So I’ve been thinking lately about how certain people come into our lives, touch us, nurture or hurt us, then disappear again. What I have noticed is that the same type of person appears in different forms, over and over, repeating the same behavior until we face down our fears and banish them to the darkness. Growing up, I was haunted by ‘Ed.’ Only back then he was called ‘Steve.’ My Steve was a narcissistic, egomaniacal asshole that would say the most wildly inappropriate things to my friends, my mom and myself. In college he appeared again in the form of Josh; an abusive, manipulative ass who beat the crap out of my best friend weekly, sometimes in my presence. My lack of fortitude only exacerbated the situation. His demanding and abusive behavior became so strident and troubling that eventually I packed up my new family and moved out of state. That’s when Steve/Josh arrived in the form of Ed. Ed was a salesman at the dealership I had just found employment at. He was a conservative Christian who made underhanded insults and threats on a daily basis. Basically Ed was my bully. He had always been my bully and he had just changed faces over the years. My inability to stand up to him had caused a small blister to become a festering boil. So one day I stood up to him; in front of everyone. The situation that brought it about isn’t important. I simply told him, “I’m not your bitch.” He freaked and called me into the manager’s office where we had a long talk and he broke into tears. And I realized that’s all I had to do; stand up to him and face him down. Because you see, Ed was me. It was the part of me that couldn’t stand up for himself and was just a fragile, timid child. After that incident, the real Ed gave me a wide berth and eventually earned my tenuous friendship. The power shifted and I liked that I was no longer cowering. I have not been graced with ‘Ed’ since that day 12 years ago. So in unpacking that story, I started thinking about dating and the many stories and issues we are all working (or not working) with. I feel in some way we are all dealing with an archetype of some sort. A ghost from the past that we haven’t made peace with. Perhaps it’s an old flame that cheated on us or that we were unfaithful to in some way. Perhaps it’s our father or mother that we are having issues with and they are no longer available to make amends or call on the carpet for their past transgressions with us. We crave atonement. One thing I learned in all my Zen training was atonement- At One Ment. Making right by our past. I get the distinct feeling that what relationships have the potential to do beyond their companionship, joy and sex, is an opportunity to unpack those archetypes and play them out in real-time. We are inexorably drawn to that which is unfulfilled in our psyche. We long to commune with the injustice, the pain, the savagery and sadness visited upon us. Sometimes we manifest it subconsciously by seeking out partners we say we are not interested in, but for some unconscious reason, bring us to the table to commune once more with our ‘Ed.’ So I wonder aloud now, are relationships a place for this exploration through role-play, deep insight and sharing, or slow and steady growth through the years? Can a loving partner see the places within you that you fail to see and vice-versa? I am intrigued by the idea of long-term (or even short-term) relationships as means to this end. Two archetypes sitting at the table and atoning for their foolishness and fear. I have come to see God as a manifestation of the 10,000 things. You and I and everything else- shining jewels of Indra’s net. Or God blowing himself into trillions of pieces to experience the limited. So perhaps we are all looking in on each other through these foggy lenses of Karma and dusty experience, trying to see the Divine in each other. To touch that divinity and make it part of our existence. To find the relevance and completion in each other.
So I have this new theory I’ve been knocking around in my head the past week thanks to some pretty vivid experiences and connections I’ve made. I’ll preface this by saying that I have had ten years in a contemplative practice (zen) to draw from, so it’s not like this stuff is hitting me out of the blue (although it feels like it when it happens). I came out of my marriage in dubious circumstances to say the least. My choices for leaving at the time were murky at best and needed the aid of time and distance to clarify to rational, sound and reasonable decisions. At first my argument was sexual. There was little to no sexual compatibility, so that was how I manifested my independence. I assuaged my choices with a layering of sexuality. If I wasn’t having sex; great sex and loads of sex, I was failing in my endeavor of independence. I gauged my success in this endeavor by how frequently this occurred. Sex was my sword with which I cut the bonds of my old life as well as a way to ease the anxiety of the transition. And it has been a stormy transition. Finding a balance of personal, professional, parenting and dating has been a challenge. In retrospect, I would do some things differently, though the man I was 12 months ago would not have listened anyway. The 6 months ago man may have seen some reason, but he was still chemically altered. What I did learn through this: There is no need to justify decisions made in establishing independence. Independence is independence itself and requires nothing more. All the justifications in the world do not make a difference when your kids ask you why you aren’t together anymore. About a year ago I did the “One Last Time for the Kids” tour with the ex. Although it was difficult and opened up old wounds better left unpicked, I don’t regret doing it. I learned that I owed it to my boys to be happy and love fully rather than suffer through unhappiness for their perceived temporary comfort. That lie would only compound the grief in the long run. As the tide of normality returns after these two years of turmoil, I am finding what I truly treasure in my relations. There is also a path emerging toward healthy, sustained relationships based on mutual attraction, interests and values, something I always glossed over in exchange for the sexual fire. I am finding relationships I can rely on, relationships I can introduce my boys into, relationships I can feel warm and fuzzy as well as breathless about. And all I can say is, “Finally.”
So I’ve been thinking recently about John Updike’s “Rabbit Run” and what it says about reluctance and marriage. And I’ve been watching “Dexter,” Showtime’s excellent series about a forensic investigator/serial killer who targets murderers and other miscreants.
