I'm in the middle of EMDR, which means all my trauma from the past is merging and transferring onto my current relationships and life situations, even though there’s no actual connection between them. It's really uncomfortable. Because of this, my therapist gave me an assignment: I'm supposed to write about all the ways my husband and my father are similar - even if only in my imagination - so I can do EMDR on the emotional "ickiness" I feel around Husband when addressing this emotional Father-Figure work* (also known as The Black Cloud). Poor Husband, just an innocent victim of circumstance, sexually assassinated in the land of Rachel's Trauma-Brain.
*Interestingly, the icky feeling isn't even about my dad per se, but around the idea that I'm being hyper-monitored by God. This idea gets transfers onto all the masculine authority figures of my past, so it's all a big, brainy mess. Also, my dad's love language is anxiety. So before you judge the poor guy, just remember that his concerns for me are supposed to feel like hugs.
I started this assignment in blog-form, but then Husband started to look really bad...and he's not...truly he's not...and I didn't want people to think he was...because I only marry cool, good-looking people who are enviable...so to protect him, I typed up the Husband-Dad-List in Microsoft Office instead, and then printed it so I never had to touch it or look at it or refer to it again.
So now, I'm going to use THIS post to prove my first list wrong. Wherever Husband and Father (or Evangelical Masculinity) seem similar, I will find examples of how they are totally not.
1. They both default to traditional gender roles. Sure, they think women should be astronauts and doctors and lawyers, but when it comes to their sexuality and bodies, and the roles of fatherhood/husbandhood, they both unconsciously revert to old-fashioned heteronormativity. Also, both of them would deny this.
Come to think of it, I don't think Husband could ever date a woman who made more money that him. He is sort of fraternity-ish. Ok, so far this experiment is backfiring...
Zero points for Rachel.
(The Black Cloud parallel: Evanglicalism believes boys are the boss forever, and girls are boys’ helpers forever. Well, that was an easy one.)
2. They tend to avoid serious discomforts, paradoxical questions, and stay busy to remain distracted from their feelings...and fears...and mine....and the meaning of life. Ok, this is mostly true, but Husband has done a shit-ton of therapy and learned how to listen. Even if he feels like being in that invulnerable-surface-level-survival mode, he lets me share my insights to hard questions...if the TV is on...and it's louder than me.
Maybe the big difference is that Father is morbid about "Purpose of Life" questions - he can get sort of nihilistic and use the concept of death and the afterlife to make sense of worldly evils and generalized anxiety. Christian theology seem to be sources of comfort for him; they give him permission to dismiss existential questions that are seemingly unanswerable.
Husband, on the other hand, is just mmm...not there. He's more like: "Who thinks about that stuff?" And I'm all like: "Your wife does." And he's all like: "I don't know - golf and dogs and yard work. I think that's the meaning of life. Those are my values. And Diet Coke." And I'm all like: "You don't contemplate eternity, and how energy has no beginning, and that it's miraculous that altruism has made it's way into the evolution of our brains? You don't wonder about accidentally wasting your life or missing the point? You don't want to live in a commune? You don’t think we have a responsiblility to put solar panels on our roof?" And he's all like: "What did you say? The TV was too loud."
1 point for Rachel.
(The Black Cloud parallel: I feel it, but can’t put words to it right now...the awareness is too sensory-ish and not yet accessible via language.)
3. They are both alpha-male-ish math people who like yardwork. Neither of them are touch people or snuggly or naturally vulnerable. But, unlike my dad, Husband gets gooey around animals. And he talks about his feelings when he's alone and no one is looking and he's going to explode from suppressing them. So I think I can have that one (1 point). Also, when Husband is anxious about something (like his upcoming colonoscopy), he doesn't call all of his loved-ones and tell them the percentage of people that die from colon cancer every year, followed by emails picturing infected colons, instructing recipients to take preventative measures. That's definitely something my dad would do (another point). About the yardwork; I'm giving myself a free pass since so many men like it.
2 points for Rachel.
(The Black Cloud parallel: Yardwork? No fucking clue. Colonoscopy? Rapture anxiety.)
4. My dad is old & Husband is less-old.
1 point for Rachel.
5. My dad is loyal to traditional Christian theology and might fear for Rachel’s salvation. Husband, on the other hand, sorta-kinda believes in Hell when his parents are around...maybe. Also, Husband doesn't give a shit that Rachel is Buddhist-ish and reads books like Tao Te Ching. And instead of church, he plays softball on Sundays.
(The Black Cloud parallel: Evanglicalism is “my way or the highway,” and by highway, I mean eternal Hell fire. But Husband isn’t...thank gawd.)
2 points for Rachel.
6. They can both be control-freak-ish & drama-queen-ish about work politics. They happen to be the alpha-male-ish kind who pretend they don't care when - based on tonality and word choice - they clearly do (see number three). To both of their credit, what man (or human) doesn’t get competetive and weird at work?
These guys are both in the top third of their organizational pyramids. The difference is that they handle their stress differently: Husband is like "Sure, I'll totally take you up on the free industrial psychologist so I can be a better person and deal with this fucking stress and stop trying to control everything, since I obviously can't. I want to enjoy my job - or at least my home life - when things at work suck balls. I hate changing, but not if it leads to less pain and increased happiness." My dad would probably be like: "Oh, a psychologist won't help the real problem...which is the organization itself...and probably some authority figure I don't like...it's too bad nothing will ever change; I'll just push my misery into my back pocket until I retire."
(The Black Cloud parallel: Evanglicalism doesn’t change or adjust to the times. But Husband does. *smiley face*)
1 point for Rachel.
7. They both stay on the toilet for hours at a time. (no rebuttal *sad face)
Zero points for Rachel.
8. Husband is not obsessed with my health...or my body...or the likelihood of me dying from seeing a "quack" doctor. My dad is pretty body-obsessed (he’s a doctor). As his kid, it can sometimes feel like your body belongs to him, is being monitored by him, or should meet his approval in some way. It’s not so much a gross-creepy-rapey thing, but more of a “am I gonna get in trouble for not doing something right?” sort of thing. There was a lot of “Rach, get your blood drawn. Rach, see this doctor over here. Rach, you’ve gained weight. Rach, how are your hip joints? Rach, I see some acne - take this pill. Rach, don’t eat that.”
Husband couldn’t give a shit. Seriously. I could live on corn-nuts and Redbull. In fact, he’d probably like for us to have corn-nuts in the house. Also, Husband placates my pretend hypochondriasis diseases when I’m stressed, which is really sweet of him.
2 point for Rachel.
(The Black Cloud parallel: Evanglicalism is obsessed with virginity and women’s bodies. Abstinence and sexual purity is like 70% of the sermon content for people under 25 years old. Also, women are supposed to be subservient to men...as a woman, your body “belongs” to God [male] or your husband [male]. Lastly, modern translations of the Bible use the word like “flesh” to describe our sin-nature; “giving into the flesh” or “living for the flesh” refers to disobedience or betrayal of the holy ideal. Whoa...)
Ok, a total of 9 points for team Sanity. Sadly, the two men still feel really the same-ish...sometimes the projections seem too real to handle. I think it's because I haven't done the EMDR on these particulars yet. I'm hopeful that, after my appointment tomorrow, the differences will be crispier, and I won't feel like Husband is The Black Cloud reincarnate in a human body. That'd be basically the coolest thing ever (not the incarnation, obviously).
Dude, enmeshment is so much work to undo. I'm willing for the work, though, because I want to get better and have a good married life. I'm willing. I'm willing. Let's do this thing.