|
10 Dec 2006 @ 00:44, by John Finn
Had a rather weird and interesting marriage (28 years) breakup three years ago and I wrote this during the last days. Tis different from my usual stuff! TRUE STORY....
We met under seemingly fateful and auspicious circumstances. It was love at first sight. Meeting in the early evening and living together by midnight. A mere five months later in Australia she became pregnant. The first of three. I delivered two of them. Over the next ten years we bought land and homesteaded, eventually I got sick of the isolation and wanted to join the mainstream. My partner reluctantly agreed to leave her piece of paradise. We eventually returned to the city (after a failed rural land based venture near the city and building a house at a beach resort) where I worked as a counsellor/therapist in A&D. After 21 years of the family thing (family: another story) and still with a deep abiding love for each other I left to go to the US for a working tour. I was on a road-show leading and co-leading Deep Ecology, Co gender, and emotional release workshops. I was feeling profoundly empowered and thought that I had finally found my calling. The lead up to feeling so empowered is a story on it’s own. Briefly: I had fallen in love and lust with a Californian woman. I had powerful desire to consummate this, and just incidentally my partner and I had expected this of me (acting out on sexual desire that is). By some means: I think it was through some sort of grace (or perhaps personal integrity, the grace came later) or something. In any event, I managed to navigate this whole territory with a great degree of authenticity and awareness. Honouring the feelings and doing a meaningful and profound ritual together that resulted in what I describe as an archetypal experience that left me loving all women. Somehow I had this sense that I was seeing the Goddess in them. This experience set me up to be able to do the co-gender work with a presence that I had never felt before. As well as placing me in a state of grace or so it seemed, with what I called spiritual monogamy as a feature. I was comfortable and at ease with my sexuality knowing that I had free choice and that I choose monogamy. The thought of acting out on carnal desires or notions of romantic love appeared to be a dishonouring of this newly found state. For the first time in my life I felt that I could trust myself.
My Story
We met under seemingly fateful and auspicious circumstances. It was love at first sight. Meeting in the early evening and living together by midnight. A mere five months later in Australia she became pregnant. The first of three. I delivered two of them. Over the next ten years we bought land and homesteaded, eventually I got sick of the isolation and wanted to join the mainstream. My partner reluctantly agreed to leave her piece of paradise. We eventually returned to the city (after a failed rural land based venture near the city and building a house at a beach resort) where I worked as a counsellor/therapist in A&D. After 21 years of the family thing (family: another story) and still with a deep abiding love for each other I left to go to the US for a working tour. I was on a road-show leading and co-leading Deep Ecology, Co gender, and emotional release workshops. I was feeling profoundly empowered and thought that I had finally found my calling. The lead up to feeling so empowered is a story on it’s own. Briefly: I had fallen in love and lust with a Californian woman. I had powerful desire to consummate this, and just incidentally my partner and I had expected this of me (acting out on sexual desire that is). By some means: I think it was through some sort of grace (or perhaps personal integrity, the grace came later) or something. In any event, I managed to navigate this whole territory with a great degree of authenticity and awareness. Honouring the feelings and doing a meaningful and profound ritual together that resulted in what I describe as an archetypal experience that left me loving all women. Somehow I had this sense that I was seeing the Goddess in them. This experience set me up to be able to do the co-gender work with a presence that I had never felt before. As well as placing me in a state of grace or so it seemed, with what I called spiritual monogamy as a feature. I was comfortable and at ease with my sexuality knowing that I had free choice and that I choose monogamy. The thought of acting out on carnal desires or notions of romantic love appeared to be a dishonouring of this newly found state. For the first time in my life I felt that I could trust myself.
