Please Don’t Forget Me!

In the challenging and mundane moments that are parenthood, it’s often hard to remember the times when we were just us. You, Me – Us. Partners! Hours of freedom to do what we like – listening to and responding to our own needs as they transpire. Trips away to paradise- to cities- exploring, playing and just being. Weekends filled with passion- limbs intertwined in every room of the house and him- devoted entirely to me – only me- and looking at me with eyes that so clearly convey that I am the person who brings him the most joy and fulfilment. I am happiness. I am love. I am peace. I am his safe place. Pure contentment. And then I’m not.

Having a child is no doubt the most challenging hurdle that any couple can encounter. I am still coming in for landing twenty months into the journey. I knew parenthood would bring us a myriad of challenges, but I did not prepare myself for facing the fact that I am now number two in his life. Having a daughter to the man you love is a combination of complete joy and satisfaction, mixed with disconnect, loneliness and dubiety.

Perhaps this is just my own experience and my own insecurities, but ever since becoming a mum, I have felt like less of a partner. No, I am not competing with my daughter because I am emotionally mature enough to know that the way he loves me is not the way he loves her. But I can feel that things are different and I am smart enough to know that getting his attention and his complete focus these days requires work, a huge amount of selflessness and some tact. I am smart enough to know that not all relationships last the distance, and that entering the realm of parenthood can make or break a partnership, no matter how solid the foundation.

It’s not easy this motherhood thing. Last night I went out to dinner with my mothers group ladies. I returned home at 11pm tired and depleted because socialising is, well… social. Husband asked me for back scratches (his love language), but I reactively and aggressively rejected him because I was counting down the seconds until my head would hit the pillow and I needed to maximise my sleep for the night in order to be a fully functioning mother from 530am for a full day of intense toddler fun. These days I prioritise myself and unfortunately, the result of that is that I am not as smitten and devoted to my man as I used to be. The flow-on effect? Our relationship suffers. He suffers. Pre baby, I was borderline obsessed with my husband. I was at his beck and call with a sex drive that was literally ‘on-tap’. He used to make my limbs shake. He was a drug. Goosebumps, heart flutters, dripping p*&$y- the works. I would get withdrawals if a certain number of days went by where we did not ‘connect’ and then I would do anything and everything for his attention. As soon as he gave me a hit of his attention and physical touch (my love language), my nervous system calmed down. If he did not give me a hit, my cortisol levels would rise and I would find myself a complete emotional mess.

I am sure my attachment style has a lot to do with my relationship with my own father. These days I am more securely attached, but not by choice. My secure attachment is more to do with the fact that I need a bit less from a man since becoming a mother and I am craving being on my own a lot more these days due to the demands of motherhood. I am also hyper aware of my own journey and why I am who I am as a mother and wife – why I do the things I do. And so I am also reluctant to challenge my husband and beg for his attention when he is so devoted to his own baby girl instead of me. In fact, I actually want this devotion for her. I see the way he adores her. But I am also entirely absorbed by my own feelings because I had him and now I feel like I do not. I notice how he does not hear me when she is engaging him. I notice the empty silence and single word responses when I express my emotions. I notice the days where he does not kiss me goodbye or greet me hello and the times where I am talking to myself and no one is listening. I do not feel heard, held or noticed and I crave all of this so much. I deserve this so much.

I get why relationships – why marriages fail. I get why people cheat. I have ticked off all of the above. One minute you’re entirely devoted, the next minute you’re feeling flat, undesirable and literally craving attention- any attention! Some other person is interested in you and bang! A fire inside you lights up. And so the demise begins.

Dear Husband, please don’t forget me. I adore how you adore your baby girl. It brings me so much pleasure, particularly as I have no memory of my own father adoring me this way. Every little girl craves for her father to be devoted to her and the way that you ravish our girl is exactly as it should be. But me – your wife. I need more. I deserve more. Because I am still the baby girl that was not ravished by her own father. There is a little girl inside me and she is still hurting. She craves to be adored, loved unconditionally, desired and touched. She craves to be the centre of attention and for your eyes to be glazed over as you look at her. Darling husband, please look at me with admiration the same way you used to- before her. I know that you cannot replace what I have not been blessed with prior to our partnership, but I do know that you can cherish my commitment to you better and with more zest and more dedication. I do not need to be pushed aside because you have a new ‘love’. Love me- as I am- with her. Love us together because ultimately, you and me – we ARE her...

