The Adventure, Part 5: Shaking off the ghosts

My biggest fear in this new relationship was repeating all the mistakes I’d made in the previous ones. Actually, scratch that--repeating any of my old mistakes. Looming large was the specter of the last time I’d moved for love--when I moved to a place I would never have considered moving to otherwise, and let my own life and my own identity get completely wrapped up in the guy in question, so that when he dumped me, I had less than nothing. Not even my own sense of self-worth to fall back on. Ever since, I’d been beating myself up for not being able to see it coming. Some part of my brain was convinced that if things were so wrong he felt compelled to break up with me, there must have been some kind of warning. He couldn’t have just left me with no warning and no clear explanation, could he? I had to have done something wrong, missed some sign. That guy refused to talk about why he broke up with me, to this day I’ve never gotten a clear explanation--so if I didn’t know what went wrong with that one, what would prevent it from happening again? No, screw that, I thought. I want to be in love again, but I also want to be in love without being sickeningly aware that it could end at any second, that the rug could be pulled out from under me just as suddenly. Better to protect myself. Sometimes there are no answers, and that’s the hardest lesson of all.

Also looming large was the specter of a previous ex, a computer geek, just like John. That relationship had ended in the way that so many do--a slow, gradual decline that was nearly imperceptible until we’d both hit rock bottom. Once I saw the light, though, I saw there was nothing to be salvaged. I suspect now that Chris was both manic-depressive and borderline OCD. For the three years we lived together, every part of my life that intersected with his was heavily controlled. Pictures had to be hung and placed this way, socks had to be folded this way, he would only eat these foods, prepared in this way, and he categorically refused to try new things. His food couldn’t touch or he wouldn’t eat it, he owned multiple sets of the exact same outfit (fifty pairs of the same socks in the same color, ten pairs of the same jeans in the same color, thirty of the same plain white t-shirt, thirty of the same white briefs--and nothing else), and he had the most bizarre logic for the storage of duplicates that I’ve ever encountered. He once threw away a full bottle of laundry detergent because, and I quote, “we have another one exactly like it,” but he couldn’t function without four reserve bottles of a specific kind of organic ketchup in the cupboard. And no, we did not use that much ketchup. I was expected to do all the laundry, the cleaning, the grocery shopping, and the cooking, but I had to do it his way, to his specifications. I had no input in decorating or décor--the apartment had to be laid out in his way, with his furniture, in pre-approved colors and styles. Household expenses were to be split exactly fifty-fifty, no questions asked, despite the fact that he made three times what I did.

Naturally, this was not living together. This was him permitting me, barely, to share his space. I put up with it because I was young and stupid and thought that love involved compromise, right? Eventually I realized that if I was the only one doing it, it wasn’t compromise. By the time I moved out, he had degenerated to the point where he never left the house, and he barely deigned to acknowledge my existence. He spent eighteen hours a day, or more, playing computer games in his underwear. He didn’t talk to me, didn’t talk to my friends on the rare occasions they came over, refused to go anywhere with me, didn’t even bother looking away from the computer screen. The day he said, “But we’ve already had sex once this month,” was the last straw. I left and never looked back.

The first month of living with John nearly undid me. All those ghosts came back to haunt me, with a vengeance. And I couldn’t shake them. I’d laid down a series of rules, thinking to avoid some of the sticking points of the past--my cats were non-negotiable. I would assume complete control of the kitchen, and he would eat what I put in front of him, no questions asked and no whining allowed. I would assume decorating control, so that there would be no exposed wiring, piles of dirty clothes, or jars of loose change. John agreed unreservedly. But still. John's gaming manuals and computer paraphrenalia reminded me of Chris. Unpacking reminded me that I'd once again, despite my best efforts, moved for love and made myself vulnerable. Cleaning the apartment reminded me of Ed, who was overbearing and malicious to the point of emotional abuse--I'd cleaned his apartment for a year, debasing myself for some small scrap of affection that never materialized. Cooking for John reminded me of all of them. I tried not to plan for the future, to look too far ahead, in case he changed his mind and dumped me. It was like living under the sword of Damocles.

“I have to do everything exactly right,” I thought. “I can’t lose my best friend for nothing.”

I kept dreaming I was being forced to live with all my exes again.