What happened next was an event that changed everything. My partner was involved in politics and was standing as a candidate. She had become interested in a man that was part of her campaign team. She told me through email. I was magnanimous: “if you need to have some sex then go for it, however somebody in your campaign team might not be appropriate.” I subsequently gave my blessings with the campaign helper. What eventuated was a powerful sexual experience that was seemly ordained by powers greater than the two involved. My partner was transported in sex to realms that are only mentioned in the highest aspects of Tantric. I felt it in Massachusetts and knew that something very powerful had happened with my partner. I rang through and she was in the lush glow of the day after. She said that something very special and sacred had happened and that she was feeling great. I absolutely believed her, but I was stunned and slightly apprehensive, so I asked her if it was likely to happen again. She assured me that it was a one of event and that it couldn’t be repeated. She said that there were going to be benefits in our relationship. I can’t remember if we discussed the exact nature of those perceived benefits. I remember believing that to be true though. During the following few days I was experiencing a slight feeling of discomfort, but mostly thinking positively about my partners adventure. I rang three days later and found that she was in a distressed state. She requested that I return (a month earlier than planned), as she “needed me”. That was a first from her, and I had a sense that I had been waiting for that our entire time together (the; “I need you” that is)
I did debate whether I would return immediately or not, for about five minutes and then moved heaven and earth to get back as quick as I could. The first flight that I could get from LA to Auckland was three days hence. I booked it immediately and then flew across America next day. Which left me two nights in LA camped in a seedy Inglewood backpackers near LAX. I rang many times during those two days, spending ages on the phone. During one call she asked me if she could have sex with this man again. He was there asleep on the couch. She said that, “I owed it to her.” She was referring to the early years in our relationship where I had struggled with the effects of alcohol abuse and then the early recovery period. During this era she was a vital and necessary support. Her love and devotion was a pivotal factor in pulling me through. Anyway back to the story: I didn’t want her to, but couldn’t say no, I left it to her saying that “I can’t give you permission, it’s up to you, do what you think you need to.” She went there again. It was not as powerful as before but all the same very powerful. Going there again seemed to me a betrayal, not so much of me (that too though) but more so of the first experience. If it was such a high experience I doubted that going there again was what was called for nor did I think that much would be achieved by doing that. The initial experience was enough in my mind. She later said that the thought that she may not ever have that experience again was overwhelming to her and that she went there for that reason.
I have left out what happened the night before I left Massachusetts. During my months stay I had been sharing meaningful moments with a women whom had made her interest in me explicit and I had assured that I was monogamous. On that night I saw her late and from a place of pain relief asked if I could see her in her cabin. She said that she thought I would never ask. We shared a beautiful night together where I experienced the most detached, flowing connected sex that I had ever experienced. This is what I want in my relationship I thought. When I later told my partner about the encounter and she said, “Thank God for that!” Me having an event too I assumed allowed her to feel a little relief about hers. An interesting thing is that I broke my monogamy and the sense of seeing the Goddess in all women went either at that time or just after arriving back.
I got back to Auckland. She greeted me at the airport. I was very pleased to see her, she even in her stressed state looked so beautiful. I immediately noticed there was a different feeling about her than I had experienced before. Something girlish: cute and vulnerable, as well as something dangerous. She was somewhat high too. The whole drama was explained to me and I met the man involved (gave him a gift I had purchased in Fiji: a native war club) who turned out to be far from the glowing description my partner had provided. By this time I’m very worried. Over the next few days it was revealed that his life was chaotic, he had lied about a number of things, and he had grossly misrepresented the door-to-door polling results. The worrying thing was that my partner had sort of known all these things but it hadn’t mattered. Now I’m fretting. The difference in my partner was that she now had an additional persona alive and active within her whole personality one that was displaying chaotic behaviour and compulsive/illusionary actions. It was a shock to me to meet these characteristics as nothing like this had surfaced during the previous twenty-one years. She had always being solid as a rock. Midlife crisis stuff, we initially theorised.
I had returned thinking that I would bring my sense of empowerment for the work for the Earth and inspire my partner to join me in this adventure. I wrote a plan outlining periodic travel to do workshops in Australia and the US. I had the contacts and it would be amazing I assured her, she would love it and flourish with her musical talents and energy for environmental, social change and political work. However, my sense of empowerment left me early on after my return. Perhaps consequently my partner could not see herself doing what I had described.
I wanted to know every detail of my partner’s experience in order to understand what had happened. That was in hindsight probably masochistic, but definitely very painful. Even though it didn’t seem that it had anything to do with the human level performance stuff around sexuality I went through that mill. We both struggled to gain any sort of rational explanation. She was struggling with wanting to go there again and how to bring closure to seeing this man. During this time I asked her not to see him whilst I was away at a conference, she agreed. Racked with anxiety I returned two days early to find them on the verandah together. I insisted she not see him. She decided that it was all too much to handle and after months of processing the event together she put the lid on what it had opened up for her and went back to so-called normal life.
