Hey..Don’t talk about my Mom. We’ll go outside!

I believed that idea with all the strength I had…and very proud of it. I used to come to the rescue of women in trouble, even in my addiction. I once stopped my car in Morristown, N.J. as a girl was getting beaten by a guy as his friends watched. I urged her to get in the car and that I could take care of the guy beating her and 1 or 2 of his buddies now moving toward me, but not all of them! (I might have been exaggerating my street fighting skills a tad!) Her response was to implore me to leave and that “she would be alright”. I left shaking my head and wondering why she wouldn’t save herself.

What I didn’t get was that while that was all very nice and noble, I really was coming from a place of superiority…a place of “one up”. My personal relationships with women were in tatters. For the life of me I did not “get” or understand that this relational dissonance had anything to do with my relationship with my mother. I was a protector of women in the external world, but wound up abusing them verbally and emotionally in my private, intimate relationships and “shocked, hurt, confused and betrayed when they said adios. Actually, most times I left first for another relationship.

They often said after, that “I was a great father but lousy husband/partner”. This only further confused me and triggered my defensive posture of anger and my core belief that “you can’t trust women…they’ll always let you down and leave you. They’re calculating and disloyal”.

After 10 years in sobriety my reactive anger was somewhat improved, but nowhere near what I felt it should be…especially in my marriage. I was seeking a solution and read a book by John Lee “Stepping into the Mystery”. There was a paragraph in this book that punched me in the stomach…in my gut I knew it was true, but it challenged everything I had previously internalized about mom…”Until a man can admit to himself that his mother isn’t all sweetness and light, he will carry the witch inside him, refusing to embrace her or to wrestle with her. He will never acknowledge that he not only loves his mother but hates her as well. He will never be whole. If men don’t wrestle with the witch in their mothers, then when the witch in their wives or lovers need confronting, they won’t do it…and the witch will eat him alive. And an easy job she’ll have of it too, because there will be no bones, particularly backbone, for her to break her teeth on”. I instinctively knew this was huge for me and that I needed to address my relationship with my mother. There was something terrifying about this topic…much more so than my father. He seemed easy compared to this journey into the feminine world.

Ann and I went to John’s anger workshop which changed that forever. I was in the middle of doing my work when the facilitator asked me to get angry at my mom. I said I couldn’t do that…”not only was she my mom, but she was dead!”. He asked me to express anger at my ex partners. I immediately let loose with stored anger! He said ‘interesting” (I hate when therapists do that) and suggested that every woman in my life was paying the price for my disowned anger at mom…they were getting it all.

After about an hour of work and prodding, I exploded in anger and rage about my mom…her passivity about my dad’s rages toward me, her emotional distance/disconnection, shaming and criticism. I was stunned at this emotion and further stunned when it led to a ground swell of grief and sobs, as I said for the first time since she died “I miss you and I love you”. This was 33 yrs after her death!

After the exercise, which Ann observed, she told me how relieved she was to see me do this work. She knew my unfinished business with mom often came out on her in anger, frustration, shaming and criticism.

The result of this work was to remove my mother from the pedestal which she neither asked for or deserved. It’s a terrible burden to carry. I could love her as my mom and a woman with great attributes and many flaws as well. I could stop projecting the pseudo “idealized mom” onto Ann and then get angry, shaming, critical when she fell short. I stopped setting her up to fail.

The work then became a dance of intimacy….how do I relate to a flesh and blood woman without the ghost of  “perfect woman” (mom) in my mind? I realized I had projected the “ideal” on mom and mom’s shadow (shaming, critical, cold, withdrawn) on Annie.

As I removed mom from the pedestal and saw her with assets and liabilities; I saw women, particularly Ann, in the same light. I was no longer “little boy” reenacting an immature dependent/disdain dance with Ann that was rooted in my disowned rage at mom. I could stop pulling Ann in and then pushing her away when it got too real/intimate. Waiting for her to leave and then affirming my belief “sure all woman will leave/betray you because they’re cold, calculating and manipulative”.

Our marriage then took on a level of responsibility I had never experienced. I couldn’t blame anyone else. I needed to “plant my flag” and be in the marriage with all of me. For me that meant acknowledging my vulnerabilities particularly, which I had never done.

There was nothing “soft” about this. It took and continues to take the fierce/gentle energy of the Warrior, King and Lover archetypes. Men in the recovery program, as always, supported me on this journey. These were men who would not let me criticize/blame my wife, but always directed me back to my part in whatever conflict we may be having.

To the contrary, in my early recovery I sought the “help” of women. This only brought forward the dark/soft side of my lover, magician, king and warrior archetypes…the dependent/disdainful “adolescent boy” who wanted to seduce all women or get comforted by co-dependent, mothering women. Only men could confer manhood on me through their wisdom, support, identification, trust, love and accountability. The women I chose never held me accountable. When I finally sought out men in recovery, it was both frightening and exhilarating. I instinctively knew the bullshit was over.

The results that I have seen from my own work in this area and other men I have facilitated is miraculous. There is a burden of isolation, anger and grief that is lifted and replaced with a sense of lightness and freedom. I realized Ann was not the problem…nor was I.