My ex-husband used to have this habit that drove me absolutely up a wall. Apparently regardless of his current mood or thoughts, when he was idle, he’d clench his jaw repeatedly. I always thought it made him look like a mean and arrogant jerk; anyone who happened upon him when he was doing it would slowly give him a wide berth. Sometimes, it made it almost impossible to figure out whether he actually was mad, or just doing the jaw-clenching thing.
I only bring this up because for the last few weeks, I’ve found myself doing the same thing. Whether I’m staring off into space on the train, or sitting in on a meeting, or watching a movie, I’ll suddenly realize that the headache that is slowly building up is probably due to the fact that I am gritting my teeth - for no apparent reason. I haven’t really figured out what has brought it on, but I figure it’s probably stress-related. Work has been hectic (but fulfilling), and life has been an interesting roller coaster for the last year. And lately (and I think this is the heart of the jaw-clenching problem), I found myself reflecting on my personal life a little more than I usually do, (probably because I almost never do) and doing a little mental inventory-taking. I wasn’t really thrilled with some of the things I’ve realized about myself.
I recently told someone that I had never really been in a horrible relationship. Sure I’ve had some pain and heartache, but I always hear about the horror stories of romance, usually from my friends and loved ones. It’s usually a case of their feelings being brutally disregard by some heartless, selfish lover, someone that they truly loved that just cast them away like last week’s supermarket flyer. After I’d said it, I began to really think about this. I don’t have any real battle wounds from my relationships - and I’ve had more than a few.
“How did I get so lucky?” I started to muse to myself. And then, in the meandering, aimless way that my thinking usually takes on, I began to backtrack. And what I realized is, almost every time, I didn’t get hurt because I was usually the one doing the hurting.
Now, before this sounds like some sort of oddball, self-congratulatory “I am a heartbreaker, baby” event, let me promise this: I am not trying to present myself as some woman who leaves a trail littered with the broken hearts of men behind me. I don’t think I’m “all that”, I don’t have false delusions of grandeur. I’m not beautiful, I’m not thin, I’m not blessed with great social skills. Not self-deprecation, just the truth.
But therein lies the problem. For 28 years of my life, I have had a crushingly low self-esteem. I never once thought of that problem as being one that would ever affect any other than me; sort of my own victimless crime. How could my own poor perception of myself possibly hurt anyone but me?
Unfortunately, just because I never saw myself as love-worthy didn’t mean that no one else ever did. But because I couldn’t believe it, it made hurting people a lot easier. My ex for example; at one point I walked out on him, because I truly didn’t believe it mattered to him anyway. I had no clue that I had the capacity to hurt him, because it was just inconceivable to me that he could actually care about me that much. I eventually figured out that I was wrong, and that my actions hurt him irreparably, and even though I did go back to him, eventually the marriage fell apart completely, and he walked out on me. I can’t say I blame him (although I don’t take full blame overall - it definitely took two to break the marriage apart).
There’s another thread around here called something like “Why do men keep asking me to marry them?” I used to wonder the same thing. In my life, I’ve received 7 honest proposals. 7 men thought they wanted to marry me. One was an idiot and ended up marrying someone else, but that was no crushing blow, and we were really just young and stupid. The second was completely genuine, and I even accepted, only to break up with him three months later. The third was my first husband. The fourth was the man that I left him for. The other three came after the divorce - one of whom had sworn up and down that he’d never remarry after his divorce from his first wife. Every time I accepted. I’ve been married twice. I did the breaking up every time (aside from the eventual departure of my first husband). Every single time, my reasoning was that they didn’t really love me, that eventually they would hurt me (even though I had no real history to back this paranoia up with - at least not romantically) and so I would cut the strings before they did.
There was a man that I dated in North Carolina that I was absolutely taken with, even though I knew he was going back to England in a few months. I told myself that I’d just enjoy his company, and that there was definitely nothing truly emotional there. The day he left, trying to be casual and flippant, and to pretend that I wasn’t affected by his leaving, I made an offhanded comment about the blow to my sex life. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the winded look on his face, or the way I felt when I read his goodbye letter after he left, in which he promised he’d be back, and that he thought he was falling in love with me. It honestly had never occurred to me that he might feel that way; all I knew was that I had spent every ounce of energy making sure that I hadn’t felt that way. Obviously, I never saw him again.
And now that I’ve started to accept myself, and actually appreciate many qualities about myself, I realize that it actually has been possible for others to love me; that it has been the case in the past, and that all of my attempts at emotional self-preservation have instead been more of an exercise in emotional self-insulation. I strike before I can be struck, even though I’ve never been hurt the way that I have hurt. I’ve grown accustomed to the idea of being alone, and have been quite comfortable with it. But I’m starting to figure out that it’s mainly because there’s no risk in being hurt that way.
Obviously, they’ve all moved on, and most are remarried and have kids and wonderful families, and I’m honestly happy for them all. I’m just sorry that I didn’t realize sooner that I had the ability to hurt people other than myself.
So this is my early New Year’s Resolution. Armed with a better opinion of myself in general (even if not a pride in my actions in the past) I resolve to not hurt others for the mere reason that it prevents them from being able to hurt me. I resolve not to mask abject fear with emotional complacency. I resolve to take the risk of being hurt for the reward of feeling something real - even if in the end what I really feel is pain.
And to all the men who’ve loved me before, despite every effort on my part to stop you: I’m sorry.
And to all of you… Sorry for the long winded post. Guess I just had to get it out of my head.
