I’m a Liar, too

I feel like I’m a pretty decent human. I love people. I love animals. I love every piece of land I’ve encountered. I love poetry, music, children, long walks, snuggling, sex, comfy couches, books, tea, and fires in the firepit.

I love being outside and creating beautiful things, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Wilde, playing my violin, singing, and trees…Oh, I love trees.

I’ve never lied to people I love. But I’ve lied to myself. My insistence of believing my love with someday, somehow be reciprocated has, to this moment in life, always, always been a lie.

For years, I’ve been with a man…an unhappy man. For years, I told myself that it’s okay…because I knew I wasn’t the source of his unhappiness. And I also knew that I couldn’t make a man happy. I learned that hard lesson in my decades-long marriage. I did learn something.

For years, though, I found ways to distract myself from the reality that regardless of the truth, I was going to be left in the dust.

I walked into a deeply ingrained “swipe the slate clean” pattern of someone else’s. It was not about me. It was never about me.

I love deeply. I will love any human through anything…not because I am desperate to have love reciprocated, but because I was raised to love, no matter what. And I do. Change or not, I will love through it. It is more than a default, it is deep, formative programming. Unconditional love is what I need and it’s what I do.

And it works when it works, you know? My siblings all found relationships that were reciprocal and complimentary. There are 8 of them, so that is no minor miracle. I was the only one who didn’t get lucky. And don’t tell me there isn’t a great deal of luck involved. I’m old enough to know better.

It took me 2.5 decades to leave my husband. I know the patience of Job. I have lived it. I have had everything taken away, including my health and the health of my children. I have seen every possible threat. And yet…here I am…again, being discarded by another man, displaced, and left to begin again, counting every damn penny.

This one, however, I have nothing to regret, nothing to take back or apologize for. I did this one “right”.

I have been honest with him the whole time, speaking truths softly, and supporting loudly. And it has gotten me nowhere. Because he is unhappy.

And because I am located tangentially to his unhappiness, I am on the slate that is being wiped clean. I am the baby being thrown out with the bathwater. I am worthless…or not worth it, rather…to yet another man.

For a girl who has wanted literally NOTHING more than to build a life with partner, who has been and is in therapy, has gone through an entire 4-year master’s degree of self-reflection (an MDiv), and has known herself since she was 12 years old, the work has not served me.

I have been left by and have left men far better than I found them. I’ve been a good Boy Scout, I have. And I’m left scrambling, again, to survive.

I have lied to myself. I have told myself that my love — a love that has raised so many children, loved so many friends, and supported men — was enough. I have believed that lie. I have wanted my love to be enough so badly that I have forced myself to believe it, over and over and over again.

But it’s not. It’s not enough. Love — even MY love — is not enough.

So, I step back, again, and look at the big picture I tried to keep in mind these past 4 years. I didn’t go wrong anywhere except to trust that someday, somehow my love would be enough.

He would feel it — I mean REALLY FEEL IT.

And suddenly, growing together would not be scary anymore. It would feel safe enough and worth it.

He would feel like he is worth it. And maybe, just maybe, I would be worth it to someone, too.

Until then, friends, I am, again, single; no more single than I was last week, nor during my marriage, but the title is now a reality that I have no choice but to accept.