Abandonment Issues
I just want someone who will love me and not leave me.
This is what I said in a conversation my friends were having about what they like in a man. This conversation happened in the middle of a very hard day for me. There’s no solid ground in my life right now, and nothing feels okay. I’m juggling about a dozen balls of chaos and uncertainties, and I am not good at it. Maybe I can handle a few chaotic things, if I have something solid to lean against. But I don’t have that anymore.
It’s been more than a year now since he left me. My Daddy. My rock. Always there, always checking on me, always holding the leash tightly when I am overwhelmed so that I can feel the solid ground under me. He loved me. But it wasn’t enough. He left me anyway. He once said that he’d always feel ownership of me, even if we weren’t together. Then he left me anyway.
It took me several months to be a person again. And for the longest time, I didn’t want to date because it felt too chaotic—too many unknowns, too much thought had to go into it. A month ago, I finally felt ready. But sometimes the damage he did to me sneaks up on me.
I just want someone who will love me and not leave me.
We all do, don’t we? But this is different. This is the damage talking. This is fear of opening up. Because sometimes you open up, and they say they love you, and then they leave you anyway. They break your heart, and then they spend almost 24 hours in a hotel room with you while you cry and throw things and cry some more and cry in a restaurant and come back and have empty, heartbroken sex because they won’t touch you like they own you. Because it’s like they are touching you with someone else’s hands. And THEN they leave you.
Except they don’t, because they feel some responsibility for you. Or maybe they’re a sadist or a masochist, I can never figure out which. So they stick around and give you an occasional reminder of what it’s like to have that connection. Just enough so you don’t go numb or wilt away completely. And they don’t leave even when they should, and you don’t know how to make them. Because you never did learn to have dignity with this person. Because sometimes you open up, they say they love you, and instead of leaving, they stick around to do damage. But maybe that’s okay because they didn’t leave?
At least he didn’t leave. He never left. Even when he did.
I used to say that. In defense of what a good man he is. So good to look out for me, to check in on me. But he DID leave me. He did. I was there. He said always, but he meant in my heart, not his. And then he left.
Now I’m dating. I’m even meeting people I really like. But there’s still a lot of “no” bottled up inside me. A lot of selfishness. Keeping a death grip on my time and my submission until I feel sure. But what if I’m broken now? What if I’m not able to let go and trust like I once did? What if the damage keeps sneaking up on me like this? It feels safer to be alone. It feels safer not to date, not to open myself up. Because after him, all my instincts feel wrong. And I really don’t want to experience that pain again. Why risk it?
Because sometimes the “I’d rather be alone girl” becomes the lonely girl. And that’s when the truth comes out. And the scars.
I just want someone who will love me and not leave me.
It doesn’t feel like much to ask. But damn, whoever wants to love me is going to have some serious walls to break down. And I’m not quite sure what it looks like on the other side. But I’m trying to figure it out.
