Can’t Fix Anyone

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It was a Friday evening sometime in the early 2000s and I decided that to overcome whatever challenges were ailing us at the time, we should do something positive. So I announced to my then husband that we should celebrate life. I stopped in at Whole Foods on the way from work, and picked up some gourmet eats and went home to prepare sour apple martinis, which I had recently discovered.  

Everything was prepared, we sat down to dinner, were having a lovely time, (especially under the influence of the sour apples), and suddenly, out of the blue, my ex starts jabbering about black men. What? “I know you like them” … on and on and on. It was the typical primetime show: same theme, different subjects. He, accusing me of things I had no idea about, me trying to figure out what to say or not say because no matter what I uttered somehow I just dug myself into a deeper hole.

It got ugly and I grabbed my son who might have been around seven at the time, and locked ourselves in his room. The husband broke the door down and came toward me and he just kept talking talking talking, as if he was oblivious to the chaos he was causing. All I was concerned about was protecting my son, so I took a lamp and hit the husband over the head with it, but so gently it was ridiculous. I remember thinking as I was doing it, how could I possibly be hurting someone, even if it’s this maniac? The rest of the details are sketchy, except that there was a lot of broken glass in my house that night and a lot of broken dreams. I called 911. The cops came. He went to jail for 12 days.

Now, why did I—independent, sociable, happy-go-lucky Rossy—stay with this guy for 13 years? I have a few theories. The first, of course, is that I saw a lot of beauty and goodness in him. He certainly had his charm. He was good looking, extremely smart and very handy (could build walls, put in plumbing and also fix an exotic 5-course meal and turn an ordinary room into a quintessential love nest. I’m telling you, he was pretty perfect except that he didn’t agree with that assessment. He was extremely insecure. I now realize that my pointing these great qualities to him as I tried to get him to fall in love with himself only acerbated the problem. You see, researchers have found that giving someone “person praise” or praise about their qualities, reinforces a fixed mindset, or a set of beliefs that their success is due to those traits. If they think they’re not living up to them, they consider themselves a failure.

The second reason I stayed with him was because, I’ll admit it, I’m a closet psychologist, so at first it was a wonderful challenge for me to try and “fix” him. I researched a number of possible “cures” and discussed them with the myriad therapists we visited during our years together. Come to think of it, that phase of my life could have been labeled The Weekly Counseling Hour.

The third reason I stayed with him was because of what I refer to as the Mother Teresa Syndrome. Most women suffer from this. It’s part of our nurturing DNA, except that there’s a great probability that if most women are like me, we’re really not doing it like Mother Teresa did.  

Those who altruistically devote themselves to caring for the poor, the sick and the dying, are not stricken by the open wounds, bloated bellies or missing limbs of those they care for, but rather, they see beyond that. They see the person as “whole” and they embrace them with their endless bounty of love and kindness. They embody a particular type of empathy known as compassion. This is when you accept whatever is happening without turning away and proceed to help any way you can.

While I truly wanted to help my ex heal his past wounds, I lacked awareness. Awareness of who I was deep down inside and awareness of what was actually required to do the job – to not see him as broken, to not consider his beliefs, actions and behaviors as needing repair. In other words, I needed to accept him as he was, and not appoint myself as his fixer-upper. Either that or run the other way the minute I met him. But, the question still remains, why was I attracted to him?

The truth is that we are born whole, pure and blissful. But from a very early age we start to detach from who we truly are: that whole, pure and blissful self, and proceed to absorb the labels that those who came before us place on us, whether on purpose or whether they’re aware of it or not. These are the hand-me-downs, the layers of clothing that we may not like, or that may not even fit well, but which we put on because others have encouraged us to do so.

These are the beliefs we hold about ourselves as not being enough.

“not pretty enough”

“not smart enough”

“not kind enough”

“not lovable enough”

“fill in the adjective of choice enough”.

These are the beliefs that while not analogous to the narrative of who we are, can take over and commandeer our lives, if we let them.

And since what we focus on grows and becomes our reality, when we focus on being self-deprecating, on not being worthy, we perpetuate that, and we attract people who will make that come true for us. So, I credit my lack of total self-acceptance and self-love at the time with inviting him into my life.

And that’s how somebody like me, curious about the world and everyone in it, who among other things, wanted to be a travel photographer, ended up marrying someone who stifled her to her very core, and who, ironically, would try to control even where she directed her gaze.

So, as you can see, there was no way in heaven I could ever “fix” this guy. First of all, I now know that he didn’t need “fixing”. He had lost touch with himself through the layers of clothing, and needed to tap into who he truly was, which is exactly what I should have been doing for myself. Instead, I distanced myself further from the real me while trying out my very mediocre impersonation of Mother Teresa.

Time has passed and I’m now firmly rooted in the knowledge that human beings are not self-development projects, that tomes of self-help books and years of therapy sessions (while somewhat helpful) could only get me so far. Sure, they provided me with guidance on improving important relationship skills such as establishing boundaries, communicating properly and resolving conflict, but they couldn’t make me fall in love with me, which is what has transformed my life.

Only I could do that, by becoming aware and going to that peaceful, joyful, loving place that is at the core of who I am, that is at the core of who we all are.

And the only way to get there effectively that I know of is through quieting the mind in meditation.