I'm fine, really. Trust me.

Lots of things old Percy hasn't felt in a long time: sexual jealousy, territorial instincts, possessiveness, suspicion bordering on paranoia. As the partnership with A dissolved, all of the concomitant feelings were different from the above list somehow. There was no sexual jealousy at all. There was disgust and revulsion when considering the chosen new love interest of A, and a sense of total disorientation and disbelief that everything was unfolding the way it was. There was confusion and anxiety over being 100% ignored and ostracized for the entire month of February. There was self-flagellation and growing anger over being disposed of so instantly and handily. And terror over losing everything I thought was secure and reliable. 

Raw material

But the gnarly core of ownership of A was not operating. I think I had consciously chosen her as a life partner because I didn't feel very sexually jealous or possessive. At the time, I was interested in trying a polyamorous, non-monogamous partnership, and she seemed like a good choice to try that with. I am still amazed by her teleological revanchism in the couples counselor's office where she rewrote the whole story to say that she had only assented to the poly agreements because she was in love with me. My black and white judgmental side says that either a). she was lying in counseling (yet another thing we would have had in common if so) or b). she was a fuck of a lot sicker than I realized. Which is, of course, one more thing we would have had in common. 

The undeveloped consciousness seems to take a general lack of jealousy and possessiveness as a sign of a lack of love or a lack of interest. As soon as the door is opened to this realm of the interpretation of emotional signals, it seems that a cascade of all sorts of power struggles, manipulation, head games and assumptions immediately follow. I think such considerations are the toxic ground on which is built abusive relationships-- especially the kind of abusive relationships that naturally emerge out of a fundamental lack of trust. "She wasn't jealous of me so I engaged in more and more flirtation and outside friendships with women to try to test her," kind of awful stuff. I would rather die in a fire than be in such a partnership. 

So it's highly instructive that I am currently wrestling with sharp waves of feelings I have not had in regard to a woman in a long, long time. I haven't felt jealous of either friendship or sexual realities in any fierce or bloody way since. Huh. When? Good question. I have felt rejected and angry as a result, since a key feature of my codependent tangles is defining my own worth by whether or not a woman is interested in me. But watching feelings arise of actually caring about other relationships a love interest may or may not be in? Nope. 

In the early oughts I was in a friendly, mutually supportive relationship with a woman 15 years my junior. She came to visit me in the Big City where I had moved, and I was drinking heavily at the time. Apparently, I said something unforgivable in my sleep, because the next day, she had her bag packed and changed her flight and was off to the airport a few days early. She won't tell me what I said, to this day. After that, she refused to speak to me for about a year. I went back to Santa Fe around the holidays about 18 months later and ran into her at a bar there, with another man. I was furious, for no good reason at all, except that the entire thing just meant that I was a worthless sack of shit. I used to get angry at women for reminding me of what I was already certain was the case. 

But the powerful feelings around partners have, for a long time, been only a result of the delusion of losing my self worth by being rejected. They have not been feelings of jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion. In fact, in two cases, things were so bad that I was relieved when there turned out to be another man. Thank god, I thought, I'm off the hook. 

It looks like the worst two times of feeling destroyed by jealousy and betrayal would be with my first girlfriend, who broke up with me on my 17th birthday via telephone from her dorm at her R1 university down South, and the woman I had fallen in love with at college, my second year, who, when I went to Santa Fe for junior year, within a couple of weeks, had fucked two of my "friends." In both cases, their sexual adventures not only resulted in me losing my sense of manhood, self worth, sexual power and attractiveness, but also immolated me in the worst kind of sickening and obsessive jealousy. As both situations unfolded, I also was wracked with (justified, it turns out) utter lack of trust and suspicion. My instincts were screaming that I was being lied to, and I pretended everything was all right. Obviously, I really didn't want to know the truth. 

Green-eyed monster, vaguely lacrimal

So, clearly, those two relatively close together experiences of collapse of my sexual ego and disintegration of fundamental trust in the midst of intense attachment worked to set my resolve. "I am never letting anyone else in to that degree." I don't recall ever consciously deciding such a thing, as if one could even have that kind of power. But when I look back at the history, I can see very clearly that, while I cared about and was attracted to the intervening women with whom I have formed partnerships, I was always, always guarded. The innermost part of me has been cocooned-- no, that's too gentle an image. Entombed. Adamantine walls. No wonder one of the recurring sources of pain for my partners has been that they experienced me as reliably, constantly, unshakably distant and unavailable, in spite of my outwardly affectionate and attentive ways. 

I have indeed constantly been bookkeeping. Do I have a way out? Will this person allow me to "have space," by which I particularly meant not require me to show up emotionally? Will this person play the game with me where we care about each other but on fundamentally intimate levels just leave each other the fuck alone? If I assess that these are the unspoken agreements, I am (halfway) in. If she suddenly decides she's too lonely and wants to break the rules and actually get vulnerable, I am looking for the exit faster than you can say "oh hell no." 

It's a lot safer outside

So imagine my surprise that this weird sojourn in Hades involves not doing these things anymore. On all levels. 

I am not interested in hiding, protecting or guarding. 

I will not lie and create something merely safe or comfortable in order to have the illusion of solid ground under my feet. 

I am not in the mood to settle for bullshit. 

One of the CoDA promises is:

"I am capable of developing and maintaining healthy and loving relationships. The need to control and manipulate others will disappear as I learn to trust those who are trustworthy."

I appreciate the way things are framed in this promise. I am capable. There's a natural screening process for women who are not trustworthy. It's legit to not trust them. Trusting the untrustworthy is not being healthy and loving, let alone my particular dumbass trap of "forgiving" and being "spiritual," it's being codependent. Calling people on their unreliability is essential, not rude. 

The idea is that, once one works a solid program of relationship recovery, there's a natural result of basically wearing a string of garlic around one's neck, warding off the vampires. The hope is that, once the crazy is diminished, a clear-eyed assessment of whether a woman is reliable or not becomes more likely. If I am more reliable, I attract more reliable people. I can articulate what I need to feel safe enough to be intimate, and that will either scare the fuck out of someone or not.

At the moment, the jealousy, insecurity, suspicion and sense of constantly shifting ground under my feet have all re-awakened after a hiatus of pretty much 30 years. 30 years of niceness, mild attachment, ego-involvement but not investment on much of a deeper level, unilateral agreements never communicated to the other, always having an escape route, always hedging, trying to play both ends against the middle and trying to be satisfied by pallor. Over. 

Clearly, Charon requires we surrender our bullshit before we get on the boat.