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Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I Am Not Falling in Love with Barack Obama

This post is the eighth in a (slowly developing) series on
how I came to be where I am around the current election,
and the fourth post about the candidates themselves.

Image credit: Photo by
Jessica DeWinter on Flickr
Licensed under Creative Commons

A friend of Mark's and mine fell in love recently. You know that intoxicating feeling of new love: the one where you feel giddy and anxious and excited all at once. Everything in your life is bathed in the soft glow of hope. This relationship is going to be special. This person is different, not like the other people in your life who have broken your heart before.

This friend is so happy, while Mark and I, rather than being happy for him, admitted to each other that we are both wary and uncomfortable. This girlfriend of his may seem to be different from the last one, but the fact that our friend is not any different than he was in his previous relationships leads us to believe the same crazy dance is just going to be played out to different music this time. For both of Mark and me, that initial feeling of attraction has come to signal, not the happy match of two well-suited personalities, but the irresistible pull of complementary dysfunction: the north pole of the codependent magnet reaching out for the south pole of the addict magnet.

I love my husband. I am happy in my marriage. But it has taken an unimaginable amount of pain and a lot of work to get to this point. I fear (and believe) that if (through death or divorce) I lost Mark and found myself falling in love again, it would mean going through that same valley of shock and pain and deep, life-altering grief just to get back to this new normal in which I find myself now.

And as I am finally starting to find my bearings in my life and marriage, Barack Obama enters, with flowers, wooing America. Charismatic, charming, handsome, smart, with warm latte skin, he reminds me of someone... Someone charismatic and charming, handsome and smart, with warm chocolate skin. Who could it be? Oh, wait. My husband.

Everything about me wants to love Barack Obama. And everything in me screams that he is like all the other charming men I've loved. He's going to break my heart if I give it to him. He's going to lie to me. He's not going to do what he promises to do; he won't be able to. He's going to hurt me. He has hurt me (through my political alter-ego, Hillary Clinton.) My attraction to him must come from my own crazy messed uppedness. I can't trust him. I can't trust myself.

So, I've been clinging to suspicion, fear and distrust because to let myself go and follow the frenzy of Obama worship is to fall in love again, and I want no part of that giddy intoxication of newborn infatuation. I'm not ready for it yet; I'm still too raw to touch. I'm working on letting go of those emotions, but for now, I need to keep my distance from Obama and keep working on the hope and the change that come from inside myself before I'm ready to embrace new love (political or otherwise) without fear.

Posted by at 5:26 AM
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15 comments:

  1. Your feelings about your friend falling in love hit so close to home. My husband and I have two friends who met at our wedding and they're in that crazy new love phase. She was married to a sex addict (though she doesn't know anything about sex addiction and, therefore, hasn't labeled her ex-husband as an addict) and this new guy has a serious porn habit and I suspect is a love addict (he dated another friend of mine after his divorce and made the same feverish proclamations about her after one week that he's now making about this friend). All I can do is bite my tongue.
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  2. So take it slow and wait for the time to be right - your heart will let you know when it is ready to trust him... of course the cynic in me refusses to believe anything any politician has to say... but hey thats just me.

    Cat
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  3. I have a friend like that as well. Every time she has a new boyfriend she's 'in love' and 'this is the one' and she's 'never felt like this before'. I just nod and smile and await the relationship to fall apart. She's a very smart woman who's only weak spot seems to be relationships. And yet a part of me sincerely wants to believe that maybe this time she's right and that he really is the one. It hasn't happened yet, but the hopeless romantic in me wants my friend to find true love soon.
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  4. Sophie in the MoonlightOct 15, 2008 08:19 AM
    Because I feel that we are good friends with deep love, understanding, and respect for/of one another, I feel ok in saying this and knowing (please) that you'll get it on a higher level. That you will hear the softness and intonation in my voice through the typed words in this box.

    I am so sorry your heart hurts, that your mind is paralyzed by a fear of replication, and that your soul still recoils in a tumultuous routine of a deep-seated mistrust of charismatic men attempting to woo you even though you somehow know that the come-hither glances directed your way are calculated to get you to do more than just commit to the man, but to fuse with him and his purposes. This is a spiritual and psychological burden you bear. You have scars all over that remind you near daily of the painful lessons that were inflicted upon you by Life itself.

