The *No Exit* Clause Is Not Implied

When you begin a new romantic relationship, everything in both your lives will change. Right? I’m not talking about a first date crush, or even a fling. I’m talking about a Relationship with a capital R. In my mind, it’s LTR, Long-Term Relationship.

That’s good, right?

Then there’s the relationship-building part of the journey with another human being interested in outlining a healthy relationship. Here is a screenshot I sent to my ex-partner (as of yesterday morning) to remind her of what she found attractive in me.

I’ve studied relationships for 16 years. I’ve had a few. Each one more complicated than the last, as I began to define my own rules of engagement.

Must be able to express love and sensuality.
Easily commits to an exclusive LTR, no carve-outs.
No addictions or visible trauma-display patterns.
Body and pleasure are easily joined in goal-free contact and snuggles.
No sarcasm. No jokes with pointed edges. No passive-aggressive behaviors.
No outside engagements still clouding up the water of the emerging relationship.

Let’s go back to “Treated with respect, dignity, and love.”

In my experience, “love” gets used in odd ways, bandied about as a fix for a broken relationship. Love won’t do it. Action. Changes. Effort.

Taking responsibility for your own bullshit is job one. A partner who is mired in the ghosts or entanglements of their past is NOT READY FOR A RELATIONSHIP. Stop. Do not pass go. Do not join the apps. Do not accept romantic invitations. Take a break.

Fk.

Still, it makes me sad. So close, I thought. So near and dear to my idealic dead sister. Um… Yeah, that’s gross. I’m sorry. I’ll work on that one offline and get back to you with a plan.

A slightly sarcastic joke with a side of truth. I am not obsessed with my dead favorite sister. I don’t even really think I have a type, until…

Boom.

She arrived, hugged me, invited me to continue the conversation, then said she would give me a ticket to join her for a book reading by a local legend. “Yes,” we said.

With the greatest of intentions we lauched two weeks or torrid passion, extended late-night conversations that pressed all of my alarm bells. Not enough sleep, begins to warp my sense of reality. So we warped together, into something resembling a relationship.

I was giving the signs, the words, accepting the consequences of failure. She appeared to be doing the same. It’s possible she was just scared. Didn’t want to be alone in her house anymore.

Sorting through the wreckage of a divorce is heavy for everyone involved and everyone nearby.

Rule One: don’t date anyone who is recently divorced. Give them one or two years to reorient their lives without their former life. Divorce changes everything. Yes, there’s a liberation that comes with a painful release. The desire rushes in and touch and skin and cuddles… It’s what we all want.

No man is a dessert.

No woman is an island.

In my landing party, I established some context for my behavior. I’m seeing and acknowledging your burning red flag. I am going to pause my rush to judgment on that issue for you. Let’s pay attention and see how things go.

She nodded in approval and said, “I don’t want you to leave.”

I didn’t.

We did.

We ignighted with an intensity that matched our love of mind sex, foreplay, and sensual touch and teasing. It was bliss expanded by two.

Something broke. The moment she said she wanted to me to take my guitar out of her house when I left, my security alarms began sounding loudly. The burning red flag burst back into a raging flame with sparks shooting up into the dark night sky.

Plenty of signs of damage and malfunction, but nothing is insurmountable when “both partners” are the workers. We want this. We will work for this. This is exacly what we want.

What do I want?

An empowered and enlightened famale partner. A life partner. That’s easier for me to say than wife. Fuck the patriarchy. I was raised by three strong women. One of them is still alive. She is not a good emotional support person, but she’s my blood. We share a historical experience, and she has answers to questions I have yet to formulate. We love each other. We don’t really hang out. Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I want a woman. I do not want a project. I don’t want to be a relationship coach, or more transparently, a divorce coach.

You cannot establish a secure relationship when your entire life and lifestyle is under threat. Constant threat. Anxiety. Loss. Sad dreams of the future that is no longer going happen. It’s a lot. If there are kids, the separation is more formal and structured.

If there are no kids, go ahead, torch the fucker.

Except for one thing. I’m also the fucker. It was his stuff still in the garage and around the house. The request to remove my guitar may have been a misguided arrow meant for her ex. Or, and I’m willing to accept this, just a knee-jerk reaction to the intensity of our relationship and lack of sleep.

I folded my desire in half. I began tracking my own behaviors, editing out anything related to a previous relationship or a complaint about our relationship. This can’t work out. You cannot suppress the minor issues. They become huge issues. Then they cause you to expel your new loving partner, with all of his things, back out into the street.

Okay, that was overly dramatic.

I left willingly. I couldn’t make any headway against the current of distress. I was tired from swimming upstream. The first two weeks had been complete, intoxicating, and aspirational. And… sorry to say it, in violation of my cardinal rule: no taking recently divorced women. Still married? Um, do we need to have this discussion again?

No. I think this one etched it into my newly solo star maps. Maybe France. Spain. Canada. Or just Corpus Christi, three and half hours to the beach. Alone. Yes. The rain here will be emotionally heavy. We, had talked about our love of the rain. A day inside with someone you love and cherish.

Except the “cherish” part was being taken down.

Let’s revisit the language from the book Attached.

respect, dignity, and love

Respect.

Boundaries. Rules. Established behavior modification requests.

Dignity

No idea what this means. I think it means behaving with complete integrity. Keeping your agreements. Taking responsibility for your own bullshit before you start flinging it at others.

Love

Oh, the overkill. How soon should you say “I love you in a relationship?” Days? Weeks? Years? Never?

What is love?

A responsibility to put the other’s feelings and needs one step ahead of your own. Not excluding your own desires, but augmenting them with: A WILLING PARTNER. Bingo! If you are in a relationship, you have arrived at a tipping point. Congratulations.

The bad news, the best love of your life can end in a series of disconnections. Poof. The trust flies out the window and doubt, “end of relationship” statements begin entering the conversation.

“Where did the idea of moving all of my stuff out of your house come up?”

No good answer.

“99% of our time together is blissful and clean. Then something happens.”

Glare and glazed look.

“Like this.” I gesture towards her.

“It’s not just me, you’re triggered. I don’t want to do hard things. This all feels like hard things.”

“Wait, what?”

“I just want to be happy. I don’t want to “talk about it” or “work on it.” I want what we had.”

“Had? Like a week ago?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you think that feeling, that experience went? What’s changed?”

“The way your speaking to me now. I can tell your angry.”

“I’m sad. I’m feeling more vulnerable than usual.”

“You look angry.”

“Is this what angry looks like?”

Silence.

I stand up. “I don’t know how to be, where to be, what tone to use, or if my face looks like a monster to you, now, but I am trying like hell to reach you, and you’re shut down, just like you are now. Just like you were yesterday here on the carpet, just like you’ve been when anything comes up.”

“I can’t take anymore of this stress.”

“What stress?”

“All of it. I’m overwhelmed.”

“I’m beginning to feel a bit less optimistic…” [Fuck, why did I say that?]

“You can’t even hear me.”

“I’m listening at the top of my range.”

“No, you’re mad. You’re a bit scarey right now.”

I lay down on the carpet.

“What can I possibly do? Voice? Facial expression? Words? Body language?”

“Now you’re yelling!”

“Yelling? I raised my voice…”

“I don’t ever want to be yelled at again. I can’t take it. I can’t do this.”