Your math checks out. I totally fell for the self-loathing man, and he ended up resenting me. I had everything he’d wanted growing up (like stable parents) and I fully volunteered to share all of what I had, hoping to transfer the confidence that comes with unconditional love to him, hoping to scaffold his success, hoping to benefit from the feedback loop of being a faithful wife. The problem with a self-loathing man is he is self-destructive. This one didn’t drink or do drugs, but he was a compulsive debtor—very destructive. It felt like being married to an addict. Now he’s a deadbeat dad. I don’t know his address. I want to include this article in my daughters’ curriculum.
Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful comment! I totally can empathize with you and your past relationship experience and I’m sorry you’ve gone through this. And you’re right - I think addiction definitely plays a role in the overall archetype of the self-loathing man. Also, so honored that you’d want your daughters to read my piece!! Thank you so much, i hope they can take away some good from it and hopefully avoid the painful experience that is being with a man like that x x
Hmmm I hope not ! Tbh I didn’t know there were poets posting on Facebook!! Definitely similar, but I guess the writer and I have similar feelings about self-loathing and love (so maybe my take is really not so unique !)
I’ve been thinking about this bit of the poem for a few days now, and I now think I get it (ie, finally caught up to your good-At-inferring brain). Yes—it’s almost like one person is the ledge and the other is afraid of nearing THAT rather than the experience that comes after stepping off it and going down into the crevasse. Because the ledge person is also the rocky sediment that makes up the entire cliff and is also the crevasse underneath. And the other maybe realizes that they are those things too, which is why they’re less afraid of that than they are the ledge
(It’s early in Edinburgh and I’ve yet to have coffee so this could make no sense). Anyway, thank you for reading and sending this along, I love you dad!! X x
The ledge could be another person, but also can be the border of our own experiences and hopes that, once approached, allows a view of imagined or real possibilities for our self-defined successes or failures. The ledge calls us to act differently, but frightens us because it means leaving behind what we know (or think we do), with no guarantee of happiness.
To be annoying (and use that French philosophy degree you so kindly encouraged me to do): re the ledge — one must imagine Sisyphus happy, so I suppose we can take that ol mothball of a Camus theory and apply it to the ledge and the leap we take off it. No guarantee of happiness but we must imagine that there will be happiness waiting for us when we do the hard thing and step off that ledge
I think David Foster Wallace said something like “there’s a lot of narcissism in self hatred”
God isn’t that the truth. When DFW says something he usually gets it right, doesn’t he
Bro what did Trainspotting do to you
Lmaooo I rewatched the other day and just love Ewan what can I say it’s a beautiful film so it’s been on my mind no hate no shade all love x x
This is fantastic: “…and somewhere along the way she began to believe that being wanted for her empathy was just as good as being wanted for herself.”
Thank you so so much for saying that!! This is so kind of you - I’m so happy the line could resonate with you x x
Your math checks out. I totally fell for the self-loathing man, and he ended up resenting me. I had everything he’d wanted growing up (like stable parents) and I fully volunteered to share all of what I had, hoping to transfer the confidence that comes with unconditional love to him, hoping to scaffold his success, hoping to benefit from the feedback loop of being a faithful wife. The problem with a self-loathing man is he is self-destructive. This one didn’t drink or do drugs, but he was a compulsive debtor—very destructive. It felt like being married to an addict. Now he’s a deadbeat dad. I don’t know his address. I want to include this article in my daughters’ curriculum.
Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful comment! I totally can empathize with you and your past relationship experience and I’m sorry you’ve gone through this. And you’re right - I think addiction definitely plays a role in the overall archetype of the self-loathing man. Also, so honored that you’d want your daughters to read my piece!! Thank you so much, i hope they can take away some good from it and hopefully avoid the painful experience that is being with a man like that x x
Whoa! Does this Facebook post steal your words? https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AJBXqUo9G/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Hmmm I hope not ! Tbh I didn’t know there were poets posting on Facebook!! Definitely similar, but I guess the writer and I have similar feelings about self-loathing and love (so maybe my take is really not so unique !)
Omg will need to read the book!
I’ll send you a copy asap hahah !!!
omg pls!
Fear plays a significant role, no doubt.
Your ending reminds me of the end of AE Stallings's Fear of Happiness:
.....You can call
It a fear of heights, a horror of the deep;
But it isn’t the unfathomable fall
That makes me giddy, makes my stomach lurch,
It’s that the ledge itself invents the leap.
I’ve been thinking about this bit of the poem for a few days now, and I now think I get it (ie, finally caught up to your good-At-inferring brain). Yes—it’s almost like one person is the ledge and the other is afraid of nearing THAT rather than the experience that comes after stepping off it and going down into the crevasse. Because the ledge person is also the rocky sediment that makes up the entire cliff and is also the crevasse underneath. And the other maybe realizes that they are those things too, which is why they’re less afraid of that than they are the ledge
(It’s early in Edinburgh and I’ve yet to have coffee so this could make no sense). Anyway, thank you for reading and sending this along, I love you dad!! X x
The ledge could be another person, but also can be the border of our own experiences and hopes that, once approached, allows a view of imagined or real possibilities for our self-defined successes or failures. The ledge calls us to act differently, but frightens us because it means leaving behind what we know (or think we do), with no guarantee of happiness.
Yes… excellent point as per !
To be annoying (and use that French philosophy degree you so kindly encouraged me to do): re the ledge — one must imagine Sisyphus happy, so I suppose we can take that ol mothball of a Camus theory and apply it to the ledge and the leap we take off it. No guarantee of happiness but we must imagine that there will be happiness waiting for us when we do the hard thing and step off that ledge