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Monogamy Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Missing a Hashtag

Chris Messina, the self-proclaimed inventor of the hashtag and advocate for open-web initiatives, has written an article for CNN about why he chooses non-monogamy.

I respect his beliefs. People should be free to love who they want to love. I’m also a happily married, old-fashioned romantic who wonders if people have stopped trying.

Mood music:

Messina writes about being a child of divorce and having had the notion of “happily ever after” monogamy shoved down his throat. He tells us how monogamy established itself thousands of years ago, when society was ruled by scarcity and resources and potential mates were in limited supply, but that:

We’re now living in a period of great (though unequally distributed) abundance where our basic needs are sufficiently met, and reproduction is a choice. As a result, the reasons to be with a single mate for life are less urgent. And with the advent of connected mobile devices and the internet, we’ve entered into the era I’ve dubbed Big Dating. Big Dating unbundles monogamy and sex. It offers to maximize episodes of intimacy while minimizing the risk of rejection or FOMO.

He goes out of his way to reassure those of us who still believe in striving for monogamy:

But fear not: just because a viable alternative to “happily ever after” is in ascendancy doesn’t mean monogamy is irrelevant. To the contrary, it just means that there’s now more than one option for building meaningful and satisfying relationships.

Fair enough. He’s entitled to his point of view. But it all sounds too easy to me. It takes the work out of relationships. And that work is important.

Striving for a relationship where two people are committed to each other was never about achieving the happily ever after. It’s about two people challenging each other. It’s about building something lasting. It’s about facing difficulties and coming out stronger. It’s about casting aside selfishness.

It doesn’t always work. I’m the child of divorced parents, too. I’ve seen a lot of couples destroy each other instead of strengthening one another. Love is hard, and I can see why it puts people like Messina off the idea of monogamy.

But to me, monogamy is still worth the effort. Would I feel differently if I weren’t happily married? Perhaps. But I doubt it.

Messina can have his open relationships. I’ll stick with my one romance.

#LOVE

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Human Tourniquets And Freaks Who Love Them

I originally wrote this three years ago. Looking at it again, it’s an important post describing a time when not even best friends were safe from my insanity. I’ve updated it for the present. 

Mood music:

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You know the type. They hang  out with people who act more like abusive spouses than friends. They are human tourniquets. They absorb the pain of their tormentor daily and without complaint.

This is the story of the man who used to be my tourniquet.

I met Aaron Lewis in 1985, my freshman year of high school. He was the kid with really bad acne. But nothing ever seemed to bother him. I’m sure a lot of things bothered him, but he was very good at hiding his feelings.

That made him the perfect target for a creep like me.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a true friend. One of my best friends. We shared a love of heavy metal. We both got picked on, though unlike me, he didn’t take it out on other, weaker classmates.

We hung out constantly. He practically lived in my Revere basement at times. I let him borrow my car regularly. And if I drank, that was OK, because he almost never drank. He could be the driver.

Except for the time I encouraged him to drink a bottle of vodka. He had just eaten a bag of McDonald’s and I told him I was sick of him trying to get buzzed off of wine coolers. This night, I told him, he was going to do it right. He got smashed, and proceeded to puke all over my basement — on the bed, the carpets, the couch, the dresser. That was some strange vomit. It looked like brown confetti.

I sat on the floor, drunk myself, writing in my journal. I wrote about how drunk Aaron was and prayed to God that he wouldn’t die. Man, would I love to find that journal.

We saw a lot of movies together. We watched a lot of MTV.

He was the perfect counterweight to Sean Marley. Marley was essentially my older brother and I spent a lot of time trying to earn his approval. I didn’t have to do that with Aaron. He didn’t criticize. He didn’t judge. He just took all my mood swings on the chin.

I would sling verbal bombs at him and he’d take it.

I would slap him on the back of the neck and he’d take it.

I was evil. And he took it.

That’s a true friend.

Aaron got married, moved to California and has a growing family. He’s doing some wonderful things with his life. I cleaned up from my compulsive binge eating, found my Faith and untangled the coarse, jagged wiring in my brain that eventually became an OCD diagnosis.

If he’s reading this, I apologize for all the times I was an asshole. I hope somewhere in there, I was a good friend, too.

Buddies
Left: Aaron Lewis. Right: His asshole friend
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Why I Skipped #ShmooCon — Again

Like last year, a lot of people have asked me why I’m not at the ShmooCon security conference in Washington D.C. After all, it is one of my favorite events.

Mood music:

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Simply put, it’s too close to the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco the week after next. Being away from home for multiple days for two weeks inside a month is simply more than my family can handle these days. Last year that realization was painful and I felt a deep sense of loss. The folks who attend ShmooCon have become cherished friends and I hate missing opportunities to see them.