For me it was the most painful experience that I had had to date. I was confused and I had lost trust, not only with her, but also with me having a calling. We had done the inventory of unmet needs and I had come up wanting. I made efforts to be more aware of those needs in my partner. I addressed what I could and so did she, we were almost always openly communicative and loving. My anger did get the better of me on a couple of occasions though. I broke things. At some point my partner related to me that her problem had become my problem and that I was the one who’s suffering was recognised and sympathised with whilst hers was not understood nor acknowledged. My pain had taken priority over hers. Hearing this I felt that I had mismanaged her situation and not understood what it meant to her. I started to think that my pain had fucked it up for her. If I had allowed her to deal with it her self whatever that meant she might be in a different situation. From the time of the event my partner had taken up smoking cigarettes and cannabis. In a short time she dropped the cigarettes but has maintained increasing cannabis use since. Myself I again started drinking after fifteen years without using alcohol. Started up cigarettes (seven years off) and the occasional but increasing use of cannabis after twelve years not using it.
In time I was not comfortable about the lid remaining on. I maintained that what was possible for her to experience with this other man was possible for us. I wanted that. I worked on her to open up. I made it my mission; in fact it became somewhat of a periodic obsession. Eventually after several years and a second marriage (to her) primarily to strengthen our vows of monogamy, one night I had too much to drink and decided that I would engage in a sexual threesome (two men, one women). It happened and I felt terrible. My partner was devastated. The vow had been broken. I said that I had never felt that it was the right thing to do (monogamy), as we had not resolved the thing that had happed with her. I said that my acting out sexually was linked to the frustration I was feeling concerning her “condition”. This event was the trigger for many intense discussions about the meaning of my partner’s “condition” and what needed to be done about it. I was not happy that she had simply suppressed her primal response and her capacity to experience ecstasy.
Eventually due to my persuasion and her recognising some truth in my arguments she allowed herself to open up. Initially just to allow herself to feel her feelings of attraction. We had developed a whole pathology concerning my partners “condition”. At age seventeen she had a six-month episodic relationship with a man where she had experienced a sexual ease that she had never had before. She had experiences of sexual ecstasy. One day at this man’s place she saw a letter on the telephone table that she recognised came from her best female friend. She picked it up and read it. The content informed that her girlfriend had been having sex with this man and was now ridiculing my partner’s declaration of love for him. Jeering at her that she was so stupid not to know that they were fucking too. This was devastating; she put the letter down and walked out in an altered state. She had sex with several men in the next twenty-four hours. Giving herself away to the man that sunk the black ball in a pub on the way to her home. In reaction to this whole event she by some unknown means shut down her natural (primal) sexual response. What had happened some twenty-three years later was that it had opened up again and more powerfully than at age seventeen. After many discussions we came up with several theories: one was that she had to “return to the scene of the crime”. In other words go back to age seventeen and reclaim her sexual response by discovering the mechanism. She thought she could do it “out of the body” meaning without having physical sex with another person. I was unconvinced but went along with it at first. In fact I would have preferred that to be true. She had a couple of non-sexual encounters with other men where she worked hard at allowing her feelings and the sexual charge to be there. However what we discovered was that she would become delusionary and compulsive. She would project qualities that were just not embodied by these men. The men with whom the “charge” would happen with were always inappropriate. In that they were: not honest, not that caring, and often dangerous. We would discuss these events extensively and seek any new information. The fact that these men were inappropriate made us think that there was actually no threat to our relationship. During these episodes my partner would experience an internal energy that would grow in intensity as the encounter would develop. She would become increasingly compulsive and deluded as to the true nature of the event and these men. My pattern would be to initially encourage her to proceed, then react, then get back on board with the process and then depending on how long it took go somewhat crazy, but would be determined to follow through. Always we had the notion that my partners “energy” was serving a higher purpose. Holding the belief that when some sort of resolution occurred she would be healed and empowered. Thus enabling her to fulfil her “calling” or work for the earth as we often referred to it as.
I was deeply engaged in the hope that she was going to bring “the energy” into our relationship and we would have amazing cosmic sex. Later on I lost this desire only caring that my partner got what she needed. In fact I eventually started to think that the whole sexual ecstasy phenomena was an illusion, a free lunch, an endless perusal of pleasure for pleasures sake. To chase it was like pursuing the Holy Grail as if it was a real chalice. When its real power is as a metaphor. Besides, the question of the Grail was “whom does it serve?” My answer to that has always being some greater or common good. Losing sight of that was so easy when the compulsion got a grip.