…Until Next Time…

H.V.G.

X.O.X.O

Love, Death and Absent Hearts

“A father holds his daughter’s hand for a short while, but he holds her heart forever.” Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas on Pexels.com

I just found out that my father has stage four prostate cancer. Call it intuition, but i’ve had death on my mind recently and a pending sense of doom combined with an urge to spend more time with my mum. Turns out my gut was right but my heart naturally leant towards the person closest to me. Mumma. In the famous words of Buddha himself, “The only thing certain in life is our death”. We all know that we are going to die one day and like many individuals in their late 30’s, I have parents in their seventies, and most of my friends are in the same boat. This means that death pops into my mind occasionally, and I can’t help but fear for the day that my partner and I lose our beloved parents. It’s inevitable, and I guess the only thing we can hope for is that they can pass in peace, relatively pain free and without a long battle.

As parents, we hope that we will pass before our children. If we are blessed enough to grow old and have our children hold our hands through the beautiful journey of ageing, then we can surely call our lives ‘complete’. My heart aches daily for my own mumma who sadly lost both her sons before she even turned 70. My oldest brother Samuel passed away when I was in year 12 at school. He was born quadriplegic spastic and had a trying life drooling from a wheelchair with many many health complications. He passed away when his head became wedged between the mattress of his bed and the safety rails. My other brother Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour at 22. He went on to battle it for sixteen years, finally succumbing to it at 38 – the age I turn in exactly nineteen days.

Finding out my dad has terminal cancer was certainly triggering given the way that my brother exited this world. Watching him go from a thriving thirty something, climbing mountains and exploring the world, to a drooling shell of a human in a wheelchair was the toughest thing our family has endured. It was also sadly familiar given my oldest brother Samuel’s existence. I wouldn’t wish this type of decline upon anyone- even my absent father. The response in my body when my sister told me that my dad was unwell was nothing short of… well… nothing. My response was, “oh, ok. Are you ok?”. Quite frankly I was more concerned with how she had taken it given that her relationship with her father has been a lot more solid than mine. It took me a whole week to process my sister’s words. I kept waiting to feel something. After five full days of telling myself to pick up the damn phone and call him, I was able to call him and ask how he was. You see, my dad and I are not close and so this situation is complex. My emotions are complex. Parents got divorced. Blah Blah… the usual. However, our situation was a little different. My mum- she’s different. She made the divorce with my father the hardest thing in the world for him to endure- and inevitably it was probably unnecessarily hard on us kids too. She may tell herself that what she did was for the greater good and I will always respect my mumma, but now, with a daughter , who’s father is the love of my life, I know that her relationship with him will ultimately shape her. The role that ‘he’ – ‘father’ plays in her life will teach her how men ‘behave’, whether you can trust men, whether she is worthy and loveable and whether she values herself to her core or has to act as though she has something to prove to the world.

Sadly, I am the latter, The absence of my father due to restraining orders, nasty words about him being a sperm donor and being forced to stand up in court when I needed help paying for my uni fees and books may have taught me strength and resilience, but it did not teach me the important things in life. Self love, respect and trust. Sadly, I was taught to fob my dad off if he called me, to demand money for possessions that my mother could not afford to buy, but to not appropriately thank him and to live by the words ‘I do not have a father’. Never mind the complicated relationships with men that I endured as young woman and the years of self work required to trust a man and let him ‘hold’ me. This is life.

Now in my thirties, I realised that I had a father at some stage, but he was forced away from me due to my mum’s own anger and inability to process the failed relationship between her and my father. I believe strongly as a mother myself now that my relationship with my husband does not determine my daughter’s relationship with her dad. Sure, I can work with my husband to demonstrate to my baby girl what a loving relationship looks like. I can encourage him to be a model to her, so that when she is old enough to love a man herself, she chooses her man wisely. However, I will never control their relationship. I will never restrict her father from seeing her, adoring her and trying to make an effort if our own relationship were to fail.