But this year I don’t feel the sense of loss. For once thing, I’ll see many friends at RSA. And, this past year I’ve learned a lot about making choices, sticking with what my gut tells me to do and not being all pissy pants about it. I’ve spent a lot of time this year learning to accept that I can’t do everything I want.

Ever since I shook myself free of the fear and anxiety that came with my earlier form of OCD, I’ve had a craving for these journeys, perhaps for the simple reason that I can go through an airport and onto a plane without feeling like nails are being hammered into my intestines.

I think there’s also a high I get from going to a security show and kicking ass with my writing. Writing conference stories used to leave me harried. No more.

But that liberation has come at a cost. Specifically, since the OCD still runs hot from time to time, I have a problem with balancing my professional cravings with life at home.

I started to figure it out at the RSA conference in San Francisco a couple years ago.

Something went very wrong on that trip. Professionally everything was fine. But below the surface a personal crisis was brewing. If you look at my OCD Diary posts from that week, you could see me coming unhinged. I wrote about discomfort I felt as everyone told me what an honest guy I am because I’m not always so honest. In fact, that week a lie was eating away at my conscience.

I came home to a wife who was understandably angry with me. I was also sick as a dog, burning with fever. We worked through it, but it woke me up to the fact that I can’t do it all, 24 hours a day like I sometimes want to.

I needed to find the middle speed, which is hard as hell when you have an obsessive-compulsive mind and an addiction or four to keep in check.

I re-realized that I had to be truer to my top priorities: God, my wife and children. I can’t stop doing all the things I do. My life has evolved this way because, I think, I’m meant to give a part of myself to helping others. At the very least, it’s payment for the second chance God gave me.

But, to use corporate business-speak, I need to do it smarter, and be willing to drop it altogether for family. That’s one of the truly sick things about OCD: You know who and what you should be paying attention to, but the mental pull still drags you to less-important things that seem awfully important at the time.

That’s my blessing and my curse.

Last year, ShmooCon coincided with Duncan’s first confession, a very important event in the life of a young Christian. There was no way I would miss that. Not even for ShmooCon. Being Sean and Duncan’s dad and Erin’s husband comes first.

Next week I’ll take vacation and be with the family. Then I’ll go to RSA, kick some ass and enjoy the company of friends.

I feel pretty good about my strategy.

Meantime, I wish all my friends at ShmooCon a fantastic weekend. Bruce and Heidi Potter always put on an awesome event, and a lot of the talks are video recorded, so I know I’ll still get to lap up the content eventually.

Onward and upward.

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14 Years, and She Still Turns My Heart to Jelly

You would think that after 14 years of marriage, I’d get over that gushy feeling you walk around with when you first fall in love. But the truth is that I still get that way. All the time. Because I know how blessed I am to have Erin as my wife.

Mood music:

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Everything about her makes me that way. Her hair. Her smell. Her relentless drive to do right by God. She’s my best friend, lover and guiding light.

Like any marriage, we’ve had our issues over time. I’m not the guy I used to be. Not even close. She’s not the same person I married, either. But as the priest said at our wedding on Aug. 1, 1998: “You marry the person you think you know, then spend the rest of your lives getting to know each other.”

A big Rocky fan, this priest was. And he quoted the Italian Stallion in the wedding homily. In the first Rocky movie, the boxer starts dating a quiet, shy, plain-looking girl named Adrien. Rocky’s best friend is Adrien’s brother, Pauly, who asks Rocky what he sees in her. Rocky explains, “Because she has gaps! She’s got gaps and I got gaps, and between the two of us, our gaps meet and we sort of fill each other in.”

It doesn’t always work out that way. I have friends who had seemingly unshakable marriages that crumbled in the end. These divorces have scared us, because they show how easily a marriage can fall apart.

It’s also true that as couples get older, communication gets harder. You get comfortable and set in a routine. And once children enter the picture, there’s precious little time to focus on each other.

Some married couples stop talking about these things and drift apart. Erin and I decided several months back to face the issue head on. Not because we’re mad at each other, because we’re not. Ours is not a marriage in trouble. But we know that when a couple stops communicating long enough, the relationship can deteriorate. Since we love each other, we’re not going to let that happen. Pure and simple.

We’re accepting that as we get older, we need more maintenance. That goes for how we talk to each other and how we connect on a spiritual level.

In some ways, those gaps Rocky spoke of grew wider over the years, and we’re just now getting the hang of filling in each other’s gaps.

That’s OK, though. Everything happens by God’s timetable.