During the active phases we would sit in highly charged emotional states discussing the best course of action. Myself tending more towards “acting out” and my partner to work with it without doing that. During the past seven years there has been eight men. Four she has been sexual with, one of these encounters didn’t really follow the pattern. The charge was there for a time initially but dissipated before the sex occurred. Resulting in a rather beautiful meeting of a young man and an older women. Something we have both felt good about.
The last three events (one is pending as I write) need some elaboration: It was almost three years ago. My partner meets this man through the course of her work. She feels a charge and he feels her charge. Nothing happens for some months. He comes into her office and is trying to extract some resources in a somewhat manipulate way, or is it? My partner has doubts and visits him in his residence whilst I am away. She feels a surge of energy. I describe it as such because we had come to discover that the initial charge was not necessarily a sexual response. I return home three days later and the following morning as I sit on the side of the bed pondering what I am picking up from her. I ask, something like, “have I got something to be worried about?” She relates the story of visiting this man. I get a profound sinking feeling, feel the power of the charge and say, “you love this man, he’s your lover isn’t he?” She reflects for a moment or two and then responds by saying, “yes I think you are right!” What follows is from most sane points of view crazy. We visit this man together where I proceed to give her away to him. Declaring that I see the high nature of what I am doing and trusting that I am following some higher purpose. I leave them alone together whilst I forlornly and in deep grief walk the nearby river back. Convinced that I have done the right thing. To this man’s credit he says, “Tai ho” a number of times. Although his interest is perceived. Don’t ask me how I got from a pathology of the “condition” immediately to following a higher purpose. All I can say is that I was myself in the grip of the energy that seems to have archetypal and spiritual elements. I was also convinced that if my partner was freely given and choose to return to be with me, then it would somehow complete the cycle. Once that happened our work for the earth together would be apparent. Whilst this re-occurring pattern was happening our work together couldn’t emerge I thought. The other part of this is that I wasn’t sure that we were supposed to be together and wanted that resolved. A feature of my partner’s encounters was that she would get a strong sense of sharing a higher purpose with some of these men. Social change, healing work, consciousness raising and political action were characteristic of what was she might see possible. All the issues she had been actively engaged with since early on in our relationship. Also where my mind was at in terms of what we would be doing together.
Over the next few weeks we meet as a couple and individually with this man. I mostly got back onto the therapeutic potential of an encounter with him. My partner is unsure of how to proceed. The man is not responding in ways that are patterned or predictable possibly trying to avoid but nevertheless maintaining an interest at his own pace. Meanwhile we in our whanau are struggling with my yeses than often mean no and my partner’s no’s that often mean yes. A reflection on this is that I would say yes to physical engagement thinking that was what she really wanted and needed and she would say no to that thinking that was what I wanted and needed. If this was the case then no wonder it was so fraught with confusion. It becomes a roller coaster of intense emotions and crazy thoughts. At one point (this is the point where my partner informs me that she wants to be with him rather than me) I become suicidal and have an encounter with insanity whom informs me that if I want to know what crazy really is follow him. I decide I don’t want to go. I snap out of it and subsequently have an awakening experience. I see this man clearly as a pathological liar, I see that I have been stupid to even participate in this weird and sometimes wonderful drama. I resolve to withdraw, and for an hour or two see what freedom looks like. I move into a spare bedroom. Finally the day arrives my partner decides she is going to consummate this thing. She leaves radiant and charged. I spend the night in the bedroom “tuning in” pining for my lost love and generally in a state of despair and utter confusion. I can’t help myself the next morning finds me at his door with some excuse to pass on a message to my “love”. He is in the shower; she greets me glowing. I feel so pathetic. She smiles radiantly and says everything is all right and there just remains one more thing to do.
