Am I allergic to long-term relationships?

Trusting my words are seen by loving eyes

I don’t have a good relationship track record.

My longest relationship before the age of 33 lasted a grand total of 11 months. He is the reason why our relationship lasted as long as it did. He loved me so, so well. Our relationship felt like the hug of a cup of coffee , the giddiness of a Friday night sleepover.

But I was trained to believe that when I felt loved, something must be wrong. That feeling good meant I was doing something bad. So I found a reason to break up with him - Jesus did not want us to be together. In retrospect, I think the real Jesus, not the mega-churchified Jesus, would have wholeheartedly supported our relationship.

Most of my other relationships in my twenties were marked by intensity, forest fire connections I lost myself in completely. If it didn’t consume me, it didn’t feel like love. Zealous evangelical Christianity complicated and confused my search for love. Most “good” Christian boys were not interested in me, as if my pheromones gave off a strange, unholy odor. I felt overcome with envy every time one of my friends got engaged to a good looking, wholesome, tall Christian man who promised to cherish her and lay down his life for her the way Christ laid down his life for the church.

I am very, very good at attracting men who passionately hate themselves. Probably because I am the author of a substack called “When You Hate Yourself and Want to Die”, so I supposed the universe is reflecting the unhealed parts of myself back to me. But to say that the men who love me just “simply hate themselves” would be doing them and me a disservice. To even call them “avoidant”, “emotionally unavailable” or “mentally ill” would also be a disservice to the connection we shared - even if those labels are technically true.

Looking at my relationship timeline through the lens of neurodivergence, I was a magnet for intense, undiagnosed neurodivergent, creative types. Most of these men also went through some trauma - ranging from benign neglect to intense physical and emotional abuse. These relationships thrilled me and made me feel seen in a way I’d never felt seen in all my years on planet earth. Just two soulmate aliens meeting for the first time after billions of years lost in the wrong galaxy. Sparkly, multicolored pop rock banter and laughter and inspiration that would rocket ship me into glowing nebulas and back again. We created beautiful things together. We understood each others’ humor and ways of looking at the world. We struggled with authenticity, fitting in, and finding our purpose in the same ways.

But the highs were usually followed by terrible plane crash lows. I couldn’t handle consistent closeness, and neither could my partners. We both pushed each other away with our unhealed shame and anxiety. I wanted intimacy with every fiber of my being and when I experienced intimacy, every single cell would flash a red warning light.

When I met my husband, I’d burned out on intense relationships. My last tumultuous relationship - with an unmedicated bipolar man, short circuited me. I had also quit my job as a high school English teacher, and felt untethered without structure or direction. The only people I wanted to date were people who didn’t inspire intensity within me. People who felt like a nice, lukewarm pool. I didn’t want to lose myself, crash and burn, fall into a million pieces ever again just because a romantic relationship didn’t work out. I wanted to break the pattern and acknowledge where I was the common denominator in the destruction of my relationships.

Part of the reason why I chose my husband was because he didn’t stoke the fire of obsession in me. I felt a sense of calm and stability with him. From the first day we met, he texted me daily and I could predict his patterns. He showed me a lot of interest from day one, and continued to show the same level of interest throughout our time dating each other. 

But I wasn’t as stimulated by our connection as I had been with others. I ignored that, because stimulating romantic connections had been my drug of choice and I was SOBER now, goddammit! When I married him, I had convinced myself I had broken the pattern!!! I had “earned secure attachment”!!! This sense of monogamous suffocation and lack of truly feeling seen WAS THE HEALTHY CHOICE, OK?!

I’m still trying to untangle what parts of my relationship with my husband are meant to be accepted and which parts need to change. Whether we’re better together or apart.

The serenity prayer in AA is one of the best sentences ever written in the history of humankind: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

Because that’s what it boils down to at the end of the day, right? What are we meant to accept? What are we meant to change? And how can we discern the difference?

Thank you, digital friends, for spending time with me here in this place of searching and questioning. I’m seriously so grateful to have witnesses in this process.