What have I learned?

Yesterday I was cleaning out papers from my office, preparatory to packing it up as I move to Sticksville, and I came across a copy of a paper I read by Peter Drucker back in 2006. The paper in which he says you have to understand how you learn. The paper in which he says that the only way to come to understand yourself is to write down what you think is going to happen when you make a decision, and then check back later to see if you were right. The paper which -- after considerable delay and foot-dragging -- triggered me to start writing this blog. ("I have … learned that I … understand things better if I explain them to others.")

It's been thirteen years since then. Have I learned anything?

Actually I think I have.

I learned that my troubles with Wife stemmed not directly from her infidelities, but from her lying and narcissism, and from the hostility and suspicion with which she treated every overture from me. These things were fueled in her own mind by the guilt she herself felt over her infidelities, but that's not the same thing as saying it was merely my own jealousy.

I learned that my marriage was "an abusive nightmare," although it took me a long time to see it. Quite late, I realized that I was always afraid of Wife. Before that, when I first started thinking about whether there was abuse in the marriage, I was afraid that she would accuse me of it. (I still think there is room for a post that breaks down how far each of us felt abused by the other.) But all of this perspective came only with distance. When I was in the middle of it all, I couldn't think of any pithy way to summarize what I was living with. (Actually, now that I look back through some earlier posts, I think I was starting to understand it even as early as here. But that was still after I had moved out of the house and was living in my own apartment.)

I learned that I'm not (or no longer) really attracted to "high-maintenance women."

I learned some things about my father: that his prurient intrusiveness came from a fear of abandonment and a clawing need to be close to people; that his constant performing and domination of any conversation came from a fear of others and a need to make himself safe. That he never felt free to be who he was, or that he never felt like Enough. 

Nowhere in this list are any insights that would make me more effective as a professional, or that would lead to greater professional success. And that, of course, was the whole point behind Drucker's article. But I did learn that I have tried to avoid great success, or to hide from it. 

I suppose those are good things to have learned. It might have been nice to learn something that was professionally helpful as well, but given the last point I list there it's possible that wasn't in the cards.

Oh well.