I hold a lot of resentment towards my mum for keeping my father from me. I also hold a lot of resentment towards him for not trying harder. I attempted numerous times in my late twenties and thirties (until now) to give my dad the opportunity to be there- to make an effort. He did not pass with flying colours. There were small snippets of ‘fathering’, like maybe he remembered a birthday or two, but all in all, the damage is done. Earlier this year, I built up the courage to say some hard words to my dad and ask him to have a relationship with my daughter- his granddaughter, because I deeply wish to break the cycle. My relationship with my father should not determine his relationship with his granddaughter. And so when I found out that my father has terminal cancer, and eventually I felt some emotion, I was more pained for my baby girl potentially not knowing her grandfather, and for me – when I was a baby girl – for not having a father. I live from a place of compassion towards my mother and to my father because it wasn’t easy and I am sure they did their best. And as they approach their end years, whether that’s one, two, ten or a miraculous twenty years from now, I simply want peace and love. Death is hard enough as it is, even if it is the only thing in life that we are “sure about”, losing a loved one is no doubt the most difficult and complicated life event that each human has to endure in their life path. The multiple layers that come with estranged relationships makes the process more challenging still.

So my task for now? I am working on establishing peace with my father, given that I do not know how long he will be here. When he goes, I want to be able to tell my baby girl about the care and compassion i gave him. “Did I love him”, she will ask. That answer, I cannot be sure of, but I can certainly tell her that she was loved by him – and all the men in her life.

Until Next time…

xoxo H.V.G

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Home is Where The Heart Is

I speak the truth. I’m not here to tell you that everything will be ok and that love conquers all or that you will move onto bigger and better things. No the grass is not always greener. If you are hurting from love or loss, I’ll tell you right now that there is no end. It hurts. It gets worse, then slightly better and then you find yourself in a heap on the floor crying followed by googling “what are the signs of a mental breakdown”? And unless you’re truly lucky, no one will be there to scrape you up and take you into their arms so that you can embrace your inner child and feel for one moment that things WILL… BE…OK….

This was me three days ago. I just experienced the first anniversary of my brothers passing, followed by my partner retreating for the fourth or fifth time, followed by my second brother’s death anniversary, followed by more retreating from my man and a nervous wreck of a mum to deal with on the side.

My friends? My only remaining sibling – nowhere to be seen aside from a brief text here and there. My friends are far spread. I lost a whole crew when i split with my husband and he started a smear campaign convincing everyone that I had cheated, not that he was a drug addict that had more secrets than Rhonda Byrne’s book about the law of attraction. Yes, I was the bad guy. In a single breath I went from married to sleeping on a couch at my mums with garbage bags of slashed clothing compliments of my husband. Those humans i’ve truly deeply connected with are dispersed over Australia and the world. I have no crew. I have no real ‘bestie’ these days. Then there was this man.. My mate from the gym. The one that made my heart pound for no apparent reason, The one that could make me blush and get erect nippes from the other side of the gym floor. His energy. He made me feel invigorated and i couldn’t shake him. Fast forward a couple of years and I still can’t shake this man – this man whom i now know way more about.

I found myself the other day pondering loss, thinking of my brother and wondering when it will start feeling better. Turns out that the pain of loss never subsides, whether it is the death of a loved one or separation of a partnership, there is no grieving process. Our bodies know. The pain comes when it wants and Grieving has no end It has no rules , structure, beginning or prologue. Welcome to adulthood….Welcome to life.

The first time my significant other split from me was two weeks after my brother passed away. I’m a good person. I’m a lover and I forgive easily. I didn’t blame him for this despite herds of people telling me that what he did to me was amongst the worst behaviour they had ever seen. I still felt that having my one off designer tassel vest by some fancy runway designer destroyed By my ex husband was more of a dog act than this precious man feeling ‘overwhelmed’. I even thought to myself “poor him for having to deal with me in this mess called grief”. The downward spiral that occurred after this, I can barely articulate into written words. He left me. I collected my things in the most brutal way. In one go to the point that I removed every aspect of “me” from his home. I went to my tiny apartment and I hit rock bottom. For two months I bounced between snorting copious amounts of cocaine with my male buddies. I worked night shift by choice – to avoid the existence of normal daytime life (and bumping into him) and I experienced the greatest comedown from benzo’s to the point that i dropped about 4kg and could barely swallow a solid meal. I remember shaking and sweating completely alone in my tiny apartment. I trained and trained and trained at the gym because my body was on this weird adrenaline rush.The compliments I received for my physique were hard to swallow because I knew in my heart of hearts that I hadn’t worked hard to earn this physique. It was as though the nervous energy allowed me to reach my peak fitness. I sweated until i cried and I must’ve burned 1000 calories a day from the nervous shaking that had taken over my body.

