Fight and Flight

The truth just burns to be told. It irritates and irritates, gasping toward the light of day.

I am literally physically sickened by the truths I can not tell (or will not tell--probably due to my codependency with someone I know cannot handle the truth).

We argued again this morning. I'm able to avoid it much of the time by just leaving him alone. But he had asked for my help. I offered it, but refusing to give it in a way that would feed the codependency, I offered it on my terms. That sent him through the roof.

You see, Todd has finally decided to follow through on his desire to write. He's still deluded enough to act like if you love an idea and write the script, it will get produced and you'll make money, and everything will be Easy Street from there on out, so he's writing during the times most people would either go to work or go looking for work (instead of doing it on the side like most aspiring writers do). I do respect the fact that he's actually sitting down to do the writing, instead of just talking about it. However, he is a beginner... and although he asks for help, he's very resistant to guidance.

Given our history of not working well together, as I watched him plug away on this script, my respect for his effort was tempered by my dread of the inevitable demand for help. It's hard enough to offer feedback to a person to whom you are not intimately related, but when you live with that person and that person approaches the people he asks for help as non-persons--like some technical gadget that should work and needs to be cursed at and bopped (I'm being metaphorical, here--no need to call the police) if it doesn't respond as you want it to (even though you've never even bothered to consult the manual... you get the point)...

So, I've already made it through the first draft of the script and offered a little feedback (being very careful to qualify the fact that this "just might not be my kind of story in the first place.") I also made it clear that format and proofreading for distracting spelling and punctuation errors would be a necessity before asking anyone else to read it. (The script was a mess in this sense.) He did a few revisions on it (content-wise only), and has been prodding me to read it again over the weekend. Mind you, I had things I had planned to do which really need to be done, but I sacrificed and took the many hours required to read the script and make notes of my response. It was still a mess--very hard for someone like me who struggles with A.D.D. (and possibly O.C.D.) to handle.

As I was fighting my way through a story that wasn't holding me, and a visual mess that was distracting me, he sat around watching sports on T.V. I tried to be gracious, but the fact that he once again had time for recreation, but couldn't put forth the effort to fix some of his sloppy errors before asking me for feedback really started to bug me. I prayed for a better attitude and labored my way through the script. Working late into the night, long after he had gone to bed, I finally finished and emailed him the attachment with my comments.

In the morning, he had checked his email before I got up, but he hadn't figured out how to open the attachment (and we've been through this before). So I once again walked him through how to open an attachment, and while we were at the computer, I thought I'd show him a few formatting tips (since I had included notes on that & realized that it might be hard for him to understand what I was talking about just from the notes.)

Big mistake!

This didn't fit his template for how and when he wanted what from me (me, the machine; me, the object; me, the one to be used for his own convenience). I knew that he would be asking me to help him format this later, and that if he just understood a few simple operations he wouldn't continue to make such a colossal time-consuming mess. The problem was, in his mind fixing the mess later on would be no problem--like always, he would just dump it on me, go watch his game, and when the game was over the script would magically be beautiful. (I've come to realize that was how he was raised. His mom created this monster. I guess it's hard for a person to learn to endure the strain and toil of working toward a goal when he has people in his life willing to just do it for him.)

I refused to be the complete push-over, and his inability to put me on auto-pilot to do his work for him sent him into an angry place. By the time I left the room, I was trembling all over and sick to my stomach. He, on the other hand, was tapping on the bathroom door within a few minutes, as if no altercation had even occurred, saying he had read some of my notes and was ready to bat around story ideas--as if we were collaborating on this story I don't even like. I was still shaking, and trying to get ready for church, even though I now wouldn't have time for breakfast. (That didn't seem to bother him).

I guess he can't see any irony in the fact that in the past, even when I've been working on strict deadlines, he has put me off and put me off when I've simply asked him to read a page or two (already polished and proof-read for spelling, grammar, punctuation & format, mind you.) It's like this huge disconnect. He can't see how he uses others, and then ignores them when they aren't of use to him. (By the way, his script is 100 pages)

I hope this script does work out for him, but I also fear what it might do to us. Perhaps this will be the thing that will end up squeezing the truth out of me--whether he can handle it or not. That may be painful, but I really should welcome it nonetheless. I do long to be in that place where the truth is out and I no longer feel the need to tip-toe on eggshells.

A friend told me she kind of felt like I was using Todd, staying with him until the kids are grown, while in a sense working toward an escape plan if things don't work out. I've not given up on the relationship, however. I'm just not deluded by unfounded hope.

