ehowton ◾ New Mexico, New Beginnings

I'm back in New Mexico as I write. Which feels much more like home than anywhere I've laid my head since I was last here, six months ago. Things are very different this time around, but also comfortingly familiar. As time passes and I take in the same scene with different eyes, I become softer, more attuned, and more aware. I am, for lack of a better word, content.

Getting here there were several, "beginning of the end" moments for me, but only because most of them were lifted directly from an all too familiar playbook; the one my first wife used. I don't know how people think love works, but at least for me it's nigh impossible to both fall in love, then stop being in love on a whim, or in this case, a demand. Yet that pattern is one I've seen played out before. My ex-wife was desperate for the three of us to "marry" in a Wiccan hand fasting ceremony, and she painted such beautiful pictures of our life together. I was very much in love with our third - a prerequisite for such an arrangement I would think - in order for it to work. But when my ex changed her mind about absolutely everything, and kicked her out of the house, she was shocked I was still in love, and couldn't understand why. She thought I should be able to just, "get over it." This, while never attempting to compensate emotionally or physically from the loss. Ultimately, it destroyed the relationship we not only had together, but with one another as well.

Dorian likewise stated to our marriage counselor, "I thought he'd be over her by now." This, after painting the same beautiful pictures over and over again. She even used the same words my ex used when pressed about those pictures, "I never really meant any of it." Its difficult to say which was more painful, hearing it the first time, or knowing what it meant when I heard it the second time. I knew where this carousel led. When I finally broke down, I asked my daughter, "Is it me?" Yet, as God is my witness I won't allow that playbook to destroy this relationship. I'm much stronger now, having been forged in that same fire once before.

What is absolutely mind-boggling to me isn't so much the lack of expectation management, rather a lack of awareness that certain patterns of behavior exist when one is in love. While it is true that each relationship is unique, how we, as individuals express that love is often attached to our personality type; it wouldn't vary much from person-to-person. I could have a dozen unique relationships with different individuals, and while the love may feel different with each of them, my pattern will remain constant as an extension of myself: respect, joy, trust, gratitude, and so forth. Which is why I have difficulty comprehending when I'm later accused of, "being in love" with the object of my affection, and how I show it, as if it were to be reserved solely for them despite their desire I love them both equally.

When this conflict arises the only way to battle it is through transparency, vulnerability, reciprocity, and dialogue. In short, intimacy. With ourselves, and with one another. All parties involved. Yet twice now instead it is always accusations, betrayal, and assignment of blame without any introspection, responsibility, or accountability. Same playbook, each and every time. This is not only exhausting, we're all subject to the harmful effects of gaslighting over time. Hence the question to my daughter.