UNCONDITIONED CHAPTER 26

Enabler

After we’d been together for several months, Alex gave me a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate for my birthday to an upscale jewelry store in Boston. Even though I’d never heard of the place, I was beyond excited at having an opportunity to pick out whatever I wanted. This was my first gift certificate, the first time I’d had a significant chunk of money to spend on myself—a huge amount in 1975 when rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $150. When I saw the building on Boylston Street, the glittering baubles in the windows overwhelmed me. I never would’ve gone in there on my own, but Alex led me through the front doors like he owned the place despite his ratty jeans and wrinkled shirt. I spent a long time looking at the glass displays, mesmerized by the expense and gaudiness of most of the merchandise. Uncharacteristically, Alex hung back instead of telling me what to do. I chose a pair of heavy, silver dangling earrings made in Mexico that cost exactly the amount of my gift. The salesclerk put them in a beautiful box and substantial tote bag. When the exchange was complete, Alex approached me with that maniacal laugh, and said, “It was really wild to watch a welfare mother shop at Shreve Crump and Low.” I’d hoped Alex gave me such a special gift as an expression of love. Realizing I was the pawn in his socioeconomic experiment stung. I’d had the audacity to accept generosity when what I was given felt like derision.

By this time, I was attending college thanks to a federal program to assist single mothers get off welfare. My major was art education, and my first elective was ceramics. The physicality of kneading clay and rolling coils, along with the concentration involved in throwing pots on the wheel, soothed my jagged psyche. The class was small and mostly female. The instructor was a beautiful, breezy, blond woman I’d met at the farmhouse where Alex lived.

One afternoon in the empty studio space as I worked on a coiled pot, I sang to myself softly not realizing there was anyone else in the room.

“Is that Joni Mitchell?”

Embarrassed but pleased the song was recognizable, I smiled. Edith, another student in the class who had been around a corner working on a wheel, swayed across the room, stood right next to me, and leaned on the table beaming warmly. I’d noticed her in class because she seemed so calm and happy, engaging others easily. Her lips were red and full, her eyes huge, and her short, curly hair an unruly mess. No other woman had ever looked at me like that. It was similar in intensity to Alex’s stare when we first met, except it wasn’t predatory. As our eyes locked, she said, “I love Joni Mitchell.”

Unable to return her gaze for more than a second, I mumbled, “She’s my favorite.”

For the next several weeks we got to know the details of each other’s lives during class, neither one of us courageous enough to acknowledge the thrum of awkward tension. I started dreaming of sex with women during the night and questioning my relationship with Alex, and men in general, during the day. After being unhappily married twice by the age of twenty-one, I was clear with Alex about my aversion to monogamy, though I knew he’d be enraged if I had sex with anyone else.

I started spending more time with Edith. She rented a small cottage not far from campus and we’d go there after classes to hang out, talking for hours. In her presence I felt completely relaxed. So relaxed I confessed my attraction to women. “Me, too,” she smiled encouragingly, her lips glistening. Thus began an on-again-off-again battle with Alex. Off when I ran to Edith’s comfort. On again after he needled me into returning. Like most manipulators, his intensity swung both ways. He could turn on the charm when it served his purpose. I’d relent, ping-ponging between trying to make the relationship with him work and trying to get away. Meanwhile, Edith was understanding and patient.

I’ve just returned from an overnight visit with a mutual friend. Alex asks, “Did you sleep with him?” Because there was no guest room, we had slept in the same bed, but like a brother and sister with lots of respect for the space between us. Innocently, I answer yes. Before I’m able to finish my sentence, Alex punches me in the jaw, knocking me out. When I come to, he’s straddling my torso, both hands squeezing my neck. Jesse, at two, stands on the couch screaming hysterically, which breaks Alex’s focus on killing me. He lets go and I order him to get out as I gasp for air. Hearing the racket, the downstairs neighbors call the police and because we live in a small town, they arrive immediately and drag Alex away.

This separation from Alex lasted several months before he pursued me again. I knew it was stupid to return—his apology consisted of regret for scaring Jesse but admitted no remorse for his violence against me. While my regard for him diminished, I was afraid to be without the financial security he represented because my anxiety over becoming homeless and my insecurity over being able to provide for Jesse weighed heavier than my fear of physical abuse. For the next year or so we continued to have an on-again-off-again love affair until the feeling of humiliation became too intolerable and his attempts to control too suffocating.

The 12-Step Program advocated focusing on my own behavior, rather than being preoccupied with everyone else's. As I looked back though the Al-Anon lens at my relationship with Alex, it became obvious how blurry my boundaries had been, how willing I was to tolerate emotional and physical abuse. And, I felt ashamed of my lack of consideration for Edith.

The program suggested turning to something larger than ourselves for support when we don’t know what to do with our feelings. The concept of calling on a higher power for guidance appealed to me even though I didn’t believe in the God I’d grown up with in the Catholic Church. The importance of a belief system made sense to me now, so I decided to figure out how to cultivate one.

Insightful and compassionate, Al-Anon participants didn't tell me what I should do, but what they’d done to help themselves. It was astonishing to witness people baring their souls, weeping as they confessed their shortcomings and serene in their tales of making amends. This experience was so beyond anything I ever encountered. I never imagined anyone got that real, especially in front of a roomful of people. I envied their courage. The protective wall I’d built around myself started to erode in Al-Anon meetings, as the necessity of boundaries, a new word and concept for me, became clear. The coping mechanism of dissociation I’d perfected was a response to traumatic abuse because I had no power as a child. Boundaries would give me the agency I never had, give me permission to decide what I was willing to participate in. It was clear vulnerability was not weakness but the very thing that had made the Al-Anon members stronger, more whole. Vulnerability was not as frightening now that I understood what boundaries were. My heart cracked open a little bit.

Coming on August 6!

Chapter 27 Dodging returns to teen years where defiance, the draft, a dog, and the dream of escape converge.