Podcast
Rumpus Events
Rumpus Book ClubDear Sugar Terms Statement
By submitting a letter to the writer known as “Sugar” in the “Dear Sugar” column, you are granting the writer known as “Sugar” copy right permission to publish the letter on TheRumpus.net and to use, distribute, publish, reproduce, modify, adapt, or translate (in whole or in part) the letter in the context of the response from the writer known as “Sugar” on a world-wide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sub-licensable basis, along with the right to incorporate any such content into other works in any format or medium now known or later developed. You hereby relinquish all claims to monetary compensation for any and all of these uses, including fees, royalties, and honoraria and waive any other claims the writer known as “Sugar” may have based upon the above use or uses, including without limitation any claims for invasion of privacy, violation of the right of publicity, libel and copyright infringement. Your name and email address will never be published and your identity will remain anonymous. Letters may be edited for clarity and/or length. Due to the large number of letters received, not all letters will be published.
July 16th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Dear Sugar,
I’m writing in response to your column #77, “The Truth That Lives There”. Oh – and also the one about The Obliterated Place, which was the most moving, humane, amazing thing I think I’ve ever read on the Net. Maybe off; both the letter and your response were that good, and helped me feel less alone in the death of my own father, mother and brother.
Anyway, about #77: I both agree and disagree with the statement ‘Just wanting to leave is enough’. I was married for nine years to a man I still think of as my soul mate in many ways – funny, brilliant, kind, supportive, and (though my commie soul hates to give this fact any credibility) successful. He made me laugh harder and more often than anyone I’ve ever met. All my friends and family thought he was A Great Guy.
However, I was miserable. Like you, I also had that voice whispering “Go,” sometimes more urgently than others, but still always there. I have my journal from that era. When I met him and we became friends, I wrote: “He’s great, but for some reason I can’t figure out, I want to warn my Future Self reading this to NOT DATE HIM.” After we were dating, there’s an entry saying “Okay, we’re dating, but DON’T MARRY HIM.” I didn’t know why I felt that way, I just did. Long story short, we are not together anymore, and (also like you) I loved him too much to do it cleanly – I did it about as dirty as you can, having affairs with both genders and also becoming a drug addict (I’m a flawed human being, just like the rest of us, says my Defensive Voice in anticipation of the bashings to come should this ever be posted). BTW, I’m not a drug addict (actively) anymore.
The point of the preceding is that I was in a marriage for years with the proverbial Perfect Guy. And I left him.
These days, I am in another long-term relationship, with a man that many people think is “beneath me”. He had a horrible childhood, and brings no family or long-time friends to the table. He was kicked out of his home at age 13, and lived on the streets for many years, doing what he had to do to survive. He’s got some neurological issues – he’s very ADD, and kind of manic sometimes. He’s just now learning how to be a cap-G Grownup, instead of a street urchin/older street urchin (he’s 36). Oh, and he’s been chronically ill for the past three years, though it was recently diagnosed and he’s on the mend. He’s been unable to work or help out around the house much, for three. Long. Years.
Point being: Every nerve in my body tells me “You should be feeling like you need to Go. You should WANT to leave this person.” But I don’t. And here’s why:
The things I wrote about him above might make him sound like a poor choice, but this guy has the biggest, kindest, least judgmental, most open heart. He’s wise, both street- and emotion-, and incredibly bright, although in an Encyclopedia-Brown, fact-retainy kind of way. He’s funny, sometimes, though not as funny (to me) as my ex, the Perfect Guy. He knows how to fix EVerything. He can live off the land, and has. Our first date, he took me on a walk through a park in San Francisco, and picked me an amazing salad from the trees and plants there. Second date? He gave me a lock and a set of picks he’d made from street-sweeper blades, and taught me to pick locks (oh, just to round out the Bad Choice roster, he spent 3 years in prison on a marijuana possession charge when he was 18, and they – get this – let him take a Locksmithing course in prison).
Yes, he’s damaged. Yes, he’s hard to live with, frequently. Yes, he is not a Provider, and doesn’t bring family to the sadly family-deprived table of my life.
But I love him deeply. The sex is amazing. He’s a great friend. And – I guess this is the point – he’s incredibly, staggeringly loyal and true. Because he fucks up, I can fuck up without feeling like a horrible person, and also, because he fucks up, I am not driven by my sometimes crazy, self-destructive nature to fuck up just to rock the god damned Perfection Boat, for fuck’s sake, as I sometimes was with Perfect Guy.
There are times when I think “I’d be better off on my own,” but don’t we all think that, even if it’s just in the heat of a fight and we immediately go back to NOT feeling like that? The fact is, I want to be in a long-term committed relationship, and I want it with this guy, and not just because I’m on a Mother Teresa kick of rescuing the gutter-punk. It’s more that he loves me strongly and well, and understands me, and also, I think leaving is something people do way too quickly and easily these days (not you, Sug; I get that you needed to go). Put all the flaws and weirdness, plus the huge heart and loyal nature and lack of judgments and amazing sex of the man I’m with that on a little doily; and then on the silver Lalique platter next to it, stack all the material wealth and un-damagedness and lack of fuckups of Perfect Guy, and I’ll take the doily.
I don’t think “wanting to leave” is enough – I think “wanting to leave more often and with greater emotional fervor than NOT wanting to leave, and having that be true for long enough that you’re pretty sure it’s not going to change” is.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sticking it out through a particularly strong patch of Wanting To Leave. Things change, and there’s something beautiful, and still, and sacred about Staying, too. Through the boredom and the annoyances and the fiscal worries, I still sometimes watch him sleeping, and feel so bonded and comforted and horny and lucky, together with all the bad/boring stuff. The whole package is worth sticking with, for me, in this relationship; I’m not telling anyone else what they should or shouldn’t do.
Anyway, I’ll close by saying I’m glad I found you – you’re a terrific writer, and you have the ability (clear from reading the comments to your pieces) to make people feel less alone in this baffling, weird, neato, but scary world. Including me. So thanks, Sugar.
XO, SLB