Ever since the fourth grade, I’ve been best friends with two sisters, Tara and Leigh. Our friendship has survived and thrived over the past 20-plus years despite, at various points, living in different cities, living together in cramped apartments, a brief falling out between Tara and me, and disagreeing every so often about each other’s lifestyle choices. And as I’ve been dealing with this sex addiction trauma, Tara and Leigh, as well as the rest of their family, have been my biggest supporters. In fact, when I got married and my dad refused to attend my wedding, Tara and Leigh’s dad had tears of pride coursing down his cheeks as, during his toast, he read a poem he had penned about how he’s watched me grow up. This Thanksgiving, instead of spending the holiday with my family, I’m going with Leigh to their grandmother’s house for some good ol’ Southern cooking. Their family is my family.
In the meantime, my father and I are estranged. My husband and I are estranged. I talk to my brother maybe once a year. Throughout this sex addiction trauma, I’ve avoided most of my family because everything in my past suggests that I wouldn’t have their support. My family (besides my mom) doesn’t feel like my family—in fact, they feel like strangers. However, because they have the labels “father,” “husband” and “brother,” I keep hoping that one day they’ll feel like family. I keep hoping that they’ll do the things that the people who don’t have the labels but do feel like family do.
When I think about my relationships in a practical, worldly sort of way, it seems like a no-brainer that I should take as my family the folks who bring joy and ease to my life and drop the people who, no matter what their labels, bring pain and seemingly insurmountable challenges. And it seems like even though I have no control over the family I was born into, I do have control over who I’m married to because I chose him.
But when I think about my relationships in a spiritual, higher-plane sort of way, I can’t help but feel that my “father” is my father and my “husband” is my husband and my “brother” is my brother for a reason. If my Higher Power had wanted Tara and Leigh to be my sisters and their father to be my father, then I would have been born into that family. And if my Higher Power had wanted me to be married to someone who wasn’t a sex addict, I’d be married to someone healthy. And, therefore, it’s my spiritual challenge to accept the wisdom of no escape, to find some way to stay committed and to keep praying to find a way to take these relationships out of theory and put them into practice.
These two views are so incredibly black and white. I’m aware of that, but, after so many years of struggling, I still can’t seem to find the middle road, the balance between worldly pleasure and spiritual integrity, when it comes to my understanding of family.
9 comments:
you are blessed with two families. One is just not so close that they are easily share their opinion.
Enjoy your thanksgiving with your second family and know you are loved by two.
Boots--You're absolutely right. And I think that, the longer I go through this, the more I'm able to see it that way. For instance, when I used to spend Thanksgiving with other people's families, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the people I was with because I was feeling so much resentment that I couldn't be with my real family. Now, I feel grateful that I have wonderful people to spend the holiday with, blood-related or not--and I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving.
I think, though, that it gets stickier with my husband. It's totally fine to have other people fill in for my family members when they're emotionally unavailable, but totally not okay to find people to fill in in some of those husbandly ways. Which, when I think about how I'm provided with what I need when my family members aren't around, I wonder if since I'm not being given those husbandly things, if I really need them right now--from my husband or anyone else.
Margaux, this entry pretty much describes my families. Out of my blood family, I'm only close to my sister and it's my second/adopted family who have become the things I never received growing up in my blood family. These days, I can't wait to spend the holidays with my second family and I find myself going to holiday functions at my parents' home out of obligation.
One of the advantages of being a single person in your 20's is that you can create a new family for yourself. I've been fortunate enough to do this in my own life.
Legendary--Yes, that was my experience in my 20s, too--creating my own family (still is). Unfortunately, I thought it was just a 20s thing, since everyone around me seemed to have the same setup. Now that I'm a couple years into my 30s, it's not working so well for me anymore. I'm married (technically), my parents are getting older, my siblings are having babies--it feels like I need to figure out how to be a part of these people's lives before I miss out on everything.
Hey Margaux.
This was interesting to me. I know you already sorta called yourself on it, but this seems (and this could very well just be how I'm reading it) sort of black and white to me.
Could it be both? I agree that there's probably a reason your 'real' family is in your life. But could it be to have this experience now, learn boundaries and say goodbye? I'm not saying that's what I think you're supposed to do, just musing, really.
What I'm trying to say, badly, is I don't think God wants us to keep hitting our heads against brick walls. If unhealthy relationships remain forever unhealthy, I don't think it's required to stay in forever and keep hoping for that true father/daughter (or whatever relationship) thing to work out.
If your Dad punched you in the face every time he saw you, would you feel any differently? Would you create even more boundaries around that relationship, or at least give yourself a mental break about not having a relationship with him? I only ask because we talked about this in my group therapy tonight and we had a rousing discussion on physical abuse vs. emotional. It's like emotional abuse is excused and even accepted because you can't see it like you can see a black eye-- but it doesn't mean the damage isn't there. I don't want you to keep getting hurt, Margaux.
That said, I do think there's a healthy way to keep dysfunctional people in our lives-- even if the best I can do is send a Christmas card once a year, for now.
Anyway. I'm glad you have your chosen family. Maybe you weren't born into theirs so that you could see a healthy model, somehow, despite the family you had to have.
Bernadine--I keep having a lot of trouble expressing exactly what I want to say on this subject, and I think it's because it hasn't sufficiently worked itself out in my life. That's what's really tough when writing about current struggles.
In this post--and in a few others I've written recently, I'm talking much more about mental/spiritual boundaries and probing my belief system (what does marriage or divorce or family in general mean to me)than I'm talking about actually physically or verbally reengaging with the people I'm estranged from.
It's not that I'm considering loosening my boundaries so that I can keep taking my dad's shit or to go back to my husband when he's in active addiction. It's more that I'm trying to get to a place where I can really and truly detach with love. Because at this point in these estranged relationships, I have to harden my heart and get pissed off in order to set boundaries. I have to sort of disown the person in such a way that it seems their only value is what they give or don't give me, what they add to the practical aspects of my life. I also have to disown them in such a way that makes it seem so final that that person seems dead to me, which means it would be impossible for me to be open to some degree of reconciliation even if it came to me in the future. When I'm in a more spiritual mindset, however, I can feel the love and compassion and acknowledge these people's spirits, but that means I'm crap at setting boundaries--I need my defenses.
That said, I'm trying to understand how to combine the hardcore boundary setter me with the loving, compassionate me. I'm trying to work out feeling truly loving, valuing what that person means/has meant in my life, acknowledging that this person is still very much alive--and sincerely wishing that person well in that life without me--all while setting and sticking to very firm boundaries.
I read your blog from the very start to this post and it has had some amazing insight. I'm just a guy dealing with my own problems and trying to figue out how to live healthy. I want to thank you for what you have written. If it was in book form, I'd buy it. I wish you good luck on your journey and I hope you have some type of a happy ending. I'll check in from time to time to watch your progress. In this life there are so many things that are baffleing, cunning, and powerful... let's hold on just for today.
Anonymous--Thanks for reading, and please do drop in from time to time. I wish you good luck on your journey as well!
Margaux,
I get it now, sorry. I think I came back all fired up from my group and felt like 'sharing' where I was just supposed to listen.
I think it's very brave of you to post about things that aren't particularly clear to you yet, as it gives the rest of us a glimpse into your process.
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