I am writing this on my phone which I typically don’t like due to… all the reasons. So, any ridiculous typos or things of that nature- I will apologize in advance!
Saturday found me in a low place. My brain was fixating on my old life. And I found myself missing having Nancy around. Which immediately sets a cognitive dissonance for me. Because I know why getting out of that relationship was important and I am not second guessing that choice. But having a friend that lived in the house with me was nice… ish. I mean, I am not sugar coating things. It was not a marriage and I would not be in a better place emotionally if I hadn’t made the decision to leave. Ultimately, it is a question of “Which misery would you prefer?” And we discussed this when I was contemplating the decision. If you pick your misery, pick the one that has a potential to improve. And, all things considered, that’s what happened. And truthfully- for my limited perspective, I still think it was the right call. There was a lot of… just deep pain in that relationship and feeling lonely on a Saturday doesn’t make it go away.
Sunday morning, one of the therapy TikToks actually put it really well. They were discussing boundaries and relationships. There was a scenario where a guy said that he was exhausted by “doing all of the emotional labor in the relationship” and it resonated. Looking into it- all of the “building and maintaining emotional closeness and connection” was on me… which is what this was talking about. And the therapist asked the important, simple, and obvious question: “It sounds exhausting feeling like the entire emotional core of your relationship. It is hard work being the guardian of the relationship. What do you fear if you stop?” And… duh… we literally had that conversation in couple’s counseling. The fear is that the relationship would end. Here is where the TikTok did heavy lifting- Why do you want to be in a relationship where there is no mutuality? If you stopped doing all of that work, either your partner would put work in or the relationship would end. So why would you keep putting all of that effort into a relationship that wouldn’t keep going without it?
Then they did some work discussing how people who have been abandoned will stay in relationships that don’t work because they feel like if they don’t put in the work THEY are abandoning someone… which they don’t want to do because they know how that feels.
So… yeah. I think there is an extra bit there for me, too, but this is speculating. I was an actor for 15 years. Leaving that, I felt adrift. So, being in a relationship and eventual marriage- all the work that went into keeping the relationship going… between that and the lawyer thing, that became my identity. My identity was Husband and Lawyer. Then that changed. The husband identity went away and was replaced by the original identity of Actor.
And while I have mentioned it being humorous, I also think it is meaningful.
The first time I lived where I do now was in college. It was in this exact area where the Actor identity left. It was in this exact area where the relationship with Nancy started, leading to that identity. I have… quite literally returned to the location where I lost Actor and I have reclaimed Actor for my identity. Which… isn’t inherently a bad thing. It is good to have passion and hobbies and clearly, I love acting! That’s not a bad thing!
But… I was looking around at my life today. I think one of the under currents that is keeping me rather emotionally arrested? I live like I am still 19! That’s not a good look from a 41 year old! And… openly being disgusted with myself is… not uncommon for me but… is definitely something to work on! But it… the whole thing basically stems from a silly premise. How does one “live like an adult”? I pay bills, I do laundry, I have a dog and a house, I have a full time job. What does “living like an adult” look like? And genuinely? I think… if I can somehow tackle that? I think some other stuff might come into alignment. Or at least- hoping it would.
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