I feel rudderless. Lost.
January 26, 2025
I’ve been trying to get at the bottom of why I’m so hell-bent on never getting romantically involved with anyone ever again.
I had a dream that I ended up marrying this friend of mine. He is not a close friend. Well, he is, but he isn’t. I haven’t seen him since 2020, but we’ve stayed in touch. We occasionally speak by phone and we text pretty often. He’s younger than me, and he never was, nor will he ever be, a serious romantic interest. I perhaps had a bit of a crush on him when we first met, we were in treatment together, so it was a very intimate environment with intense connections that were easy to misconstrue. But I knew at the time there was nothing more to it than infatuation. And that quickly passed once I got to know him. We are not a match. We are good friends.
Somehow, we were married. I don’t know how that happened, but that is what happened. I feel the need here to explain that I do not have these types of intentions towards him, but you know how weird dreams are and how we make odd connections that would never occur in real life. So, I’m going to stop trying to explain why it was him who I ended up being accidentally married to. It was a dream.
We had not consummated our marriage. It was some type of a marriage of convenience maybe? I do remember that he had moved out from the Midwest to live with me and he was looking for a job. Apparently, there was some kind of a visa issue, so he couldn’t work for a period of time during which I would be supporting him. Why anyone would need a visa to go from the Midwest to Oregon tells you a lot about my assessment of the state of political affairs in the United States. It could also just be because after I watched Maddow Wednesday night, I filled out a visa application online for the first time. I’m laughing. Anyway.
A few days had passed, and we still had not had sex. So, I suggested we have sex. He was amenable. We started the consummation process and I was doing something that I’m very good at, so I couldn’t see his face. By the sounds of things, he was enjoying himself. (I’m really good at blowjobs even in my dreams. Smile.) Anyway, after a few minutes, I lifted my head and looked back at him, and there was another woman lying in bed next to him and they were fondling one another. Interesting that this escaped my notice, but once again, it was a dream. Things kind of happen on the fly in your dreams.
I was furious. And devastated. And furious. I quickly righted myself and told him to pack his bags and get the fuck out of my apartment. He kept pleading with me that he didn’t have a place to go and that he didn’t have any money and I, uncharacteristically hardened, told him that wasn’t my fucking problem.
I was desperately trying to get him out of my apartment and out of my life, but he was stalling. I left in an attempt to not throttle the fuck out of the man. It crossed my mind that he might steal from me, but I really didn’t care. I haven’t much of value, which is the great benefit of being poor. I really needed to just get him out of my life.
And then I woke up.
I’d seen his text flash as a notification on my phone just before I’d fallen asleep and decided to put the phone aside until I woke up. Which is obviously why he was the poor man that played husband in my dream. In real life, he is struggling with the current state of affairs in the country just as I am, that is one of the things we have most in common. We spent some time texting and reassuring one another, half-heartedly at best. We are both terrified, which is negatively impacting every aspect of both of our lives right now. I’m about as depressed as I have ever been. Maybe if I’d actually gotten to have sex in my dream, I’d be feeling better. HA!
After all that, I got out of bed and fed the cats. And then I began to delve into the meaning of the dream.
It wasn’t the cheating that was devastating. That has happened to me before. Well, you know, without the weirdness of a dream. But my anger and despair have never been about the cheating. They have always been about one thing and only one thing: BETRAYAL.
It has always been easy for me to separate infidelity from the core act of betrayal. Maybe that’s because when I was sexually abused beginning at the age of seven, it wasn’t the sexual aspects that were so devastating, although do not get me wrong. The abuse, coupled with being emotionally hobbled by Purity Culture, destroyed my ability to experience my sexuality in a healthy way for a very long time. But it was the betrayal that cut the deepest. It was the fact that so many people in my family knew and no one thought I was worth saving.
As an adult, only one man who I was serious with ever cheated on me. That is when I realized it wasn’t the cheating, but that the cheating was evidence of his disrespect. There have been other men who I was interested in, but not seriously involved with, who have also cheated. Again, it wasn’t the cheating that cut so deep. It was the betrayal. It was easier to move on from those men, it was easier to recover because they weren’t long term relationships. But I realize that every time it happens, there’s a little bit of me that hardens and makes it more difficult to be open to the next experience. I’m not going to call it the next opportunity, because there have not been any suitable opportunities for quite some time, realistically speaking. Which may be why I have closed down even further.
So, what is it about David that makes me think David will be the last man I ever even want to give it go with? David didn’t cheat. No. But there was betrayal. I can make excuses for him, which are actually completely honest and valid, because he didn’t intend to hurt me. I do know that. But he hurt me so very very badly. I was down for the count after David. For a long time.
It’s funny we were talking the other day about how I can be such a shrew to him and I told him I still harbored residual resentment for his having strung me along so long. He knows. He’s sorry. He’s more than made up for all of it in friendship. He’s there for me when I need him most, when I’m drugged to the hilt on benzos and need a ride to the dentist (I’m terrified of the dentist) and when I make him swear he’ll take care of my cats if something happens to me. He’s there. But oh my God that man betrayed me just as bad as if he had cheated. I was crushed. I’ve gotten better, but it took a long time. And it still comes out in snarkiness, which is unfair to him. But I have gotten better. A lot better. God bless the man for being patient with me.
Not all of the men I’ve cared for have betrayed me, not by any stretch. I’ve had some really lovely relationships with men who just didn’t turn out to be compatible long-term partners. More of those in the last while and certainly all of them since Jeff. Jeff was an aberration. The biggest of backslides. But that’s a tired old subject… And Jeff didn’t betray me. It might be said I betrayed him. But that’s a tired old subject…
So. What is it about this point in my life, this place and this time, that I’m having such a horrible visceral reaction, I mean a degree of disgust that brings on nausea, literal nausea, when I think about getting involved with anyone romantically ever again? You see that wouldn’t be the worst of it, if I was only off on men and off on love. That wouldn’t be the worst of it if I thought it might just be a temporary thing, that I needed time to heal. But I don’t think that. It feels like I’ve turned a corner.
Something has shifted — permanently. And that makes me sad. And the tragedy of it all gives way to an intense panic. I just never thought I’d be one of those women, those women who swear off men and love and are just bitter and burnt out. I think that’s the part that really sickens me. I didn’t think it could happen to me. It goes against what I believe to my core, that it’s critical to always STAY OPEN to the serendipitous possibilities that life inevitably presents. But I’ve lost hold of even that belief. I don’t quite know who I am if I’m not open and hopeful. I just know I’m not me anymore. And I don’t know what to make of all of it. I’m caught off guard, confused, off balance. I just did not see this coming.
There’s nothing wrong with deciding to be single, making a deliberate choice, and being content with that choice. I commend that. If that’s what was happening inside of me, I’d be fine with it. I’d be OK. But that’s not what’s happening. There is so much anger and pain and uncertainty and fear. All this turmoil inside made worse by the uncertainty and turmoil rooted in the political state of the country. I feel overwhelmed. I feel terrified. I’m also very depressed, which colors everything bleak.
So. What’s to be done about all of this?
I don’t know yet. I just don’t know.
I feel rudderless. Lost.