I also stalked this man – monitored his instagram and obsessed over made up stories about what was doing and why he didn’t want me. I monitored every social media post even turning up the volume to see if there may be another woman in the background. This man hurt me. He created my rock bottom when I thought losing my brother was meant to be my rock bottom. As a result of this, my grieving for my brother was pushed aside as I became obsessed with trying to win the love of my life back.

As I finally began to move on from this man, I opened myself up to other possibilities. I kept my options open and started speaking to other men. I was convinced that my lover would never come back and that my only option was to move on. So i did. Have you ever tried pretending you like vegan food when really you just want meat? This is how i felt dating. No matter who I connected with, they weren’t good enough. I craved his smell, his laughter, his intensity, even his chest hair. I even met the most wonderful guy – someone who would offer me the world, share all of my desired adventures and probably put a ring on it before I even had the chance to think about it. This man swept me off my feet, loved me, fucked me passionately and wasn’t afraid to scoop me up in a public place, wrap my legs around him and tell me I am beautiful. And yet, I was drawn to the dark one that had hurt me.

After much turmoil and three months alone coming off benzos, becoming a high functioning alcoholic and killing my body at the gym, I decided that there was still something inside of me that told me that my lover was the right one for me. Its like he had some kind of magnetic pull towards me. From the very beginning he was like a drug. Once you had a taste you wanted more – needed more. We started hanging out again and sure as hell the passion was so fucking intense. Slowly, we navigated the past and came to the conclusion that we could give things another go. And so it began. It was a couple of incredible months until again, this beautiful soul began to retreat. Never in my life have I come across a person that comes across so strong, masculine and confident, yet who is overwhelmed to the point of switching off completely at the thought of having a woman that loves him dearly and craves a future. So he broke me again, Ended things abruptly after attending a birthday with me. “Do you want to be with me”, I asked. His answer- a blunt “NO”. And so the spiral started again. THe anger- oh god the anger, I threw tea at him, i swung my arms wildly into his chest because I had trusted this man and really, what the fuck is so hard about spending some quality time with, embracing sexual intimacy and havng someone who is willing to move mountains for you?

I’m not cocky, but I’m a catch. I’m attractive – i’d say i turn heads at times., I keep my body in shape, I have a full zest for life- think sunsets, weekends away, hiking, road trips, wineries,holiday planning, styling the home, producing incredible meals and healthy treats. I work full time as a project manager, have a handful of hobbies and my sex drive, well lets just say i’m peaking. I’m on – always on. Really I should be a man’s dream.

Fast forward to August. Round three- or four if you count the little time that lasted a week where he apologised and came back. After months apart again we decided that If this is to thrive, that I would have to move into his home and give the partnership a real go. Living with him. Great! This is progress. Well I knew i was dating an introvert and since moving in, I have been conscientious to not be in his space. We cook dinner, have a quick chat and I retreat to the bedroom. Fridays are shabbat – sabbath day and i’ve learnt to expect very little from him. Saturdays he works. I do my own thing for the morning and then, well, he avoids me. I have a man who doesn’t answer my calls unless it suits him at the time. Sex- well that’s entirely on his terms. If I attempt to initiate i get told that my appetite is insatiable and to go and deal with it myself. Planning a weekend away – impossible. Future holidays? Impossible.

And so I am here. I am breaking inside. I am slowly learning to turn down my zest and my desires and to accept that he loves me less than i love him (yes he said this). He speaks of a relationship that flows yet I see no flow in restrictive behaviour. How can I flow when I am not free to be me? This explorative, sexual, bubbly and intense lover. I desire flow naturally too, but like a vampire, when i’m in my true energy, feeling happy, energetic and invigorated, he appears threatened and sucks my energy, retreating into himself. The rules are, we hang Sundays. Sex is Sundays and maybe once during the week. It’s on his terms. Everything is on his terms.

I am full of pain and angst and yet I crave this man. I am frozen and yet I still desire in the deepest part of my belly to have a future with him. Is he a narcissist you ask? Maybe. Does he love me? Yes. Does he see a future? I don’t think so. And yet I continue to offer him my everything because lying on his chest and staring into his daisy eyes feels like home. How can I argue with home?

Until Next time…

H.V.G. xo

Numero Uno..Or No?

