Saved?

Things at home with himself have been trying my patience, and holding my temper is becoming, for the first time, something I have to work at.

Which is progress, from the perspective of the narrative arc (is that the right expression?) of my therapy over the last five years. Quick early years background: critical and on a few occasions seriously violent (and also wonderful) Dad; fairly fragile and anxious to please (and courageous) Mum.

And H.A.L.T. should have occurred to me (the relapse-danger conditions of Hungry Angry Lonely Tired) but I'm pretty complacent these days about my recovery from sex and love addiction. So it didn't, and when I saw a certain bloke at church on Sunday, at the end of a week of yet more "improvement requests" / "constructive feedback" from himself, I felt a surge of excitement. It was the anticipation of what it would feel like to see myself through someone else's enamored eyes, because the version of me my partner seems to be responding to and talking about most of the time right now is far from good enough and requires constant correction.

And yes, naturally, he's my mirror.

Meaning how he sees me and relates to me (or seems to) is in some magical way connected to how I see and relate to myself. And that is, at times: "critically", and "unrelentingly". Which is not to say that he's not actually doing it. I can assure you he is. But the fact that I notice every single possible instance of it is also to do with a pre-sensitisation which predates him by several decades. And the fact that I'm several years down the line with someone who has been habitually fault finding since about our fifth date says a lot more about me than him. Some would argue that if my self-criticism is fierce and unconscious enough, then even the most saintly of companions would mysteriously find themselves compelled to point out the many errors of my ways. However, I've just done too much "work" for that to be the case. I have simply picked someone fairly critical (and also adorable) with whom to cohabit. Because it's familiar. And because my psyche wants a go-around so she can achieve a different outcome this time.

The question is - am I Animus* enough?

I'm tittering at that, and hearing The Four Tops. When I really "get" the Jungian Anima / Animus thing, I'll say more.

But AM I man enough? And for what? To tell him to stop it? To leave?? To hear whatever the next complaint will be, secure in the just-as-I-am love of my far gentler God, shake my head, and feel it wash over me until I've got time to decide whether he's asking for a change I'm happy to make? Sometimes I think I've "got" that last one, and I float along full of gratitude for the strength of the Holy S, and then it happens again when I'm not expecting it, and I'm full of cortisol / I'm fast-rewound straight back to being however young / I realise I'm actually still full of entirely UNresolved resentment, and I want to stab him, or myself, or run for the nearest convent. Really.

So as I was saying, I find myself at church, and there's this other guy, who for whatever reason I look at and can imagine him seeing the best in me, instead of the flaws, and I just really want to sit with him, lean against him, feel his approval and admiration melt away the knots in my neck and back from unknowingly armouring myself against imagined attack. I suppose you could say that what I want is for him to save me.

And then instead, He saves me. And with such amazing grace.

It was a beautiful meeting, and as far as I can tell I really did surrender myself to Him, and pray for Him to show me His will for me. As I listened, I typed short notes into my phone, and cast my eye down the list of things I think He's been saying to me. What's really been in my heart most pressingly is a desire to know God for who SHE is, not just who HE is. In some ways, my answer to The Four Tops is that I'm TOO manly as it is, and the absence of a usable English gender-neutral pronoun doesn't help me "integrate the positive feminine qualities still locked up in my shadow", so to speak...

I'm confused.

Am I overly masculine, with all my relentless self-critical accomplishment and perfectionism? Or am I living from all the weakness and fragililty of the negative aspect of the feminine?

But that's beside the point.

Because at the end of the meeting, my will is set on a bee-line for the wrong saviour. And I half know it. And I am half minded of the idea I've been reading about of concupiscence. And I am half minded of the preach still fresh in my ears of denying myself and taking up my cross out of love and gratitude for my beloved Christ. And still there is the bee-line.

And then there is interception.

With the precision of an NFL quarterback, a woman I barely know but greatly admire literally bounds across the room and places herself in the physical space (about ten feet) between me and the man. And here's the flourish in the save. It's not a goaly save that's just enough fingers to the ball to tip it up over the cross bar. It's a save along the lines of full into the body, bounced a few times, and then kicked 50 feet down the pitch. Because what, of all things in heaven and earth, does this woman start talking about with me? Women in scripture.

I repeat.

Women
In
Scripture

And just as the conversation starts to wind down, and I glance around and spot "him" still hovering, we are joined by her husband, and before I know it we are full tilt into Gnostic gospels and synods and the mystery of the living Word still being just that, despite all of men's (literally) tinkering and censorship. And by the end of that conversation, we are practically alone, and I am just that little bit more saved than I was when I arrived.

Praise God, and thank you Lord for your amazing mercy.