When one of my friends starts dating someone exclusively, I like to ask questions, to capture in my head not just the story of how he asked her out or how she warmed up to him, but to understand the essence, the thingness of what makes their new relationship attractive to them. What do you like about him? Why’d you say yes to a date? What about her makes you want to spend time with her?
I’m a collector of stories, of people, of ideas. I soak it up. There is so much to the world and I want to understand things.
I get some really interesting answers to these questions. And I’ve given some really interesting answers to friends asking me similar questions, too.
One thing that gets me a lot, that makes me feel a little hollow inside and worry, is when I hear a man or a woman bragging about their significant other unduly much, and when I hear him or her saying things like “s/he’s just so good to me!” whenever he or she talks about the person they’re seeing.
I promise I’m not just being curmudgeonly. I promise I’m not thinking of anyone in particular. And I promise, that what I’m about to say is not a universal thing. But I have noticed some trends, and I think it’s worth talking about it.
You see, when you’ve grown up in the conservative Christian world and hope to save your first everythings for your forever other, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to get it right the first time. To not get your heart broken. To push through hard things as a couple and make it work, dammit. I have good taste in men, really. He just needs to grow up. She’s not always like that–she’s really good to me! Just trust me. I’ve got this. We’re happy.
Once you have this pressure on yourself from yourself (maybe you got to third base with this guy and you are ashamed and just want to marry him so it can be okay and romantic, instead of Potential Mistake And Regret For Lost Purity, or maybe you’re just afraid of heartbreak and being alone), it sets you up for codependence. Or it can, if both parties are subscribers to this way of thinking.
Codependence thrives on fear of loss. This is my realization of the week. Codependence has to have the potential absence or loss of the enabler, the person you’re dependent upon for emotional stability. You don’t notice your codependency until the security blanket is threatened. Once it’s threatened, you feel manic, naked, offended, and you may become possessive and jealous, or you may become cold and aloof and self-sustained, passive-aggressively determined to make the other miss you and make them come back to you.
I’ve played both sides of this game. I’ve seen it modeled for me over and over when I was growing up, and I’ve been slowly loosening the claw-grips of these emotional habits from my head and heart. Facing my deepest fears this year, against my will, was my personal Eustace-the-dragon moment. I couldn’t pick off scabs of codependency thoroughly, because I was afraid of how much it would hurt, and when my ex ripped himself out of my life in a matter of days, I was suddenly on the other side and codependency (what little was left after trying hard to unlearn it for two years) wasn’t something I could wean myself away from anymore. I had to quit, cold turkey.
And then I realized something. Yes, I loved him. Had been in love, still am working out the fact that you never really stop loving someone even after it’s over, and it was real, for me at least. But it was also childish in a lot of ways, and there were things that I had grown accustomed to about our relationship that were cramping me in unhealthy ways. Not in the sense of “he cramps my style,” because he didn’t. But there were things about who I am that literally had no place in our relationship. Things that defined me for ages before I met him, things that were always going to be part of me, but things I neglected to “fit” him better. I don’t mean this in a cheesy-finding-myself-better-off-without-him way at all.
What I mean is: I wasn’t done growing up when I met him, and started dating him, and did the Hard Thing and Made Things Work and sacrificed a ton to be there for him and be the right sort of girl for him. Initially this was smothering, and we talked it out and I learned how to not trip-fall-run all over myself to bring all these subservient and codependent emotional habits I thought were good things that would make him feel loved and make us closer. Our relationship had some really good times, and the best of these were when I was taking care of myself, not trying too hard to be there and be everything he needed, and when we treated each other like equals, with respect. When our relationship was at it’s healthiest, there was no sense of possession/possessing/being possessed by the other. There was give and take, but we were most whole and united because we were individuals being open with each other, as individuals. Without being afraid of loss of companionship or love, or autonomy and personal voice. But the thing is, it never lasted. It wasn’t safe like that most of the time, for either of us, for lots and lots of complex reasons.