Todd's lack of ambition--or at least carrying through on his ambition--has been a major turn-off to me. Now he's at least making some effort (even if it is a bit misguided--and I can't hold that against him, as I have made more than my share of misguided mistakes). As I see it, the self-empowerment moves I am making are not an escape plan as much as they are a grow-up plan--a plan that both Todd and I need.

If he will come along with me, we might survive, but if he insists on remaining the child and forcing me to parent him, then the empty nest just might trigger me to fly away. I'm not denying that. I don't want Todd to stay nest-bound forever, but if he chooses to do so, I will NOT be the enabler. It's for his own good, too. Right now, he lives in shackles. How he can even breathe is beyond me. The truth will set you free.

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (part 1)

Waaaa!!! There now, I feel better.

This is one of my favorite childhood pictures. It comforts me in it's function as an excellent example of the continuity of life. In a world of unpredictability, there are somethings that don't change--like the way the men in my life ultimately make me feel. The flow of emotion from that precious little face of mine was so honest, uncensored, pure. I didn't feel the need to pretend to be happy just because mom wanted a nice picture. I was free-- free to JUST BE. Oh the lessons I could learn from that little girl!

Since I'm not really Bridget, and thusly (I should try to use that pretentious ditty in each blog) ...thusly you won't be able to track down Bridget's lovers in the real world, I'm thinking I can be honest.

Where to start?

The beginning would be too trite, so let's start a few weeks before my wedding.

I had been out of town on a business trip and I stopped by to spend some time with the man I was about to marry. Let's call him Todd. The door to Todd's apartment was wide open and music spilled out into the hallway. I let myself in, looked around for him, and finally found him painting in the stairwell leading up to the next level of the building he was managing in exchange for free rent in a total dive. "I'll be right down. Let yourself in," he said. I don't think it took more than a few minutes for us to land in bed.

Before we were done, there was a pounding on the apartment door. My betrothed ignored it and went on with the business of our reunion. The pounding and the ignoring continued until at last, the door flung open. It was the owner of the building, there to see what was so important that had caused his employee to waste his money by leaving paint in open buckets, drying in the hall. Todd was angry, and proceeded to carry on an argument with his landlord/boss, just outside the bedroom door. I sat wrapped in a sheet, waiting to retrieve my clothes from the kitchen, and imagining the cross-dressing landlord fingering my unmentionables.

That happening, by itself, should have been a "what was I thinking?" moment. (1) As an ambitious college graduate, what was I doing with a dropout in a filthy old apartment building in a scary neighborhood? (2) Knowing the value of respect for property and honorable work ethics, why was I participating with Todd in the sabotage of his position in management? (3) Why was I about to marry one man when I'd never gotten over another, simply because I was already tied to him by a sexual addiction or misconception that marriage would somehow atone for the sins I had stumbled into?

That should have been enough, but it wasn't. After the landlord had left with the threat that he would charge Todd for any more paint he had to buy to complete the job, because it was his fault if it dried out, I had to work hard to encourage Todd not to do anything he would regret in his anger. He vowed to mess the whole place up, but I reminded him that the landlord would probably sue him. Finally, he went to pack up the paint and supplies, leaving the job half done.

While he was up in the stairwell and I was in the kitchen fixing lunch, a woman just walked right in the front door without knocking. When she saw me standing in the kitchen, she stopped dead in her tracks, her face turning white. "Who are you?" she asked. Ouch. Denial is a deep river, but try as I might to pretend the tone of her voice wasn't saying what I thought it was saying, I knew.

Todd walked in. Awkward. "This is Bridget, my friend." My face must have said, "what?" because he continued, "...my fiance."

Cloe or Madge or Bambie or whatever her name was made some quick excuse, "I was just passing by to say 'hi' but I've got to run." And before I could blink she was gone.

He didn't know anyone but me in this town. He had just moved there, following me because he wanted to marry me (after I had run away, across two state lines--but that's another story.) I had only been out of town for a few days, and here was someone who seemed to be someone to him. He told me he had gone out to get a bite... I think it was happy hour at a bar or something like that. And she had started a conversation with him. He could have left it at that. I didn't ask any more. But he went on to say, "She asked me if I'd ever been in love."

Okay. She wasn't very attractive and seemed a bit awkward, so I could believe she might start out with a line like that. He could have left it at that. I didn't even think to ask him his answer... I mean, of course he had been in love... he was engaged! He could have left it like that, but he went on to say, "I told her 'no'--I don't know why I said that--wasn't thinking, I guess."

I don't really remember the rest of the conversation, if there was any more to it. I think he eventually told me that he now realized that he may have given her the wrong impression. You think, Todd? In retrospect, I think he was giving me a way out. If I had any self-respect, I would have taken it.

What was my thought process that kept me from walking out that door and never turning back? Good question. I'll try to get to that in the next installment.