For a long while now, I have been struggling with the ability to continue in relationships with boyfriends. I'm in my mid-twenties, and the longest relationship I've ever had with a man is four months. I have a tendency to pick out every little flaw and then proceed to turn it into some horror show within my mind that ultimately causes me to end the relationship before it can get too serious.
It wasn't until recently during the quarantine that I started to reflect, and it helped that there was a short period in which I was stuck between jobs and temporarily staying with my brother. For some background on this particular situation, my brother and my father both live in the same town, so my father would come to visit often. It was through this experience of sharing rent with my brother and dealing with the frequent interactions between both men in my family that I realized something: I'm afraid of men.
It's not a physical abuse situation. It's more emotional and based on pure anxiety. There were things from my childhood that I didn't recognize, but that are far more obvious in my adult life. My family has been broken ever since I was ten. My mother left to another state after I graduated high school, only to die five years later. My sister left the household before she finished high school because she became pregnant with her boyfriend's child. In the midst of this, my father was easily angered, and my brother had a tendency to reflect those moods to the point of punching holes into walls.
During my adulthood, I was able to see that neither of them had grown out of their irritable moods. The wall-punching had faded, but they could still create screaming matches out of simple things like dishes and going to work. It was at this point in which I began to recognize something within myself; every time they went into one of their tantrums, I fled into mental walls that I had never recognized were there until recently. The arguments usually had nothing to do with me, because for years I had worked hard on maintaining appearances both inside and out simply to satiate my father's moods. I have always been terrified of letting people down, and that has always applied to my father more than anyone else.
It was never because I was physically abused by him. Instead, it was the verbal abuse of being useless, stupid, and slovenly that ultimately killed my ability to fight back. And all of this came flooding back the moment quarantine arrived. I thought I had found myself in college, but the moment I graduated and aimed for a spectacular job overseas, COVID hit and I was suddenly thrust back into a routine I had thought that I escaped.
As it turns out, I never truly escaped that routine. For better emphasis on this realization, I would have to relay the information of my longest intimate relationship as well as the man that my sister ultimately married.
The guy I dated for four months was perhaps someone I could have loved if not for long-distance relationship problems. He was laid back, patient, adored the outdoors, and was supportive of everything I did. I felt like I could be myself around him. There were times where a conflict would arise, and looking back now, I would subconsciously brace myself for an outburst. It surprised me every time when he would simply take a moment of silence, and then respond with a calm, logical resolution. The same thing happened with my brother-in-law. I had never understood what my sister saw in him. He was reckless, annoying, and far too childish to be a proper father to her three children (two of them being his children). But there was a time when they stayed with me for a month, and I saw very similar attributes in him to what I had seen in my ex. There were times where he and I would constantly butt heads. And yet, every single time, when it came to a peak and I was certain he would respond in a similar fashion to my brother and father, he would instead remain calm and hold his ground. He has always been stubborn like me, but never once has he raised his voice at his wife, children, or me. Recently, I have respected the hell out of him as a father.
But I still fear him. And other men.
I won't deny that there are good men out there, but I still flinch, and I still scare easy. What can I tell myself in order to feel like I don't need to constantly be someone else in order to protect myself? Out of about a dozen men that I have lived with or dated, only two have made me feel completely safe, and only because there were situations that forced me to give them more than one chance.
I'm scared, and I don't want to be.