Letting Go of Toxic Love

What makes someone remain in a relationship that isn't right for them? Perhaps there are a number of reasons but I think the strongest ones are fear and laziness. Perhaps the fear allows for the laziness—I’m not certain, but I believe I can convincingly argue that fear is to blame.

Recently I lost a loved one. She didn’t die or move or anything like that. She was married to my dad—she was my mom. Well my step-mom anyway. And while she never fit the role I’ve often talked about the ideal mother fulfilling, she had some good qualities and we had 15 or 16 years together. Being close, hugging, talking, loving, and she became a grandmother to my son. Not a step-grandmother, a grandmother. (Grandparents need not be quantified as “step” anything.) While this isn’t the topic, I think it is worth adding that she had a son. And he was special in both senses of the word. He was a new brother for me at the age of 15, who had William’s syndrome, and who very likely taught me more than I could have ever taught him. Anyway, so I lost two loved ones.

So am I sad? Of course.  And no. As with so very many things in my dysfunctional world, I am at odds with myself and my feelings. My step-mom was toxic. She hurt my dad, and my family, and me. Many times. For many years. But she loved my son. And I still believe to the extent that she could, that she loved me. That makes it hard to let go. Even though I know that letting go is the right thing to do. History matters, right? How we once felt and thought matters right? Or is it our own fear about what might lie in the future that forces those things to have the gravity that we perceive that they do?

Early on, I’d say around 6 years in to my “parents” marriage, I would have been around 22 years old ish. We were on our way camping without my step-mom as she had thrown one of her famous “I’m staying home” fits over some inconsequential defiance committed by my pop. And nobody has ever let me forget the ensuing conversation. Dad said something to the effect of, “I just don’t know what to do. Maybe I should just get out.” And I, wanting to hurt my dad as his previous divorces, not to mention the 3 of my mother’s, had hurt me, said, “You said, ‘I do. Don’t you think one of them should count?”  For the last 10 years, I’ve been reminded of that statement, even blamed, by multiple parties for the recent, long overdue situation.  Aside from the sharp words spoken in my youth, what made my dad hold on for 10 more years? Fear.

What if we never find love again? What if we live our lives alone? What if our children hate us for our failures? What if we find everything we ever wanted…and it changes everything we know to be true? I’m not sure what my father convinced himself of, but I imagine these to be the questions. I’m certainly empathetic to this line of thought. He comes from a tiny town. I told him once in order to change his life he would need to reinvent himself completely. Move. Perhaps a new career... abandon the town he’d spent his entire life in and everything he knew.  I could sense the hesitation at the very thought. And I don’t blame him. But if we only have this singular life, what could we possibly use to justify wasting any one moment of it? Fear is the only emotion strong enough. That is my theory.

I miss you crazy step-mom. But I can’t waste my precious minutes in this place any longer. I’m scared about what might happen. Even as an adult I don’t want to deal with another momma or my dad’s dating life, or advising him on where to live an how to carry on. I get SOOOOO tired of being the one who supports everyone else. Just one time, I want to lean on someone instead of a line of people waiting to lean on me.  But, in the end I’m happy that my dad was finally able to let go of his toxic love. Because everyone deserves the kind of love that helps you flourish and thrive. Everyone deserves a conversation that touches your soul, a touch that makes you tingle, and nobody deserves to be infected by toxicity constantly. I guess there is a balance that fear can tip toward the toxic…but if you accept that you deserve to feel loved and be happy. You have to let go. Be rid of the toxic, morn, and move toward a brighter future. Accept that positive things can be yours. If you are brave, and if you want it badly enough, I’m thinking it might all work out for the best.

Martyrdom and Motherhood

It took having a child for me to realize that mothers are also people. Sounds silly, I know. My own relationship with my mother was hampered by my expectations of what and who a mother is, or at least what I perceived they should be. I’m not sure what led me to have those expectations. I’m not even sure I exactly remember what they were. I’m certainly not the only one. I think children, despite their age, always have a hard time seeing their mothers, and possibly their fathers, (but mostly their mothers,) as thinking, feeling independent beings with needs and desires outside of their commitment to serve the children. Despite what children, young and old think, your mommas are in fact, people just like you.

But some of us, me specifically since I’m writing this, have a hard time accepting that once we become mothers, we still get to be people. Maybe it is by design that we put aside our selfish ambitions in order to produce the fittest offspring for insurance that the species might flourish. And it does indeed seem, at least to me, that those mothers, who are the best mothers, are the martyrs. They are the women who put their children first and foremost at almost every single moment of every single day.  And if they don’t, the cruelest punishment known to mothers awaits for those women who buy into the martyrdom and motherhood but fail to abide by it, mommy guilt. For me, mommy guilt started before I left the hospital when my little was born.

One of the strangest feelings I had after giving birth was the confusion that came from the lack of immediate transformation into super mom. I was still me, with the same flaws, the same habits, the same issues, the same wants. It sounds stupid to have expected, well something, anything different from what I was before. It was, of course, stupid, but I did end up with the mommy guilt. Now 2 ½ years later, I still have it. If I go somewhere without my kiddo on the weekend, I count the hours I’m gone and feel just rotten about it. After all, since I’m working we don’t get to spend much time together during the week. So I owe it to him to spend every waking moment I’m not at work nurturing him and giving him the absolute best of me, right? And it isn’t enough to just be with him, we have to be doing an enriching activity that will make him more able to achieve his potential. Once he has been bathed, read to, sung to, and snuggled sufficiently for optimal future success, I have a few hours to clean the house, exercise, hang with the hubby and pups, and have personal time. As you can imagine, I’m lucky if even one of those things gets done. Then there is more guilt that my kid is growing up in a messy house or some other personal failure I deal with. While my son seems happy, well adjusted and all around awesome, I’m left wondering if I’m doing things the right way. And many times I feel very lost and I simply can’t figure out what my problem is so I conclude that I’m failing everywhere.

Do martyrdom and motherhood necessarily go hand in hand? Is sacrificing a great deal critical to successfully rearing a great kid or great kids? I recently watching a program which stated that human babies are by far the most helpless of all infant species and that evolution made up for that by providing both a mother and a father that help raise the human infant (in many cases). Well, I don’t see dads killing themselves mentally every time they ignore the kiddo to watch football. But it is obvious that their presence still contributes significantly to their kid’s successes. Of course, not all moms get mommy guilt or feel they must spend every waking moment surrendering what makes them who they are in order to make their children the best kids possible. But it seems like lots of really good moms do. I want more than anything to be a really good mom. I still want to feel okay about going shopping, or reading, or writing, or working. I still want to be able to consider my own happiness and feel okay to pursue something that might help with that sense of being lost without feeling like the slightest little change will ruin my son. For now, I’ll keep playing the martyr because it is my role, I’m used to it, and the bottom line is that our kids are always worth every benefit we can give to them.