I go off to work which just coincidentally is within a short distance of the house I have visited and fully visible. I spend the day thinking that she has almost completed her mission thus, “the just one more thing to do”. Have a good day and then return home. The one more “thing” is; that my partner and I have to sever all sexual contact in order to honour this new relationship. I’ve had shifted into the spare room to give her space but never to be intimate with her again wasn’t on the programme. I didn’t think so and she had assured me that it wasn’t either. I go crazy for a while threaten suicide and within three days my partner sees that the restriction is unworkable. She has one more encounter with this man and he is slightly hostile and bordering on abusive. She comes back crying and despairing. Days later she wakes up and decides she is a dangerous and bad person. I support her throughout saying that nobody experiments like we do and “working” with this energy in the ways that we do is bound to get us burnt. It takes months to get over and we declare that we shall never do that again. During this period I think that again I have fucked it up for her by going crazy. Again it is my fault that she did not get the benefits of the experience as I got so controlling, scared and crazy. I also know that this is not the whole truth as the man concerned did a couple of things that broke the delusion, one of which was refusing to wear a condom. The other was getting angry with her on their second engagement. However by this time I was thinking that there had to be delusion there for my partner to engage and get what the experience was designed for. Which was primarily, sexual ecstasy. (Yes, I was still there then).
At this point of the story I was still holding that she had to repeat the experience of sexual ecstasy in order reclaim her power. But was confused as to how she could do this within a delusion that seemed to compel her into handing over her power to the man involved. As she had not managed to have the reclaiming experience I was left thinking that it was only a matter of time before her energy would focus elsewhere. I even saw to whom it would go to. It did quite fleetingly, and a “safe” event occurred, and we were both left feeling good, and things settled for a time.
There is a lull and I start feeling like this stuff is over. I have been working away for just over a year seeing my partner at two to three week intervals. Things are good. She wanted space and time out from her occupation. I was pleased to be able to give her both and it felt good to me for that time. My major life issue was that I was earning good money but not seeming to get ahead. An opportunity presents where if I borrow $25,000 I can make a further $30,000 in six to seven months. The night my business partner and I are making the decision I get a phone call. It’s my partner, she informs me that she has fallen in love with someone and that this time it is the real thing, well she is almost certain it is. The way she informs me is that she says; “you know how you have said on a number of occasions how I will fall in love with somebody one day and it will be the real thing, well I think it’s happened.” I react and say that our marriage/relationship is over and I’m coming home to put the house on the market. Then confess that I’m too angry to continue and that I will phone back at a specified time when I have calmed down. I proceed to get drunk and forget to call. Two hours late in a drunken state I remember and make the call. She is about to go to him having related my earlier angry phone call to him. He was given the opportunity to be her knight in shinning armour and wanted her to come to his place. It was after midnight by then and an hour’s drive away. I asked her not to go until we have talked. She agreed. My partner was later to thank me for somehow performing the saving catch and referring to it as being saved by the Drunken Shaman. Next day I arrive home. As soon as I see her, I melt and hug her, we both cry. We settle and start talking about selling the house. She asks that I come and meet the man. I say I’ve stopped doing that and if she says that she is in love then I believe her and I did. She pleads, I say OK. I get a good bottle of wine and go visiting with my partner. On the journey reviewing my options as a single man and fully expecting to be giving my blessings to this new relationship I’m sad, but accepting. As soon as I lay eyes on the man I know it’s not true, she back into the “pattern”. Over the course of about three hours I polish off the wine (he’s in AA) and proceed to “interview” the man. He shows himself up, as having shaky values, is not authentic, and is highly deluded and inflated. She sees him through my eyes and in a short time the delusion is busted.
We leave. We’re in the car I say, “If you’re going to trade in, trade up not down”. We laugh and the event seems over bar the debrief which for once is not intense. A few weeks later I’m starting to get that uneasy feeling; that it will be happening again. Three months later he rings my partner, she gets “hooked in”. I want it over once and for all. And again think that there may be some therapeutic value (what happed to my resolve?) in her having a sexual encounter. Confident that there is no threat to our relationship as this man was clearly not able to see my partner let alone meet her as a whole person. She visits with condoms and a clear choice, the energy rests and nothing happens bar a reality check. She returns home that night, thanks me, its over. Both of us are left with a feeling that it really is all over (no more “events”) for a time that is. For me this lasts about three weeks. Then I start waiting for the next phone call. I tell myself it’s just paranoia and get on with survival. The unease though is with me almost constantly, I’m in a state of alert, sometimes blue, sometime orange, and when it’s pending, red. I’m tuning into every phone call my partner receives, getting annoyed at a number of lonely middle aged men that are attracted to my partner’s vibe. Knowing there is no threat, but thinking that there is something wrong with this picture. Understanding their attraction, but thinking that she should not give them as much time as she does. Wondering if she is getting off on this and not admitting it to herself. Uneasy about how obsessional I am.
