Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Damaged Goods

Elizabeth Smart recently commented on the evil of teaching people that their worth is tied up in their sexual inexperience. I agree wholeheartedly with her. Of course, "teh interwebs" has glommed onto her words and twisted them to attack the Church. Which is all really quite boring to me, same story different details. Except for one thing.

I have been a victim, too.

I have written before why I stayed in my marriage. When I was married, I felt like the least wind could shatter me. I was constantly worried about what I said and did. I would hang up with friends and family as soon as my husband was due home because I wanted him to feel my love and attention. I would do activities only after they had been suggested by my spouse, because I wanted to be available for him. I endured two years of torture because I wanted him to be satisfied and pleased. I watched our money drain out like water through a sieve, and felt guilty that I wasted money if I bought something for the house. I went to counseling in hopes that I could be fixed so that the "communication issues" in my marriage could be resolved. But nothing I did made him feel loved. No changes I made helped me communicate with him. Things only got worse the more I tried. Eventually, the marriage deteriorated. I ended it only at the strong promptings and counsel of the Lord, and to protect my ex-husband and my children.

The news can give people a wrong idea about domestic violence. Only the most egregious and horrifying stories hit the news. But once someone has been injured or killed, the entirety of the work of abuse has already been wrought. Abuse isn't first about being hurt. If it was, anyone would get out. But abuse is first about duty, love, obligation, about feeling like if only you worked a little harder, did a little better, things would change. It is an emotional landscape which is carefully terraformed by the abuser. And it works best on loving people who try to be selfless.

For this reason, I keep chewing over the discussion surrounding Elizabeth's comments. You see, I believe that I'm damaged goods, too. It's not something that counseling can help me with. Because it isn't in my mind or reason. It's in my heart and experience. They are a lot harder to convince. Especially after I've tried to convince myself time and time again, only to fail.

I have dated slightly more after my marriage than I did before. When I married my ex, I'd been "serious" with only one other man, and been on dates with only two or three others. (The reason for that I'm not going into this time.) Since then, in the period of about two years, I have been serious with two, and been on dates with a couple of others. Until I stopped.

The first man I was serious with broke up with me after a disagreement about the legal obligation and powers regarding couples in domestic violence situations. I believed that the law and community should have the power to forcibly and temporarily separate the couple and require them to go through counseling if the police have been called to a domestic violence situation. (Remember what I said earlier, that by the time it's serious enough for people to notice, most of the abuse has already occurred.) He disagreed, believing that the government should never have the power to separate a couple unwillingly. After this disagreement, and after I refused to back down, I never saw him again. He broke up with me via telephone, saying I didn't inspire him to be good enough, that he didn't like who he was around me. He was married shortly afterwards to the girl I insisted he date before we became exclusive.

The next man I was serious with was amazing, a truly nice guy. So nice, he wouldn't speak up for himself. After trying to discuss it with him, I saw that it wasn't going to change. That and the fact that our relationship was overly public and scrutinized by other people combined with my feelings that he didn't really know ME, only his version of me, and I broke up with him. That was really hard for me, because he was such a good guy and there were many things I valued in him. I hoped that by backing off the relationship for awhile and being friends we could get some perspective, get the interested parties out of our relationship, and maybe work things out later. But he stopped attending the activities we had previously both enjoyed, and was engaged only three months later.

I wouldn't share these experiences except to give a background for what I'm going to say. These experiences, and the others that never got as serious, proved to me the impossibility of finding a man who could value me as a whole person and not just for the role he delineated for me. Every man willing to date me wanted to get serious VERY early in the relationship. Every man disliked my insistence that we not be exclusive until we were ready to marry. Not one valued me enough to remain my friend even when there was no promise of romance.

This is partly why I know that I am damaged goods. I have heard single LDS men emphatically state they don't want to marry a divorced woman because she is not pure, or has children. And while I know a few divorced women who have found good, loving men to marry again, they are also generally drop-dead gorgeous and a lot less hardened by their experiences. I'm pretty well acquainted with my physical and emotional limitations on that front. So while I know with my mind that my experiences in my marriage have not damaged me, but made me stronger, wiser, and closer to God, my heart knows full well how much value that has to prospective eternal companions in this life.

My time and experiences in the singles ward and with dating only served to further corroborate and validate that feeling. This is a large chunk of my decision to cease seeking an eternal companion. After what I've been through, I don't need a culture or a group of men and women telling me that my value is damaged. I know it already. What I need now is to survive, to raise my girls with hopefully a little more wisdom than I had, and to serve the Lord in the few ways that remain open to me.

I am a failure, yes. But I intend to grow as many plants as I can from the compost of my life. And if it is even just one tiny plant, I'll count it a success.

