Dating Land Mines and Bizarro

I am concurrently reading two Brene Brown books Daring Greatly  and I thought it was just me ~ but it isn't.   Brene Brown has her PhD in the areas of shame and vulnerability.  One I am reading for a women's book club I'm in, and the other is for a 10 week "vulnerability class" I'm taking.  Being Mormon and not holding my marriage and family together,  I am working through a ton of shame. And if I want to embark on a new relationship I have to put all the hurt behind me, tear down any remnants of walls around my heart and be utterly vulnerable to a man. The end of this article looks at the Latin origins of the word VULNERABLE and it turns out, that we've gotten the word Vulnerability wrong all this time in our language!  No wonder we fail at finding and keeping love! 

 I'm a strong woman capable of living on my own.  I enjoy it.  One of the most frequent comments aside from what a beautiful family I have is "you are so brave and strong".  I've educated five children completely at home and helped them become accomplished athletes.  I am also licensed to deliver babies born at home.

When my former husband had a public and humiliating affair, I took the children and a U-Haul trailer 2000 miles to Utah to give everyone some space (and maybe run from my problems).  This takes a fair amount of strength and resilience.  But if I really hear the feedback coming out of my marriage as it dies,  maybe I lost my marriage and family in the process of being strong.  Maybe I need to tease out and hold onto the resilience piece and abandon some of the strong piece.  They are not quite the same.  I'm exploring the ways that these maternal strengths may have hindered me in intimacy.  The former husband has actually described me as pushing him away.  I've got to take a look at this.


I have not yet begun round two of dating.  I'm not sure what is holding me up.  All I'm clear on is that it is not quite time to step back out there.  To recap, in December and January I had four dates with four men.  One culminating into a late night meet the following evening to exchange baked goods before Christmas and and maybe go in for that quick kiss we avoided on the first date.  I guess it was like a mini "re-do" on ending the first date.  This is my first foray into dating Mormons (I converted to the faith after my marriage so I've technically never dated a Mormon man before).  Our kiss was textbook Mormon-esque.  Just a peck.  Maybe two... or three....  Lips firmly closed... No big deal, right?  Sure, except I parted thinking about it so much that I drove about a quarter mile home in the dark with my headlights turned off.

It left me feeling like..."Yep! There is something to the Mormon business of chastity."  I'm excited to parent teens embarking on dating having experienced both avenues of dating.   One can experience a simple kiss and have it consume your thoughts as much or more as if it had been way over the top involved.

But this article is more about the multitude of ways that many of us push others away in intimacy. This man turned into Caspar the Ghost just days following the intense encounter - either due to total lack of interest or due to his integrity and understanding that my marriage was not legally terminated yet.  I'd like to think the latter, but in reality, it's probably the former.  I like to live in denial that maybe he's just encased in cement in Jabba the Hut's lair like Han Solo.  Or maybe in dating he carefully constructs a mine field that no one can pass and come too close.

After all, who wouldn't want to just leap into life with a woman with FIVE kids including a toddler, whose divorce isn't quite finalized?  In some of the craziest moments inside my home where we've had several consecutive days of sports, the house looks like Bali after the tsunami and my toddler is in his season of screaming, I'll say to one of my married girlfriends, "Who wouldn't want to partake in all of this?!?"  "Take care of your marriages, ladies!!"  I'll say in a group text.

I'll review here some of the microscopic but significant things that went down to self-sabotage the endeavor before it even got off the ground.  Because next time around, I'd like to not lay a mine field  between the next great man and my heart ~ nor do I care to step along his carefully laid booby-traps, land mines and barbed wire on the path to his heart.

I'd like to be vulnerable and be a magnet for someone equally as sophisticated in the art of vulnerability.  If I lay land mines, I'll consequently attract someone who also lives in his own sabotaging minefields.

Let me share with you some of the detonated WWII-type mines I carefully placed.

1.  I might or might not have said more than once in person and via text "I imagine it will take me at least  2 or 3 years to find a committed relationship with someone." 

2. "I have to get my toddler out of diapers before I find a committed relationship."  Yep, I actually said that out loud.

3. My personal favorite commitment-phobe self-sabotage remark... "I can't imagine folding a man into my crazy life anytime soon."  

Now I've given up trucker talk unless I have a lapse and feel really emotional.  (Last week, I watched "the other woman" change her Facebook cover photo to her wearing my clothes and snuggling with my dogs.  So I may have used some expletives that day and if I were still Catholic, would be sitting in a booth with a priest.  Mormons just privately repent over and over and over and over...again.  I also scheduled counseling for some coping tools.)

But I just re-read #1-3 of what I typed - that which I actually said on my date.  And maybe via text - not to the men I didn't expect to see again...BUT TO THE MAN I DEFINITELY WANTED TO SEE A LOT MORE OF.  And I'm now saying... WTF?



I have issues.  I need an intervention.  I must morph into that DC Character, BIZARRO (click here for a reminder) where, when stakes are high, I communicate directly the opposite of what might actually be rolling through my brain requiring a translation.  I loved those episodes of Superman when Bizarro showed up.  Now I understand why.

Wait! It gets better!  If you subscribe to the notion that like attracts like, I may have attracted someone who does the same exact thing in regards to self-sabotage!  Here are a few mines he laid out for me to fall on....

1.  As he chose to extend the first date by an hour or so and talk...He says "I think I'm planning on traveling for an extended period to Europe sometime in the next year or so and maybe live there for a while."   In my mind I said "AWESOME! So why did we make this first date go longer and why does your online profile suggest you are interested in marriage?"  What came out of my mouth was a total support for this plan and suggestions he get a Eurail pass.

2. and 3. and 4 and 5.  all kind of go together and are paraphrased "I'm still wounded from my last long term relationship and am looking for just friendship.  We should go camping sometime. How far do you think we can get if we spend the night together?  I don't have physical relations before marriage. I want to get married sooner not later and you can't move fast enough for me as you are just coming out of your marriage.".

Again, a "WTF" moment in time and space.  With this, I'm like...OK enough confusing messages here that maybe it's just me, my crazy life, and he's obviously not remotely interested in exploring it further.  Or he's suffering from the same plague I have living on the square planet Bizarro occupies.

Either way, this is definitely NOT going to work.  Not at all!

I am learning that for me, I morph onto BIZARRO when I feel most vulnerable.  If one looks at the definition our culture gives to the word VULNERABLE...we associate it with" weak, impotent, open for attack, powerless".  No wonder strong alpha men don't want anything to do with that!

But if we consider the actual root meaning of the word and it's origins in ancient history....it originates from Latin BATTLE language and most closely means "open to attack", "difficult to defend" "bridge".  Even the most highly guarded defendable fortresses in medieval society had to have an entrance for food and survival.  Now this is the kind of vulnerability - just a footbridge toward my heart -  I can live with in search of love.  I imagine when we pick apart the word VULNERABLE in military terms this way, some men would see being vulnerable not as weakness, but a necessary part of the war of finding love as well.

When Bizarro shows up on my dates, that's probably a clue that I really like someone, but also a CUE for me to just STOP talking.  A little silence never hurt anyone.  But ultimately, Bizarro needs to understand that although he means well by protecting my heart, he's no longer invited to the party.

{Other clues I am pushing a man away...talking incessantly about my gluten-intolerance. That should be reserved for my closest friends who already love me unconditionally.}

Ciao!