I heard long ago that the definition of insanity was repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And boy do I know this well, as sometimes I’ve had to experience a good bit of this before I finally woke up and realized I needed to make a serious change to my life, which is precisely what I recognized needed to happen with my relationship to my partner Chris’s family just recently.
I’ve been with Chris for five years now and spent numerous occasions and a large amount of time with most of his extended family who live nearby. Whether it’s been for birthday parties, holiday get-togethers, summer barbeques, or other various events, I’ve shown up at each of them, always watching the same thing happen time and time again. No one engages me, unless I engage them first. No one talks to me, unless I talk to them first. No one goes out of their way to ask about my life, unless I make it a point to share with them something first. And rarely does anyone ever even make it a point to say hello, unless I say hello to them first.
At first I thought that maybe it was just me or the notion that it would simply take some time for them to warm up to my presence. But as the months turned into years of being with Chris, I began to notice that nothing was changing. Eventually I started to remain silent at each of these get-togethers and observed how I was the only that people seemed to ignore. I watched as everyone else greeted each other and inquired about each other’s lives. I saw interactions that were mutual and connecting, but none ever with me. And even when I made attempts to connect with them, as I did quite often, their time communicating with me usually remained rather short, as if they had no interest in keeping the conversation going. It was even harder dealing with the occasional looks I received from some of them when I showed up, like they were cringing inside having to greet me. Soon I began to believe that the only reason why I was even invited to each of their events was because I was Chris’s partner. In other words, it was only because they had to invite me. And as the years passed, I noticed that even the Christmas cards that came to us were a reminder of my invisibility to them, as most of them had only my first name, because they had never inquired as to what my last name was.
Ultimately, my partner began to notice all these things as well and became frustrated that his family was treating me like this. But after a number of repeated attempts on his part to ask them to make a greater effort to connect with me, nothing really changed. That became overly apparent one day when one of them called and asked where Chris was, not once ever saying hello to me or asking how I was. Yet I kept going back, party after party, event after event, hoping that the next time would be different, except none ever were. I remained feeling alone, unimportant and that I didn’t matter, which only led to reinforcing that which I felt all the time as a kid. This in turn just led to me constantly staring down at my phone or spending time in the bathroom crying by myself at the majority of these family get-togethers, wishing things were different.
In fact, at the last party I attended, I literally stared for a good while at one of the family members who had arrived and sat down right next to me, who I’ve known for all the years I’ve been with Chris, waiting for them to even look over at me and say hello. It wasn’t until I actually said, “Aren’t you even going to say hi?” when they finally acknowledged me and said they were out of it, which was rather ironic because I had just watched them greet a number of others upon their entrance.
I’ve never quite grasped why Chris’s family hasn’t embraced me as part of their own after all these years, when I’ve watched them do just that with other additions to the family. It’s not that I’ve ever done any wrong or harm to any of them, instead, I’ve always done my best to offer them what Christ would, that being unconditional love. But after so many repeated attempts of doing this, always leaving more depressed than when I arrived, repeatedly getting into one argument after another with my partner because of it, and even writing about it a number of times in this blog but never doing anything about it, I finally woke up and saw that I was becoming a great example of the definition of insanity.
That when I came to the conclusion that I needed to practice the principles of Al-Anon, that being to detach with love, and to not go to any of his family get-togethers anymore. I saw how it wasn’t healthy for me to keep doing so, to keep going to events where no one seems to want to get to know me any better and where I feel like I don’t matter.
The final conclusion I came to is that I’d rather spend that time home alone, even if my partner still chose to go. As to do so is loving myself a lot more than I have, and it gives me the opportunity as well to connect a little deeper with the one who has never stopped unconditionally loving me, that being my Higher Power.
But I still hold out hope that maybe one day Chris’s family will start seeing me as family and embrace me as part of their own, all while choosing to get to know me a lot better. Recently, I have begun to see a little of this with his sister and I believe that has a lot to do with her health issues paralleling some of my own, thus connecting the two of our souls a little more on this spiritual journey of life. Nevertheless, I accept the reality that me continuing to show up at each of these family events, expecting to see a different result by the time I leave them, is only making me be a great example of the definition of insanity. That’s why I’m grateful I clearly see this now and am finally choosing to take action…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