The last and current experimentation is the most interesting. One of the things that I had said to my partner on a number of occasions was that if “the energy” happens with someone half decent then I’m a dead man. In my mind I was referring to the delusion that if it did have something genuine and authentic to get a grip on then it would be beyond me and her to bust. Read on.
My partner is hitchhiking, a man who doesn’t pick hitchhikers up stops. She gets in, feels the charge thinks she manages to contain it. No way, he picks it up. She was only going a short distance. He drops her off, with an invitation for a coffee and chat. She is non- committal, breaths a sigh of relief that she wasn’t going any further in his car. Meanwhile he gets home all charged up and manages to find out who she is from a flatmate. Half an hour after the ride the home phone rings (I’m at work) my partner answers. The Good Samaritan is ringing with the information that he is a friend from 28 years ago. Not only had he looked after my partner when she was sick once, they had been intimate once too. Freaky! My partner goes into shock. I arrive home spot a photograph from before we met in a prominent position and get that sinking feeling, look at my partner and know immediately that she’s got the “energy.” We talk and she says that nothing is going on and that she is just in a state of shock. I give her my take, which was as described above. She says, “yeah you’re right, that’s it.” In two days I’m going away for five days. I know where this energy goes and request that she does not meet with him until I return. I leave thinking, nah believing that that’s not going to happen. She will see him. Sure enough the evening of my departure in fact. I ring her two days into my time away to check her out, she doesn’t mention that they have met (doesn’t want to put a damper on my away time, fair enough) but she seems fine.
I get home and ask whether she has met with him she relates the story. Telling me that she didn’t want him to come and visit but the protocols of common civility “set her up”. I think ‘a likely story’ until the same thing happens to me. He rings, I’ve had two wines and he invites us both to dinner. I find myself accepting, obeying the same laws as my partner. I feel set up too, not by him (although the jury is still out on that one) no by the universe. We go. I find him battened down but relatively warm and friendly, quite a decent fellow really, although not easily read. Certainly not a viable relationship there though. The readings I take from his ex-girlfriend whom appears exceedingly uncomfortable. His story is out, I can read it on the girlfriends face and his sister whom he is close to. His story is that he fell in love with my partner a matter of a couple of weeks or so before we met and has carried a torch ever since. More than that, this love has sustained him throughout his adult life in times of despair. Although we don’t find out that night we get to know that he has a tattoo to that effect on his left breast. There is though a couple of anomalies in his story a keenly suspicious person such as myself can perceive. However they don’t emerge until later. I get a good buzz on from the wine (I’ve been drinking too much on too many occasions lately) and on my partner’s and my journey home this voice in my head keeps saying, “He’s the one!” I tell it to stop and resolve not to say what’s going on in my head. The voice persists for the entire journey and I blurt it out to my partner. I feel like I’m going crazy. The craziness has just begun. The next day my partner is away and I invite him round. I’m cold sober and I tell him that I shall be leaving soon to fulfil my “calling” which means I shall be leaving my partner and knowing his keen interest want him to look after her. I say that I know that he would be “knocking at the door” if he knew that I had left and trust that he is a good person. He is flabbergasted, possibly thinking that he is dreaming. The woman of his dreams handed to him on a plate. He leaves with my message, “to wait until I’ve gone”. I’m left wondering what I have done and why. There was no thought put into how I was going to actually practically do what I said. I had no money. For the past month I was only earning enough to just cover our expenses. Notwithstanding that, I wasn’t ready to leave my partner.
I sheepishly related the story to my partner on her return. In the telling wondering what insanity has gripped me. She wondered too. I couldn’t believe that I did that. What possessed me? Now, I think, frustration with not having any other meaningful purpose in my life except endeavouring to facilitate the healing of my partner. Perhaps I surmised that another “event” was imminent and I was pre-empting it and getting it out of the way. For the past seven years my major meaningful function in life had been to heal my partner. My paying occupation had become mundane and soulless. I was burnt-out, and the energy was driving me crazy already. I wanted it over before it started. Within hours I took it all back and signed up for another chapter. This time resolved to allow whatever needed to happen. A do or die situation. We were going to get to the bottom of this and get it out of our lives or bust up. For a short time there was so much promise that we would get through this and our relationship would benefit immeasurably.
Before I go on, the two anomalies with this man’s story: firstly, he had forgotten that he and my partner had made love together those many years before and secondly the tattoo had somebody else’s name above it. Perhaps nothing, but it does extract some power from his story for me.
