Same Ex, Who Dis?

In honor of Halloween, I'd like to chat a little bit about the masks that some of us wear daily.

I previously spoke about an ex who was just about everything that I‘d asked for. This man checked…almost…all the boxes on my list, causing me to question - if we spend our time focused on checking off boxes for everything that we think we want, what do we do with the extras that we end up with?

We corrupt our own head space, skewing our views of healthy and successful relationships.  I had a conversation with a fellow women’s counselor once about the prevalence of re-dating, both literally and figuratively. We began the discussion because I, at the time, had a 35+ year old client, recently engaged, who had only dated two men in her lifetime. Since the 9^th grade, she’d bounced back and forth between the same two men - one in high school, the other in college, the high school love interest returned in her twenties and they had a child before breaking up and she became engaged to the college boyfriend in her 30s.  When we look at her story it looks like insanity, but only because it’s literal. We figuratively do the exact same thing without a second thought.

According to a 2017 study by SuperDrug, the average person will have sexual intercourse with 7 people in their lifetime. If we then consider how many people we date and never have sex with, consider the likelihood of them all being completely different and not sharing any of the same traits that caused a previous breakup. The concept is difficult to grasp because we can't always pinpoint the reason for our breakups; mostly because we seldom ever take the time to analyze the do's and don’ts of our wants.

I do want a:

God Loving, People Loving

Purpose-Driven
Family-Focused
Self-Aware
Passionate
Encouraging

Mechanically Inclined

Supportive

Black male, 6’1” or taller, aged 35-45

I don’t want:

Someone who doesn’t go to church AND have an active prayer life

Arrogant
Proud & Egotistical
Lazy or happily stagnant

Poor Communicator

Shorter than me

Who hasn’t figured out who he is

These points are the obvious things that can be checked off in boxes, but what can’t be checked off are the spirits we carry and the unhealthy aspects of our character that haunt our relationships.

I will never forget dating a guy who everyone around me thought was amazing until I visited him unexpectedly one afternoon.  I watched him get mad at his 3-year-old for crying, and then spanked his 11-year-old for standing in the driveway playing catch in “his good shoes”.   (It was the height of the summer, by the way.)  He also introduced us to what will forever be referred to as “the mad daddy voice”. 

My daughter was confused and riddled with questions when we left – why can’t babies cry? What are good shoes? How is a kid supposed to play if he only has “good shoes”? Why was he in such a bad mood? Are you going to call him again?

Because let me tell you what I’ve learned - anger is an emotion, true enough, but it is also a spirit, in the same way that poverty is both an economic status and mindset.  This man was making good money – had received a promotion and two raises in the summer that we hung out, but in his mind, his son couldn’t play catch in his “good shoes” because they couldn’t afford new ones.

When he was planning for our presence, he had time to put on the face that he wanted us to see, but when our visit was unexpected, his real face came out.

How many times have you gone from David to Daniel to Eric to Mike thinking they were different people until that one argument or unexpected visit when he forgot to put on face and you realized that you had spent the majority of your dating years re-dating the exact same guy? You hop from one person to the next checking off boxes until you realize it's always the same person...over and over...like

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth