It's interesting the fear you experience having never known you had fear to begin with.
That's how I felt the evening I cried in my boyfriend's arms. I was crying over triumphs that should have been overcome years ago. Decades ago (that's an exaggeration). My dad cheated on my mom when I had just started high school.
It was, if not is, early on in my relationship with Adam. And a good mix of anxiety, alcohol,and insecurities that have been lost and growing for years brought our night to an early end. I made it so evident to him that there had been something wrong with me. He was meeting my friends for the first time and we were in a club filled with beautiful women, myself among them.
Since my parent's separation I had always held this idea that men liked shiny things. When something stopped being shiny to them, they moved along. It's not that they wanted to behave that way. They were only squirrels. They couldn't help having their attention grasped, almost stolen, by shiny things. They would at the moment do anything to posses this shiny thing.
Only because they were fucking squirrels.
And squirrels don't consider that maybe these shiny things are of value. They don't consider that perhaps they have feelings. They are just things.
That's the mentality I had embedded in my very human desire to be loved. When I met Adam those thoughts were hidden in my physique and I was not entirely aware of it.
Until that night we went out.
I think that fact that my dad cheated on us with someone we knew is what did it. Going out alone with Adam had never presented itself as a threat to our relationship. When that moment of him introducing himself to my roommates came, I became keenly aware of the manner, timing, and density of his interaction. I was keenly aware of the relative shine of a girl he had been seeing (me) in comparison to the fresh faces he was being introduced to (them).
And I was scared shit.
It's almost like I became an obsessive bitch, taking close note of how long his eyes lingered on my friends and how his non-verbals aligned with my assumption of his possible interest. We left the first pub to meet my more close group of friends at the club and I wouldn't let him hold my hand. He'd ask what was wrong and every time I had to force myself to utter "nothing" rather then use silence as a response (which I actually had at a few points). And I knew it must've confused him because once arrived, if a friend would look our way I'd allow him to show me affection. As soon as they looked away I'd let go of his hand or break the eye contact we were holding. When we finally caught a cab home he whispered in our silence, asking, yet again, if I were okay. He put his hand on my leg and I shook it off and looked out the window, arms crossed so he wouldn't touch me.
What he doesn't know is that my mind was racing in a sea of devastation right after I made that gesture of neglect. I snuck a look at him and his face was filed with despair, confusion, or perhaps sadness. It stung me because here was this man who had done nothing wrong since our meeting. Who had never, at any point, made me feel unwanted. Who had shown me affection and who had continuously treated me better than anyone I had ever met.
He had done nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
And I had hurt him. It was almost a sub-conscious goal, me wanting him to feel the rejection I wish I had been able to show my father if he had tried to reach out after his affair.
In that moment I saw Adam for the human he was and for the first time I considered the possible hardships and triumphs that he, himself, had faced and the fact that he still choose to treat me so well. All this occurred to me in a moment's glance and I immediately turned my head and started to cry.
The crying didn't stop. We arrived home and I was at this point, legitimately, a sea of despair. I curled up in a ball on his bed and I couldn't stop.
He couldn't touch me. Not because I didn't want him to. I wanted him to more than anything; But I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed, and ashamed, and insecure. I was that 14 year old girl realizing that I was unworthy of love. Realizing that no person, in specific, no man would ever love me because even though my father was not, and is not, a bad person, he was incapable. I felt broken beyond repair and Adam did not deserve that.
Lying there in my present form, my 14 year old self felt helpless as she realized that love was not what she had believed. My cries grew deeper as I allowed the fear and the pain of a child who was cheated on to engulf me for the first time in my life.
I kept apologizing to Adam. And of course, being the perfect guy he is, he told me I didn't have to. I knew that I needed to face these feelings for it to ever be resolved. Finally I mussled up the courage to explain through breaths why everything hurt. I told him that I was afraid and he told me that that was okay.
Later the next day we talked about the overwhelming feeling of anxiety and insecurity that I felt and would have to face coming into a serious relationship. He explained to me the reason he wasn't insecure "You're mine. I know you're mine. You've told me you're mine and I don't want anyone else."
We're going to work through this because we both believe we're worth it.
