Duty, love, and attitude

[Crazy Eddie]

Another blast from the past, this time about a year or so ago.

She didn't drop a bomb on me, but she did throw a firecracker at me. She announced she was leaving and going back to our native state to move in with her parents, because she'd had enough of me and the kids. She stuck to this intention for almost two whole hours.

It was partly dumb luck, and partly the changes I'd made to that point, that led me to the correct response. Since she wasn't planning to take the kids away from me, I was a lot less distressed about her departure than I would have been otherwise... part of me was tired of being afraid of her criticism and moodiness, relieved about getting her out of my hair for a while, excited at the chance to show myself and any other interested observers how well I could hold down the fort and care for the kids without her, and intrigued by the possibility of finding and attracting someone younger, smarter, prettier, and more patient and upbeat (this was before I'd gotten a good look at just what a loving, helpful sweetheart she could be when she felt well taken care of (but not treated like a spoiled princess!)). So, by dumb luck, long before I'd heard of DB, I had a good level of detachment and showed no neediness whatsoever when I offered to help her pack and drive her to her parents' house.

Then, because I could see that she had good reasons to be frustrated with me and the kids, and I'd never win her back, attract anyone better, or be a good single dad if I didn't finish straightening myself out, and because I wanted a few moments to myself away from the drama, I left to take care of some chores that I'd been putting off for weeks and told her I'd be ready to bring her when I got back. I made sure to pick something that she hadn't mentioned at all that day... somehow, in that moment, I finally saw and calmly accepted that it would not count and only enrage her further and fuel the drama if I did anything she'd mentioned me not doing.

By the time I got back, she wanted to talk. She was staying. She saw right away why I was avoiding doing anything she talked about that day while doing other stuff, appreciated my efforts to get back on track, apologized for losing it, and assured me that she really wasn't ever going anywhere regardless of what she said. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time, but willing to try and embrace the possibility of us building something better between us than we'd ever had before.

So, from that moment on, I guess you could say that I was pre-DBing, since I was starting from a point before she had formed a solid determination to leave. I (mostly) stopped looking to her to "mother" me and started looking for ways to impress her like never before. I had lived through the threat of losing her and saw that it wasn't the end of the world, and I wasn't constantly so afraid of setting her off or upsetting her anymore... and ended up upsetting her a lot less as a consequence. As we got less afraid of upsetting each other, we opened up to each other more and drew closer together. I saw how much I loved her and how little I needed her, and as we both made changes to better ourselves, we shared our happiness with each other rather than trying to get our happiness from each other. We cheered each other on instead of trying to force each other to shape up.

We had to let go of each other to get closer together. It wasn't that long ago that I would have been completely baffled by that.