What followed is a bit of a blur as it moved so fast and I drank so much throughout. However he didn’t heed my “wait until I’ve gone.” There was an affectionate greeting in my partners email the next day, his first ever email. She responded friendly like then the emails started to flow. It was mutually decided after brief and moving discussions with all three concerned that my partner was going to go ahead with a least one encounter. Well, we agreed on one encounter and then realized that you can’t go with it and be writing the script too. It was open to follow the energy. My partner was thinking that sexual ecstasy was going to happen and that she would be able to grok the mechanism and keep it. Strangely, I didn’t get that, but didn’t get what until the night of their first encounter. I spent a reasonably comfortable night “tuning in” and experienced quite a bit of energy in my power charka. Initially thinking that was all mine and then realising that it was what my partner was experiencing. Talk about being connected. As it turned out it seemed to be about claiming her personal power in the world. She returned the next day somewhat high but seemingly not deluded nor carrying any trace of a compulsion. We talked and thought that it was done she now had what she wanted; she had claimed her power and she was bringing that into our relationship. Our lovemaking indicated that. However the next day I observed the compulsion get a grip, she wanted to go back for more, but was willing to wait. She was maintaining that she was fully aware of the delusionary/compulsive inclinations and was dealing with them. Her feet were on the ground. I resided in hope.
Three days later I left them alone for four hours at our home, returning to find them high as kites having just cuddled and talked. No sex, just lovemaking. I was concerned and distressed to see them in such a state and set about endeavouring to bust their delusion. This became my role from hereon in. To me, it was like trying to break through the alcoholic denial. Though not exactly as there were moments of seeming reality and grounded beauty. I became afraid. The line between reality as I knew it and delusion was gone, I couldn’t tell the difference. I was concerned that the man might become dangerous if it didn’t go his way. Unfounded as it turned out, it was me who became dangerous. I was concerned that my partner would get fully gripped by the delusion and compulsion and that I would lose her forever. Not mine to lose as it turns out. Two days later they had a day and a half session at his place. I picked her up afterwards she was spaced out and confessed in a delusionary state she was aware of that. I was in a state of high anxiety. By this time the resolve was, to go through with it delusion and all. As it was thought that a certain amount of delusion had to be there to maintain the energy. Now, it was about claiming personal power and to peel off the layers of repression that prevented my partner from letting go into the primal. Keep going, regardless, we had gone too far to stop now. My hope in this phase was kindled by the power of our lovemaking and that we had started singing together. We had actually sung together before but never like the way we were now doing it. I was harmonising and we were meeting in song as we had never met before. It was in the nature of a break through.
Two days later I arranged to meet with the man. This was becoming a feature. I would meet alone with the man between my partner’s meetings with him. On this occasion we consumed fourteen bottles of beer and talked amicably and openly, although I maintained that he was impenetrable when it came to his romantic delusions of love. I rang my partner to say that I would be home an hour later than I had said. She asked me to bring him home. I suggested that it wasn’t a good idea she agreed. I brought him back against my better judgement entertaining notions of the three of us making love together. If I had any wits about me I would have known then that I was already in the twilight zone. I did get a message of sorts to that effect, but think I told myself that it was time to throw all concerns to the wind. I continued to drink. I was approaching the blackout stage of drinking. I had several tokes on a joint. What I can remember is that at one point in the evening I asked my partner whether she wanted to go with him she said yes and then I said that it would mean selling the house, was she prepared to do this? She indicated she was. I lost the plot calling her a bitch and a betrayer; the shadow took charge. Later after things had calmed down and we were in bed together I asked her if she really was choosing him over me. She said yes and we cried. I asked if she would leave a space in her life for me, as I couldn’t imagine us not making love together ever again. I can’t remember how she responded. The next thing I know I’m up smashing a lamp, a window and objects on top of the dressers. I’m out of my mind with rage. She tries to stop me, I resist for a time then I ask her to phone the police as I’m out of control and am afraid of what I might do. The police come and get me. They are friendly and sympathetic, so is the doctor who assesses me for a psych report. I’m deemed sane but told not to return by the police. (The doctor was ready to drive me home.) I do. My partner and the man are waiting, she is out of her wits afraid and he has a look of disgust on his face. He informs me that he would never do that looking towards the bedroom. I think that he is denying he has a shadow, but believe that he wouldn’t have done what I had done. I’m ashamed. I’m pathetic, rock bottom. I can’t believe what has taken place. My partner wants to leave as soon as possible, I try to talk to her, in my hapless state feel the anger rising and as she leaves I threaten suicide. The man asks me, “haven’t I stabbed her enough tonight?” I’m crushed! His anger is on the surface, I can’t blame him. They leave I’m overwhelmed with grief.