Because I am damaged goods. But I don't care any more.

10 comments :

  1. I am so so sorry for what you have experienced and what you have felt and continue to feel.

    I have also felt (and sometimes feel) like severely damaged goods, of little worth to self, God or others.

    On the one hand, we are all damaged goods, we are all broken. Period. On the other, we are all children of God and of infinite worth. Period.

    How can broken goods be of infinite worth? Because no damage or brokenness is permanent. And a broken (and thus open) heart is essential for God to work with and in us and to transform us, to heal us, so that we can better perceive and realize our fundamental and infinite value, which is not diminished by whatever we have done or, ultimately, whatever has happened to us.

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  2. I am a little lost. I love your writing because it is often so authentic. This time, not so much. You are a complicated, wise, and strong woman. To define yourself as damaged goods is either really sarcastic--or you're berating yourself before others will get around to it. And to play into the hands of people like that is, well, it's not authentic. I have been sorrowful about the things you have faced--but never before today have I ever felt sorry for you.

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  3. I think I didn't make my point well enough, if you feel pity for me because of what I have written here. This is why I used the analogy of compost. It may be garbage, others may think it is of little worth. But this is not about "poor me," it is about acknowledging reality, finding a way make something worthwhile out of it.

    Perhaps that is only worth pity to you. But it is not that to me. This is something that took me hard work to understand and accept in myself, and is probably more authentic than much else I've written.

    Perhaps it isn't of use to you. But perhaps it is of use to someone, someone who is weary of looking on the so-called bright side and pretending everything is peaches.

    Sometimes, recognizing reality is necessary, just as DavidH described above. We must see our weakness before the Lord can make it strong to us. Despite the difficulty in accepting this about myself, once it was out I didn't feel sorry for myself. I felt stronger, more at peace, more capable of turning my life over to the Lord just a little more, less at the mercy of illusion and pretension.

    That doesn't have to resonate with you, but it resonates for someone. Even if that someone is just me.

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  4. "How can broken goods be of infinite worth? Because no damage or brokenness is permanent. And a broken (and thus open) heart is essential for God to work with and in us and to transform us, to heal us, so that we can better perceive and realize our fundamental and infinite value, which is not diminished by whatever we have done or, ultimately, whatever has happened to us."

    +1 to DavidH

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  5. "You see, I believe that I'm damaged goods, too. It's not something that counseling can help me with. Because it isn't in my mind or reason. It's in my heart and experience. They are a lot harder to convince. Especially after I've tried to convince myself time and time again, only to fail."

    That, sadly, is where I am right now. It's a profound thing to fear the consequences of mere generic hope. The Spirit still whispers that things will work out, but I really don't see it. I understand now why Laman and Lemuel feared Laban, even after the angel told them he would be delivered into their hands.

    "Not one valued me enough to remain my friend even when there was no promise of romance."

    This notion seems to be in vogue these days, but I'm yet to see anything good come of it. It certainly gave me nothing but misery as long as I subscribed to it. It's not impossible to remain friends by any means, but it's not a measure of the quality of the relationship, nor of the people in it. Hearts just don't work that way.

    Evaluating a relationship on its ability to survive its own dissolution is just another weight when you're in (because its forever untested), and another stick to beat yourself with when you're out.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comments. I don't expect a relationship to "survive it's own dissolution," but I do expect a relationship to have more to it than just romance. I expect the man I marry to be able to weather the parts of our relationship that aren't made of roses. I expect a relationship to be built on more than feelings of satisfaction via self-fulfillment. My heart certainly works that way. I can't imagine that I'm alone in that. But if I am, then I will be better off alone in deed.

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    2. Oh, agreed absolutely, but you misunderstand me. You said that they didn't value you because you didn't remain friends. I'm simply saying that's an unreliable metric of anyone's value (yours or theirs). I'm saying don't think the lack of friendship is an indicator of you being damaged goods (which is what your original statement sounded like).

      Apologies for the duplicate posts, btw. The page was giving me no feedback at all as to whether anything was being accepted, so i was trying different browsers and all sorts!

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  6. Thank you for sharing your experiences, thoughts, and feelings. The only thing I want to say is - I hope you will continue to trust your insights. It sounds like you and God are communicating so well, and that you have great clarity about your life.

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  7. A broken heart and a contrite spirit is what I see in your words. And, it is what's required to become sanctified. I have both, too. Over and over again. I feel it makes me close to the pulse of what an authentic life is all about, and I think that is what you are experiencing.
    "Damaged goods" is just another way of expressing it, although with time and age (which I have waaaaaaay above you I am sure) I think you will see clearly how necessary it is to be
    "broken" to have the Spirit so strong in your life. It is a good thing. Truly.

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