Stepping Back to Move Forward

My love life, or lack thereof, has taken a back seat for the past month and has been replaced by literary and career pursuits: an online writing class offered by a NY Times bestselling memoirist, an inquiry into the possibility of substitute teaching, and developing a web-based side business with my roommate. All because my sleep apnea diagnosis and sleep mask have taken away a lot of my exhaustion (finally!).

While my love life has taken a back seat, thinking about relationships has not, as my weekly blogs have been replaced by weekly therapy sessions in which I enter the room with a veneer of poise and always wind up crying and wishing I hadn't worn mascara. Then by the time I leave I feel fabulous, like someone was able to break through my tough facade and see the true me. My therapist is skilled enough to really get at the heart of my feelings and beliefs about myself and others, to validate wrongs done to me and make me not afraid to look at them head on, and her background in English Literature allows her to use words understood only by fellow Lits, like the indefinable "personal agency."

Dating relationships haven't been discussed in my therapy sessions as it's not the focus of why I'm there. However, what I have gleaned from my sessions in regards to dating is that I am drawn to the wrong men. I've known this for quite awhile, but it is a hard habit to break, and I wonder how we successfully break it. It's pretty common knowledge that as women we are attracted to men like our fathers, in both positive and negative ways. The positive attributes that both my father and men I'm attracted to possess, is intelligence and determination. The negative aspect, however, keeps the relationship from actually forming in the first place, and that is the knowledge that I am attracted to me who don't want a relationship. My father would worship me from afar, praising me to friends, family, and pretty much anyone who would listen. But when I actually saw him he wouldn't know what to say, and we'd go days, months, and sometimes years in between visits. I've been addicted to the last season of Mad Men which finally came out on DVD, and I'm noticing incredible similarities between the patriarch, Don Draper, and my father. Don says, when speaking of the children he has with his newly ex-wife: "When I don't see them I miss them. Then when I do see them I don't know what to do or say, and I am relieved when I drop them back home. Then I miss them all over again." My father felt the exact same way.

My father isn't even why I'm in therapy. But something that my therapist has made me realize is that while I miss him, I show no emotion. I can talk about all our exceptionally good times, and all our heart-wrenchingly bad times, and I do it all with a straight face, and just a little bit of a smile. Maybe once I'm able to break through this wall of supposed strength and nonchalance, I can actually cry for my father and subsequently stop crying over romantic love interests who are just as elusive as he was. Maybe this is how we reprogram ourselves to fall for men who will make good companions when our fathers weren't very good fathers. And maybe the memoir I'm writing about the two of us will help me get there.

I'm also reading a good book on the subject: Dr. Seth's Love Prescription: Overcome Relationship Repetition Syndrome and Find the Love You Deserve.