I don’t sleep, stunned by what I have done and yet finding a rational explanation. I had in no uncertain terms given her the freedom to do what she had to outside our relationship: thinking that’s where it was going anyway, she had told me that. The truth is not so black and white. The evenings destructive and abusive acts were as a result of holding onto years of frustration, over consumption of the great de-inhibitor; alcohol, using mind bending for me cannabis, reaching a rock bottom, a spell breaker, the shadow biting me in the ass, and a sub-conscious desire to end the bullshit.
So what is the truth? In this instance there are possibly several equally persuasive truths.
One truth could be that my partner and I were stupid to try to manage what we did without professional help. That includes my partner’s “condition”, my response to it and our addictions. Not to mention the abundant data supporting co-dependency issues. This was something that could have been available, as we know a number of counsellors and therapists. We maintained mostly isolation and it has possibly destroyed our relationship. Another truth could be that this story is a testament to two people’s courage and commitment to each other. Each displaying extraordinary willingness to enter into realms of human behaviour most would never go to. Whose love for each is so great that they would endure such distress in order to be together in their wholeness. Yet another could be that this saga describes two people who love each other immensely but could not find empowerment together in their relationship so went to great lengths to get free of each other without being utterly direct about their needs. One more is that something beyond the people involved intervened to make sure that this phenomena would stop and that whether we stay together is not the issue, its whether we can have empowered individual lives and what that looks like is the issue.
What will happen? Time will tell.
|
|
Category: Diary
9 comments
11 Dec 2006 @ 21:15 by : It Happened
Thanks for posting this Finny. Good on you.
14 Dec 2006 @ 06:30 by : Diary
Thanks b!
14 Dec 2006 @ 12:50 by : read this chunk of lifetime
with fascination.
In, out and through life's circumstance with courage to record - you've bravely written your tale and wanted you to know that your words are being digested.
20 Feb 2007 @ 06:26 by : You're...
a good bloke Finn...
Can't say that I'd ever be able to exhibit, let alone inhibit, that kind of control but, then, I'm not addicted to dichotomies.
And now where are you my man?
22 Jun 2007 @ 09:50 by A Yates @84.13.152.21 : Past or future
I have read with this with sadness,a relationship that has been distroyed from within, involving other people is a very risky way to explore your inner workings, and you may have made her feel unloved by useing her to explore what you saw as her issues, she became an object in your exploration of the problems you were trying to resolve, and may have been subconsiously looking for your own resolution regarding self worth towards a goal of her excepting you, if she had refused to go along would this have made you stop and except her love of you,or feel worse?
I hope it all works out for you in a way you want it too
23 Jun 2007 @ 07:49 by bagheera : Yes, where are you?
Any update ?
:-)
1 Aug 2007 @ 22:12 by : Where am I???
Well at the moment I'm in Hawaii visiting with my mother who lives in Honolulu. Its been nearly four years since I wrote the above, volumns of water under the proverbial bridge. In fact I am now based in Australia and working out of Broken Hill, which is a rough wild west mining town. The above remains mysterious to me to a large extent, the only thing I know for sure is that I shall not go there again. I'm in a relationship with an Australia woman and we see each other when we are able which has been about every six weeks in the past 18 months. No such complications exist in my current relationship as described in "my Story" which should have read "The Story". Anyway I'm boozing a little more than I should but other than that my life is in great shape. Doing some work with the local Aborignal peoples and earning a crust from carpentry. So there you are! FINNY
1 Aug 2007 @ 22:26 by : Miss You Buddy
Do stop by more often...if one of these glowing machines is available to you out there. The place ain't exactly the same as in former days, but folks like you dress it up a good deal!
1 Aug 2007 @ 23:22 by Finny @66.75.117.175 : Thanks Jazz
Long time no see, mate! Thanks for the encouragement, hope you are well. I've been in touch with Vaxen from time to time, and have very occassionally checked in. I'm on dail-up mostly in Broken Hill so access is slow and tiresome. Stay well!
|
