reading.)