“Rabbit Run” was written in 1960, during an era of great wealth and expansion of the middle class in America. It displays rather vividly what happens to the people left behind when they are abandoned. Here’s a brief synopsis for those who have read it years ago:
Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom is 26, has a job selling a kitchen gadget named MagiPeeler, and is married to Janice, a former salesgirl at the store where he worked. They have a two-year-old son named Nelson, and live in Mount Judge, a suburb of Brewer, Pennsylvania. He believes that his marriage is a failure and that something is missing from his life: Having been a basketball star in high school, Harry finds middle-class family life unsatisfying. On the spur of the moment, he decides to leave his family and drive south in an attempt to “escape.” However, after getting lost, he returns to his home town. Not wanting to return to his family, he instead visits his old basketball coach, Marty Tothero.
That night, Harry has dinner with Tothero and two girls, one of whom, Ruth Leonard, is a part-time prostitute. Harry and Ruth begin a two-month affair, and Harry moves into her apartment. During this time, Janice moves back into her parents’ house and the local Episcopal priest, Jack Eccles, befriends Harry in a futile attempt to get him to reconcile with his wife. Nonetheless, Harry remains with Ruth until the night he learns that she had a fling with his high school nemesis, Ronnie Harrison. Enraged, Harry convinces Ruth to fellate him, an act she did not wish to perform. The same night, Harry learns that Janice has given birth, and he leaves Ruth to visit his wife at the hospital.
Reunited with Janice, Harry returns home with her and their daughter, named Rebecca June. Harry attends church one morning and, after walking the minister’s wife Lucy home, interprets an invitation from her to come in for a coffee as a sexual advance. When he refuses, she slams the door on him in apparent disgust. Harry returns to his apartment, and, happy about the birth of his daughter, tries to reconcile with Janice. He encourages her to have a whiskey, then, misreading her mood, pressures her to have sex in spite of her postnatal condition. When she refuses and accuses him of treating her like a prostitute, Harry punches her shoulder, then leaves her in an attempt to reunite with Ruth. Distraught, Janice gets drunk, and accidentally drowns Rebecca June in the bath tub.
Tothero visits Harry and suggests that the thing he is looking for probably does not exist. At Rebecca June’s funeral, Harry’s internal and external conflicts result in a sudden proclamation of his innocence in the baby’s death. He then runs from the graveyard, pursued by Jack Eccles, until he becomes lost.
After wandering in the woods, Harry returns to Ruth and learns that she is pregnant by him. Though Harry is relieved to discover she has not had an abortion, he is unwilling to divorce Janice. Harry abandons Ruth, still chasing the fleeting feeling he has attempted to grasp during the course of the novel; his fate is uncertain as the novel concludes.
In season 4 of “Dexter,” we find our hero neck-deep in marital bliss, three children, a house in the suburbs and a mortgage. Oh, and his “Dark Passenger,” Dexter’s description of his serial killing alter-ego. His nightly journeys to the proverbial woods to hunt his prey encroach ever more into his American Dream. Soon it comes to a boiling point as he is not able to keep these various roles in check. He is actively tracking and herding the Trinity Killer (a long-time serial killer who Dexter looks to for guidance and ultimately, disgust), running herd on his family on the domestic front, and work. Although we don’t see him doing all that much “work,” rather, work acts as a cover for his predations. He is always using one role to excuse another and it is a continual theme of the series whether he will be able to keep all these balls in the air. In the final 5 minutes of season 4, we find that he cannot and he is forced to face his role in the destruction of that perfect wedded bliss.
What I see of Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom and our Darkly Dreaming Dexter is the deep dissatisfaction with a one-dimensional life. That suburban bliss has a shadow that is it’s cloying nightmare of imprisonment. The monogamous shackles of being everything to another person is in itself it’s own unraveling. We either begin to step outside the monogamous relationship, or (more often the case), we stifle or sublimate our desires until they emerge again with renewed vigor in inappropriate ways.
In my own life, I chose the latter route and for ten years sat in meditation with the express purpose of pushing those desires and needs back down. When that didn’t work and the ache for connection again reared it’s head, I tried desperately to feed it in a virtual world I concocted of a job, apartment and imaginary girlfriend. What this looked like in reality was a non-present husband whose only joy in life was jerking off to internet porn in the morning and late at night before crawling into bed long after his wife had slipped off to sleep. Had it occurred to me that there was a world outside the monogamous realm, I do believe I would have gladly taken it. But, alas, there were no guides. Not until later.
But back to Dexter and Rabbit. Rabbit Run was published in 1960, about ten years after the reining-in of the male libido in our culture. Up to that time, it was tacitly acceptable for married men to have a mistress with which to explore the desires which their spouses may or may not have shared interest in. Then, rather abruptly after 1950, rather than enlarging the circle to add women to the non-monogamous fold, men were reined in and the previous rules for women now applied to men as well.
The common thread running through all these stories is the deeply-rooted need for human connection. My hardest issue with leaving a monogamous relationship was the loss of companionship and destruction of the family unit. Is there a way to have the love and support of the traditional family unit without the stifling restriction of traditional monogamy? I am trying to find out.
