Well ... I'm back

[tpc1977]

After writing this yesterday I started to read "No More Mr. Nice Guy." Early in the book I found how closely related I was to this "Mr. Nice Guy" persona. My whole life I was told how pathetic I was as a kid. My father constantly told me how I was never going to amount to anything and how unmanly I was and how much trouble I caused. I never did anything right. I was put down, punished, and abused often. My mother was treated the same way so I always felt like I needed to protect her and love her and make her feel wanted. This raged my father even more and he would call me a momma's boy or a queer or whatever.

Growing up I was extremely guarded and never wanted to cause problems or confront anyone. Since I was always told how skinny, girly, and weak I was I never thought I could stand up for myself. Kids picked on me at school and in my neighborhood. Even my younger brother picked on me and would get his friends after me. For a good part of my childhood - before high school - that's pretty much all I could remember. Around 10th grade things changed a little and I became someone a few people could relate to. But even then I was always guarded. I did put on a good front, however, and began making more friends, having girlfriends and doing more things to socialize.

Here I am in my early 40s and I all this stuff from my childhood slowly leaks back in. My eyes opened to see how I am as a person, how I've always been really, and what molded me. I'm a protector - especially for women. If I see a woman who is struggling I want to help. My heart aches when I see a woman on the streets, or one who looks tired and abused, one who's on drugs and can't cope with reality. You know who I blame for that? The men in their lives. I see a woman driving a beat up car with a man in the passenger seat and I automatically assume he's lost his license from drinking and driving and she has to cart his sorry butt around everywhere. He's a man who isn't grown up enough to protect his woman and she's suffering because of it.

My wife sometimes sees this as a good thing. But when her mood slips, she uses it against me. For instance, she was really going through a fog the other day and the issue came up about a young girl that is friends with my youngest daughter. This little girl lives in a shoddy trailer with a mom and step-dad. The step-dad, from what I gather, doesn't work. All I want to do is grab that little girl up and bring her to our house and let her live. Twice she's had to skip field trips because she didn't have the money. Well anyway, during an argument with my wife she told me how weird I was for having these feelings for this little girl. My wife didn't really take in consideration the fact that I could relate to this girl in so many ways as a child. During our argument I didn't really say anything. I was pretty put off and angry that she would even think I had some 'weird' feelings for this little girl. A few days later I told her, pretty straight up too. I told her that when I was young my father was gone a lot on drug-fueled benders. He was hardly home and we were pretty poor. Several times I had to skip field trips and couldn't do things because we didn't have the money. We walked every where because we didn't have a car. Many times we didn't have a real meal on the table. We ate pasta with butter or biscuits and jelly - if we even had that. I told my wife that it was real pathetic to say what she said. She felt pretty bad.

Something else. There have been plenty of times where I see my wife as I see my father. Now, my wife is a real, real sweet lady. She loves helping people. She's very creative and smart and funny. But she's an addict. She can't deal with reality. When things don't go her way she turns the table and makes it the fault of someone else. Her words are extremely hurtful when she's upset and she would rather run than fight for what is right. My father was the same. He abused alcohol and drugs. His words were caustic. He made you feel less than human. He was never at fault. Never. He never apologize for anything. Still he's fueled by anger and selfishness. He's a very depressed man. He's never really stood up for his family only for himself.

Strange that after 14 years of marriage I'm really only now seeing this connection. It's like I'm living with my father but trying to protect my mother in this one woman that I married.