.. Acing Numero Uno….The ultimate Love journey.

Numero Uno. Number one. In a world where our core desire is to be surrounded by love – to be greeted by our loved ones when we come home, it feels counterintuitive to direct one’s focus inwards rather than to invest it outwardly into our relationships. And rightly so – given that investing all our energy into ourselves and assuming that our relationships will magically unfold is a time bomb waiting to explode into shards of disappointment, unfulfilled desires and unrealistic expectations of what a successful relationship entails. So how does one find a successful balance, when being the opposite – overly invested in our relationships- can quickly become a dangerous and tumultuous journey of dependency and relationship anxiety?

I’ve always been a lover. I grew up dreaming of and believing in romance and soulmates. As a young adolescent, I quickly became fascinated with any novels that were centered around love and intimacy (and sex). I spent most of my teens thinking that each partner was the one i would settle with, followed by a period of sexually fueled single life, followed by meeting ‘the one’ – who turned out to not be the one. When I walked down the aisle on my wedding day, I truly believed that the man I solemnly vowed to love and honour – would be the last man in my life. Little did I know at the time, that I would be in my early 30’s, divorced and battling to understand myself as an individual as well as attempting to find a balance of ‘self’ and ‘relationship’ with a man that on most days feels like he is more into himself than me. Turns out the ‘one’ I married was a scenario of two people that lived and breathed one another to the point that ‘we’ became the norm over ‘you’ and ‘I’. But love is meant to be an obsession – right? He’s meant to be the ying to my yang and fuel me with excitement and entertain me on a daily, isn’t he? And then the stark reality hit. I am the only constant person in my life. I have to put up with ME every day and the relationships in my life are simply added value to the only core stability in my life -myself.

People come and go in life. As the Buddhists so bluntly observe, the only thing certain in life is our death. Therefore, the one continuity in our lives is our self, and as such, loving ourselves is the most crucial thing that we can learn to do. Our journey of self-love is exactly that. It is a life-long journey, and sadly there are many people that travel throughout life that never experience the full experience of self-love, let alone the ability to experience self-love in conjunction with peaceful cohabitation. Our experiences of self-love are so often masked by creating a version of ourselves that we present to the rest of the world. On the surface, we may appear to those observing from the outside that we love ourselves. Hell, you may have even convinced yourself that this image you have created is self-love. Every day, we are exposed to people that create a false image of themselves- someone who is happy, fit, healthy and successful, yet this is merely the art we create for our external world to consume. In addition, this is where the blurred lines between self love, selfishness and having narcissistic tendencies is created, leaving one struggling to find the ultimate balance.

So what about the people that devote their entire lives to caring for other people? You know who I am talking about. This person is so focused on their partner, their children and their friends, that they fail to even take the time to look in the mirror. Some individuals truly believe that love is found by looking externally, rather than inward. I was one of these people and to be honest, some days i resonate with this persona more so than someone who is highly independent and succeeding in looking within for ultimate love in fulfillment. In this state, all of ones energy is directed toward those they love. Without love, I am not worthy or happy or fulfilled. Without people to love, I may as well not exist. If I have no one to love in a romantic sense then I am failing. If I end up alone then I have ultimately failed. They travel through life relying on the care of other individuals and when they experience loss in any form, they feel that they have failed and often spiral into deep depression when that person or those people are no longer.

So how do we begin to find a balance between the love and attention that we invest into ourselves – be true to this and relationships versus the love and attention that we put into ourselves. The answer to this is not so simple. Being ABLE to look after ourselves, that is, to satisfy our own core needs and to practice self care, self development and live life with integrity and whilst meeting another person’s needs is A LOT of work. We are often made to feel guilty for being too ‘selfish’. If a mother wants time out from her child, they are selfish. If we put our own needs before our partners, we often feel guilty. In reality, the true ability to love externally comes from knowing when we need to look after number one – ourselves and how to love ourselves first.

Looking into the eyes of the man I love now, I have finally discovered that investing in our personal growth is often something that is put on the back burner when we become ‘drunk in love’, as Beyonce says. I have been forced to discover myself in the past 24 months and am forever grateful for this journey no matter how much discomfort it has caused. Investing in ourselves is the most difficult thing we can do, but our own journey – the journey of ‘self’ is ultimately the one that matters most.

....Until next time… xox H.V.G