This past year has been a lot of work. I’ve been trying to break down my wall with everything I have. I’ve knocked a lot of bricks loose, but new bricks seem to grow in over time.  Meantime, Erin has been giving her all to confront her own issues. Some might see that as too much to take, but not me. There have been a lot of beautiful moments in the journey. In many ways, I feel like we’ve reconnected in ways we haven’t seen in a very long time.

The work will never be done, and that’s fine with me. Because it’s a labor of love.

Happy anniversary, Honey.

Hands in a Heart

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Celebrating Erin

Today is Erin’s birthday, and it feels like a national holiday to me. My life is crammed with blessings because of her, so it’s perfectly appropriate to celebrate her life this way.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:4L8oqhumLHOrIVVKJKBk7r]

A few things you should know about Erin:

She’s the best mom on the planet. Our two boys have hearts and minds of gold. Their faces are always buried in books, they pray to God daily and spread joy everywhere they go. If you think they got that from me, you’re out of your mind.

While many people stay in jobs that make them unhappy because they fear change, she took the dive, started her own business and made it a success in less than two years. That should inspire anyone who labors under the delusion that they can’t do better.

She turned the Brenner house into a green zone. No paper napkins or chemical-laced cleaning agents around here. It’s all cloth napkins and organic cleaners. She’s teaching the kids to respect their planet and treat it as the God-given gift that it is. Her efforts have even rubbed off on me, and that’s no easy feat. I grew up on Revere Beach before they built the water treatment plant and restored the coastline to its pristine glory. Home to me included trash in the sand and slime in the water. You get used to living that way, and change comes slowly.

She’s a tireless servant of The Lord. Everything she does is based on her Faith. Being kind to the planet because God gave it to us. Raising kids to do the same, and bringing her husband closer to God.

We’re getting older and have more wrinkles and gray hair than we used to have.

That’s a gift, too.

I have the perfect soul mate to grow old with. What more could anyone ask for?

Happy Birthday, Sweetie. 🙂

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Fatherhood Saved Ozzy, Eddie & Me

Yesterday I watched the “God Bless Ozzy Osbourne” documentary, which focused heavily on how his addictions maimed him and his family over four decades. Though my addictive behavior pales by comparison, it still struck a chord.

Mood music:

[spotify:track:6xb9RiyqpDXWF4wUYPDwI2]

What hit me deepest is how Ozzy finally decided to get real sobriety after his son Jack had kicked drugs and alcohol. It took his son to show him the light.

There’s a similar plot in the recent comeback of Van Halen. Armed with the knowledge that he’d be able to make music with his son if he cleaned up, Edward Van Halen finally got sober a few years ago.

The son showing dad the light theme is an old one. It’s the whole “Luke Skywalker helping Darth Vader find his good side again” story. Only in the real life examples, the fathers get to live after having their epiphany.

In the documentary, we see Ozzy changing into a different, crazy person who continuously brings heartbreak to his family — especially his children. The daughter from his first marriage is asked point-blank if he was a good Dad. Her answer is a simple “No.” We learn — though it’s not really a surprise, given how incoherent he was in all the episodes — how his alcoholism was at its worst during the run of “The Osbournes” and how his youngest kids started using in that period. Finally, we see his son Jack deciding to clean up, inspiring his father to do the same.

Like I said, my addictive personality didn’t come close to the levels of Ozzy Osbourne or Edward Van Halen. But it was bad enough that I can relate to things like being useless on the couch when my kids needed me. I was never that way all the time, and I’ve been a pretty active Dad more often than not. But I am guilty of those bad moments.

But what I relate to most is how it took becoming a parent to drive home the need for me to be a better man and reign in my demons — the OCD and addictive behavior    that was a byproduct of constant fear, anxiety and exhaustion.

It wasn’t an instant thing — Sean was almost 4 and Duncan was was barely 2 when I realized things were not right in my head — but the cattle prod was definitely my hunger to be a better parent.

So yeah, I have to say I’m inspired by these rock n’ roll stories.

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The Monkey Will ALWAYS Be On Your Back

I’m standing at a bar in Boston with my wife and stepmom. They order wine and I order coffee. My stepmom beams and says something about how awesome it is that I beat my demons.

I appreciate the pride and the sentiment. But it’s also dangerous when someone tells a recovering addict that they’ve pulled the monkey off their back for good.

Mood music:

Here’s the thing about that monkey: You can smack him around, bloody him up and knock him out. But that little fucker is like Michael Myers from the Halloween movies. He won’t die.

Sometimes you can keep him knocked out for a long time, even years. But he always wakes up, ready to kick your ass right back to the compulsive habits that nearly destroyed you before.