And so, I see in my own story, that sweet teenage, godly girl bragging on her first boyfriend, “he’s so good to me! he got me this thing I needed when I had a rough day!” and I hear that young Christian guy talking about how wonderful his sweetheart is in all the right ways and how he never wants to lose her, and I feel sad. What if their story is like mine? What if they’re afraid of getting it wrong, so they force the first one to be the right one? What if they settle for someone who’s good, because they don’t know what they’re missing because they’re afraid to lose what they have?
This agonizing existential question is what my ex chased after, leaving me behind. It’s a real question, and it’s worth asking. But being afraid to ask it when you’re dating, when you’re engaged, when you’re so infatuated with the newness of everything sexual–this is the coward’s path. You feel the stakes are so high because they are emotionally so high.
But the mean little secret is: breakups suck, but you’ll live and it gets better. Being afraid of these questions isn’t worth stuffing them deep down in the back of your internal emotional landscape until they become so pressingly real and you can’t ignore them anymore, but you’re married and it’s too late.
Ask the hard questions. Do the harder thing. Don’t force it to work; face your fears instead. Don’t keep dating her because she’s a godly Christian girl and fits the list. Don’t say yes to him because he’s good enough and you don’t have any other options.
Being single isn’t that awful of a fate. Being married isn’t a heaven that will erase all your tensions and private lonelinesses.
[and please, if you’re single and lonely and reading this, don’t take this too much to heart. you’re held in Love’s arms. don’t tell me i wouldn’t say this if i knew how lonely it is to be single and face those hard things on your own. i know. we’ll be okay.]
I was engaged to a wonderful godly man and I was miserable. God, in His grace, sent a Christian psychologist friend to me who saw my misery, took me to lunch, and drew me out. He patiently explained that there was SO MUCH MORE to a relationship than two committed Christians getting together. That just because he fit “the list” and really was a godly man didn’t mean that we were a good match; that if I was losing myself in the relationship (I was indeed) that it wasn’t healthy. Then he gave me permission to call it off. He challenged me to call it off.
Just a few months later I was dating Adam and he was dating his wife. Several years later we ran into each other. We had a very brief and joyful discussion about how we were both SO MUCH HAPPIER than we ever would have been together and so grateful to God for His love and care.
Calling off my engagement was probably the scariest thing I ever did. I was not terribly young. All my friends were already married. Many had children. I really thought that he might have been “my last chance” and I would live my life single. But somewhere in my mind and heart I knew that being single would be better than being miserable with the wrong man; that if God was calling me to be single He would love me and take care of me.
Excellent article, Hannah. He is healing you and will continue to do so. Thank you for sharing.
Such a great post. So much truth. Thanks for being bold with this message.
Do you know what impresses me about you, Hannah? That you are relentlessly honest with yourself and you refuse pat answers. You look at yourself, your world and you truly SEEK to understand! This is SUCH an important and necessary characteristic for healing and happiness. You inspire me every day. Much love, EE.
I want to share what it means when I remark, out of nowhere, “He’s so good to me.” I want you to see how different it can be, with men who are really men and not overgrown children who are not ready to be our partners.
When I say my Eleven is good to me, I am summing up five years of:
— waiting for me to trust him before anything physical went anywhere, and backing off when I was uneasy, because our standard is “yes means yes”.
— having my back when Claudius (uh, Dad) wasn’t being at all good to me or my mother. When my family was coming apart at the seams, Eleven was there for me AND my mother.
— watching me flounder as I tried to pick a career, sitting down with me to sort out my priorities, and celebrating every step forward — and grieving when my life set me back.
— loving me through deep depression, frantic anxiety, and fatigue and pain we couldn’t officially name until just a winter ago. Soothing my fevers. Not being angry when I bit him out of sheer terror. Researching new medications alongside me (sometimes for me when I was too scared).
— pride in seeing me seize my worth and equality, putting down all those voices that tried to deny both.
And I wish all of these things for everyone who doesn’t have them, but wants them desperately.