I Focused on Twisting My Ideals.
Don was short with blond hair and glasses. I was still under the mistaken impression that people with glasses were smarter than people without glasses. So I chose Don from all the rehab men and fell in love.
Don taught me how to play chess, and we played during all of our down time. I learned quickly and loved the game. From the rehab library, he acquired a book called The Little Prince, which was just exactly the kind of book that I loved, and told me it was a must-read. He filled my Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book with words of fondness and encouragement, like he was signing a yearbook.
And when we figured out how to pull it off, Don snuck into my room at night to have sex with me. It was against every rule; we could have been thrown out. Since it was over in two minutes, he disappeared without being caught.
On Family Visitation Day, my parents arrived and I introduced them to Don. I saw them exchange glances with each other – a boyfriend in rehab?! – but they just said, “Nice to meet you.”
“He’s so smart!” I told them. “He taught me how to play chess and he gave me this book and ….” I trailed off as Don went to greet his visitor.
Don’s visitor was a 250-pound woman who towered over him by at least six inches. He walked up to her and greeted her with a big hug and a long kiss, which is how I found out that Don had a girlfriend.
Don and the woman were holding hands and smiling goofily at each other for a few minutes before my mom spoke. “Take a look at the person he’s chosen,” she said. “Watch how they interact. It might tell you something about him that you didn’t know before.”
Until that moment, it had never occurred to me to judge my potential husbands by their behavior. I took one look at a man, determined his entire personality by my first impression, and then tried to force a marriage in spite of any glaring defects. I focused on twisting my ideals into relationships, rather than working with the human beings I called “boyfriends.”
Looking back, the men who were good choices for marriage were the ones who were emotionally available, kind to me, and loving, supportive partners. They were the ones I knew before I went off the deep end into alcoholism.
As the years progressed, I sought men who were emotionally unavailable, mentally unstable, incapable of being supportive or even understanding me. Being sick meant that I gravitated toward sickness.
In rehab, and for years afterward, I was still very sick.
After Family Visitation Day, I didn’t know how to process Don. We still played chess but when Don suggested we have sex again, I firmly declined, stating “rehab rules.” While I still considered Don my rehab boyfriend, we remained platonic but flirty until he left – about a week before I did.
Sidelining my “relationship” in rehab was the smartest thing I did while I was there. Surprise! I’d been wasting my time trying to find a husband while in rehab. (What a story for the grandkids!) I started to more fully engage in the multitude of self-help opportunities: support groups, therapy, social groups, reading and games. We were getting to know ourselves, many of us for the first time.
And I needed that. I wanted to care for Young Kirsten, from my dream. I wanted to learn and grow. So I started to pay attention.