That may sound a little dramatic. But it’s the truth, and recovering addicts can never be reminded of this enough.

Dr. Drew had a good segment on the subject last year, when he interviewed Nikki Sixx:

Sixx talked about his addictions and how he always has to be on guard. Dr. Drew followed that up with a line that rings so true: “Your disease is doing push ups right now.”

So painfully true.

I know that as a binge-eating addict following the 12 Steps of Recovery, I can relapse any second. That’s why I have to work my program every day.

But Sixx makes another point I can relate to: Even though he’s been sober for so many years, he still gets absorbed in addictive behavior all the time. The difference is that he gives in to the addiction of being creative. He’s just released his second book and second album with Sixx A.M. Motley Crue still tours and makes new music. He has four kids, a clothing line and so on. He’s always doing something.

I get the same way with my writing. That’s why I write something every day, whether it’s here or for the day job. I’m like a shark, either swimming or drowning. By extension, though I’ve learned to manage the most destructive elements of my OCD,I still let it run a little hot at times — sometimes on purpose. If it fuels creativity and what I create is useful to a few people, it’s worth it.

The danger is that I’ll slip my foot off the middle speed and let the creative urge overshadow things that are more important. I still fall prey to that habit.

And though it’s been well over three years since my last extended binge, my sobriety and abstinence has not been perfect. There have been times where I’ve gotten sloppy, realized it, and pulled back.

But the occasional sloppiness and full-on relapse will always be separated by a paper-thin wall.

I’ll have to keep aware of that until the day I die.

The monkey isn’t going anywhere. My job is to keep him tame most of the time.

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Strong Too Long, Or Weak Too Often?

There’s a saying on Facebook that depression isn’t a sign of weakness, but simply the result of being strong for too long. Somewhat true — though weakness does feed the beast.

Mood music:

I’m feeling it this morning.

I’ve always taken a certain level of satisfaction from my ability to stay standing in the face of death, illness, family dysfunction, depression and addiction. Sometimes, I get an over-inflated sense of survivor’s pride.

People love to tell you how awesome you are when you emerge from adversity stronger than before. The victor is placed on a 10-foot pedestal and life looks hunky-dory from up there. But it’s only a matter of time before the person on top loses balance and crashes to the ground.

I’ve fallen from that pedestal a bunch of times, and my ass is really starting to hurt from all those slips off the edge.

All this has me asking the question: How much can you blame depression on being strong too long when many times it comes back because the victim has been weak?

I don’t think there’s a precise answer. I only know this: I feel like I’ve been trying like a motherfucker to be strong 24-7. But I don’t seem to have the fortitude to maintain it, and I give in to weakness.

In the past, that weakness would involve indulging in food, alcohol and tobacco until I was too sick to function.

Today, the weakness involves getting angry and self-defensive and distant at the drop of a hat.

For all the progress I’ve made in managing my OCD, there are still moments where I go weak, put the blinders on and do some stupid things.

It’s the compulsion to keep staring at the laptop screen when one or both kids need me to look up and give them some attention.

It’s stopping in the middle of a conversation with my wife because the cellphone is ringing or someone has pinged me online.

It’s spending too much money on food and entertainment for the kids because it’s easier to me at the time than  cooking the food myself and playing a board game with them instead.

I’ve been working double-time at bringing my compulsive tendencies to heel, going through some intensified therapy. The short-term result is that I’m an angrier person than I normally am.

My therapist made note of that anger at our last meeting. The trigger in the room was him taking me back to my younger years in search of clues to present-day debacles. I thought I was done with sessions like that five years ago.

But I’m learning that the road to mental wellness is not linear. It goes in a circle. It’s like driving to the same place every day for work. The drive to work and back is a loop of the same landmarks, the same traffic patterns and the same behind-the-wheel thinking sessions.

I’m learning that managing my issues is going to involve frequent trips back and forth from the past to the present. This pisses me off. But I know I have to keep at it.

I guess I’ll always have my weak moments because of the events that shaped me.  But you can still be strong throughout it, learning to regain your footing more quickly  and being better at the kind of discussion with loved ones that prevents endless miscommunication from adding up to a mountain of pain.

I don’t know when I’ll truly reach that level of strength. But for now I’m leaning hard on all my coping tools, including the music and the praying.

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When The Going Gets Tough, I Disconnect

I’m leaving my weekly therapy sessions with a headache these days, because I’m working through another deeply embedded flaw in my soul.

