For me, getting healthy means starting at the beginning. How did I get here. I’ve been acting-out unresolved issues from my past under the guise of living. To go forward, I have to go backward. I remembered loud arguments between my parents as far back as the sixth grade. My father cheated on my mother, and she did everything she could to keep and change him. My mom stuck by my father when he was an alcoholic, nursed him through the DTs (delirium tremors) and supported him until he embarked on a career. He was the father of her tribe, and she was not going to give him up nor give women satisfaction by divorcing him. My dad was a sober womanizer and told her it would be another woman if it weren’t that woman. How do I know: my mom told me. I can only imagine what my dad shared with my brothers, but my mom shared too much information with my sisters and me about her relationship with my dad. My mom didn’t try to explain the situation; she just shared her grievances. And my sisters and I supported her one hundred percent.
I was in the ninth grade when a classmate told me her mom saw my dad at another woman’s house almost every other night. I was shocked and embarrassed, not about the cheating, but that my gossipy classmate and her gossipy mom knew, and if they knew, everybody knew. My mom was a sleuth, always knew about cheating, and was never the last to know. I walked around school self-conscious and paranoid for a few days, thinking more classmates would tell me. I was ashamed of my dad’s cheating and my mom’s response. I dated guys in high school and college; it was fun and exciting but temporary. It was in the real world when I struggled with relationships: one false move from boyfriends, and I dumped them. I wasn’t a doormat back then because I did the stomping. They wanted to talk it out, but I refused because I didn’t know how to talk about it or listen. I didn’t want to hear it. As a result, I lacked fundamental relationship skills with the opposite sex. I could hear my mother’s mantra: men are no good; they’re all alike. And no no-good man was going to get the best of me. I was attracted to the exciting guys with a sense of humor and tried to change them. In my late 20s, I thought I was in love with a man until I sleuthed-around and discovered he was engaged to another woman.
I left my small hometown years ago and never looked back. I moved to a city several hours away from my hometown in my 30s and had a good job. The clock was ticking, and I was ready to get married and have kids. I didn’t know if I wanted kids more than a man or a man more than kids; I knew I didn’t want to be alone. My mother got sick. I travelled back and forth regularly to help care for her and met a man who came along at the right time. My mother and I were close, and I was scared. My new man supported me, we fell in love, he gave me a ring for Christmas, and I thought, finally, this is it. We got pregnant, had the baby, mom passed away, and I was devastated. I clung to my partner and was determined to keep this relationship, get married, raise our baby, and not become my parents…