This is part two of a previous post. If you haven’t already, go back and read part one.

The last post left off in December of 2023, when I went down to California to support my Dad while in the midst of a tumultuous & uncertain time with my partner. Being back in such intimate proximity with (and caretaking for) the man who had largely avoided me my entire life painfully confirmed that I had only ever learned how to do two things in relationships:

1. compulsively stay with hurt people even when they hurt me, or

2. leave before they get the chance

The long runway between my Dad’s terminal cancer diagnosis and his death catalyzed a profound personal growth journey for me.

I recorded hours of video of myself during that time, trying to memorialize the seemingly endless insights I was having about the legacy of trauma in my family, my own emotional wounds that still needed tending to, and the unspoken but deeply impactful beliefs I had absorbed during my childhood.

I had new found clarity, but my body was still very much keeping the score, and that next year - year 5 - tested every limit of my relationship with Adam.

For those of us with trauma, big or little, so much of our motivation seems to stem from pain. Avoiding pain. Overcoming pain. Eradicating pain. Safety may be unfamiliar, but friction, tension, anger, sadness, disappointment, fear, and anxiety…that is understood. It’s familiar and tangible. There is evidence to support it.

Pain then becomes it’s own sort of security, inextricably intertwined with love and others and self. It becomes almost motivational - a catalyst for change. But if pain is your primary motivation, the circumstances and relationships in your life will always be antagonistic.

Life and love become a battle field.

And it certainly was that for me.

The day after we broke up, I took the dogs out for a walk in the morning to give us both some space. I stepped out of our front gate feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Instead of the usual pangs of anxiety or sadness I felt during times of tension between us, everything felt unexpectedly…light.

When I got to the top of the hill, I could sense someone behind me and turned around. It was Adam, with a look of deep conviction on his face.

“I reject your offer for a breakup.”

I laughed out loud.

“I can’t let you just walk away. I would be an idiot if I didn’t fight for you and for us.”

I genuinely didn’t know how to respond. On one hand, hearing the person you just broke up with (but are still in love with) chase you down to proclaim that they will fight for you feels like living inside of a rom-com you hate to love. On the other hand…I was exhausted. I felt like I had just stepped out of the ring after taking the most brutal beating of my life and then there he was, beaming at me, inviting me back in.

To be fair, it’s not really that my relationship felt like a boxing match. But life did.

I thought that ending my nearly decade-long relationship with my ex, moving out of the house we had bought, and starting a relationship with my co-worker would be the hard-knocks story that defined my 30’s. It turns out it was actually all of the other things: COVID, the end of a career I had dedicated my life to, leaving a cult (I’ll save that story for another day), being on the brink of financial destitution, getting sober, and navigating my dad’s illness and death.

Year after year the punches came hard and swift. Just as I would regain my footing, BAM, another blow.

By the time I decided to end my relationship, I barely recognized myself. I was depleted and tapped out. I was licking my wounds, trying to piecemeal my life back together, and wondering if I even had the capacity or the desire to keep going.

So I did what anyone does when faced with an emotional conundrum…

>> PART 3 COMING SOON <<