    I know how much you adored Hillary & I expressed my sincerest sympathies to you when she lost the nomination, just as I consoled my dear old friend of 15 years who also went through a grieving process after the loss of her long-time heroine. I would never presume to tell you how to vote despite our similar political leanings. I will say, Codie to Codie, that you have changed since meeting and falling in love with Mark. You've changed drastically. In some respects you are not even the same woman. You are more clear, more healthy, more committed to being the best version of yourself. For those reasons, I cannot even imagine that you would repeat your former relationship patterns. In the instance of your friend, you said that his current new relationship is doomed to the same crazy dance as the previous b/c he "is not any different than he was in his previous relationships."

    You are different; therefore, the likelihood of repeating your old crazy Elaine dance is very low. You certainly do not need to become an ObamaMama drinking in the scent of Hope that exudes off of him. But, I do think that given where you are in your life, you can relax your white-knuckled grip on your distrust of your own inclinations. The lessons that you needed to learn about yourself you have learned through your recovery process. You have come through shining with a quick and dynamic intelligence that is not easily fooled. Whether Obama or McCain is elected, they are going to be wearing a hand-me-down presidential mantle for a little while trying to fix the disasters that the Shrub has left for the next person to clean. B/c of the mess, their campaign promises may or may not have to be put on the back burner for a little while. One just has to hope whoever is in there will be able to prioritize judiciously.

    Vote for whom you will in November, but first give yourself a vote of confidence that you will do what is right for you in that moment. Ok. I'm off my stump and NO I'm not manic. ;) I just felt your hurt coming in waves off my screen.
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  5. I am madly in love with Obama, and will cry mad salty tears if he is not elected.
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  6. Karen Maezen MillerOct 15, 2008 01:33 PM
    That's OK. I'm not in love either. I'm done with that kind of foolishness. Let's not fall anywhere. Let's pick ourselves up. It's time.
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  7. I follow my gut when it comes to people, whether it is someone that I have an attraction to of the opposite sex, a colleague with whom I have to work, or a politician. And my BS indicator tells me that Sen. Obama is for real. I sense his sincerity and have sensed it long before he ever ran for President. So for me, it is a matter of what I'm feeling inside and what I'm hearing. It has nothing to do with love but with character.
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  8. I don't think we need to love our politicians. We do need to know them as best we can, though. If ever our passion would lead us astray, please let it not be a passion for our government representatives!
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  9. Sophie said it all.

    I don't ever expect to love a politician like you loved Hilary. If I were in US next month it would be a simple question of doing anything to get the Republicans out. Obama is a cutie, I could probably fall in love with him, but there are bigger issues at stake here.
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  10. Oh, but he's so cute - those puppy dog eyes of his get me, every time! You don't have to fall in love with him, but please vote for him. And, of course he's going to break our hearts. He's not going to be able to fix everything that's broken in the US, and he also can't walk on water, or he'd be demonstrating that ability on the campaign trail. But, he's the best alternative we have this year. And, I think he's the best chance this country has had in years.
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  11. Will he deliver everything? Probably not ... men never do. In fact, they do tend to gloss over some of the realities that us women think are pretty important. But, I know the difference between a man who's in this race for himself, and one who's in this race for the issues. He's said it himself; it's not about him, it's about you. That's all we can hope for people. The GOP campaign has offered nothing but deception, lies and smears ... Obama might not be the perfect man -- or woman, actually -- but he's in it for the right reasons. That counts for a lot in my book.
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  12. Let go and let love! Fear drives away good things.
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  13. Linda S. SochaOct 18, 2008 12:13 PM
    I appreciate this post and many others you have shared here. Your blog is real, honest and informative...Thanks for sharing it.
    Linda
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  14. I was coming on here to tell you that these are the exact same things that keep me from dipping my toe back into the dating pond again. Then I read Sophie's comments & am blown away.

    Yeah...what she said...for ALL of us in recovery!!!
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  15. What if Hillary's exactly where she should be at this point in her life?
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