Mood music:

http://youtu.be/louQ7s1ZkGU

It’s not nearly as bad as the therapy I had in 2004-2006, when I had to endlessly churn the sewage of my childhood memories in search of clues on what was wrong with me and how I got that way. Back then, I didn’t know myself very well. Now I do.

Knowing myself as I do, I’ve started to zero in on the ongoing flaws that hold me back and hurt loved ones. That apparently requires a few more trips to the sewer.

I’ll give you a fuller account further along in this process. For now, let’s just say I have a wall I tend to hide behind when the going gets tough. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if not for the fact that life is ALWAYS tough. Not just for me, but for everyone. We all have our Crosses to carry and difficulties to endure. In my case, it’s a lot harder with a wall in the way.

So here we are again. Back in the mental sewer. I know my way around now, but the stench can still be too much to take.

The first question from the therapist was if I had talked to my mother lately. No, I told him. I thought Mom and I were making progress in December, but she couldn’t handle this blog and went off the deep end. I won’t defend myself. She’s entitled to her point of view. But let’s just say I was hoping to be writing posts by now about how we were reconciling.

So no, I told him. We’re not talking.

Then he asked about how I handled my brother’s death when I was 13. I told him I pretty much disconnected from the world. Same thing after my best friend killed himself in 1996.

“You’re starting to see the pattern?” the therapist asked.

Yeah. When the going gets tough, I disconnect. The bigger events caused that self-defense mechanism to take root all those years ago. But it kicks in during life’s more routine challenges. And when the wall goes up, my anger level kicks up a few decibels. I don’t do what I did in my teens and 20s: Throwing furniture through walls and plotting endless ways to find those who hurt me so I could hurt them back.

I’m not THAT guy anymore. But I do still get angry. When I do, I turn in on myself and brood.

But I knew that already.

Now the question is, what to I do about it?

I love my life now, and I’m blessed beyond measure. But the better my life gets, the more of an eyesore the wall becomes. It’s got to go.

My therapist has seen this stuff before. He knows the wall is rooted in the memory sewer.

So I guess I’ll be here for awhile longer.

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Guilt Chestnut Number 5: ‘You Never Call’

In a dysfunctional family few are without blame for the things that go wrong. But there’s one criticism I’ve heard time and again that makes me bristle:

“You never call.”

Mood music:

It’s not just that I don’t call the person who says that. It’s that I don’t call a lot of people. I’ve never been a fan of the phone. I always feel awkward on the phone, especially when there are pockets of dead air. I feel pressure to keep the conversation going, and it all goes downhill from there.

Thanks to modern technology, I touch base with family more than I ever did before. I do it with Android texts. I do it with Facebook. To a lesser extent, I do it with email.

But sometimes the folks I’m reaching out to don’t return fire.

I tried using Facebook to communicate more with my mother, but she unfriended me. She found this blog and it pissed her off.

I tried using it to connect with an aunt I haven’t talked to in awhile. She blocked me.

I’d chalk it up to these people not being ready for Internet communications, except that they do it fine with everyone else.

I figure if I phoned, the reception would be about as icy. But like I said, the phone makes me feel awkward. Ironic, since I’ve made my living at journalism for 18 years.

But here’s the meat of the problem:

I’ve had people bitch that I don’t call this relative or that relative to check on them and let them know I care. But the very people I’m scolded for not calling don’t call me, either.

When my relationship with my mother imploded five and a half years ago, a few family members were left confused and angry that me, Erin and the kids had disappeared from family birthday parties and the like.

They talked about it to a lot of people. But no one ever called me for my side of the story. They just made assumptions.

That’s why, when someone tries to make me feel guilty by telling me I never call people, my first impulse is shrug and roll my eyes. Trying to guilt me is bad enough. Do it with hypocrisy and you’re even more certain not to get the response you want from me.

You’re probably reading this and thinking, “Man, he’s bitter today. That’s not like him.” I guess I am a little bit bitter.

But I broach the issue because mine isn’t a special case. Most of us get slapped with the “you never call” guilt trip from family members.

This is the kind of guilt tactic that doesn’t work. If a person isn’t inclined to use the phone much, they’re not going to change their ways. And, if you’re on Facebook and they’re on Facebook but they don’t use it back when you reach out, that’s about the same as never calling.

That said, I do want better relations with my extended family. When a family member sends me a friend request on Facebook, I’ll never turn them down. I want to use the medium to reconnect with them.

My phone line is always open, too. Those who really want to get in touch with me there know how to get the number.

I don’t believe there’s ever a point of no return when it comes to ending family estrangements. I remain willing.

But if someone chooses not to get in touch with me, they shouldn’t expect me to care when I hear they’ve been whining about me from second- and third-hand sources.