Maybe this is Why

One of the advantages … well, let me say one of the features … of writing the same blog for fifteen years is that I can revisit old topics when I have something new to say about them. Of course you've seen me discuss things that even predate the blog, events that happened between Wife and me thirty or forty years ago (or almost). But I had a thought tonight that picks up a question I asked you all back when Debbie left me: you remember that I asked, "But why?"  

Tonight in Sangha we were studying, … well, some dharma teaching or other. But during the discussion period, Debbie started talking about "habit-energy." As an example, she told a story. 

Back when she was in high school, sometimes her father would get very drunk and start assaulting her mother. She would see that the house was an unsafe place to be, and so she would just leave. She'd slide out her window (or I guess even walk out the front door) and walk a mile to a friend's house; then she'd spend the night there sleeping on the sofa, and go to school the next day wearing the same clothes and with or without her books.

Image by Надежда Минустина from Pixabay

Where does habit-energy come into this? Well, she said, later in life she found that whenever she ran into any kind of a problem in a relationship, her instinct was to run away. She admitted that back in high school this had been a useful tactic, because it kept her safe; but in adult relationships it was not so useful. And she added that she has had to struggle very hard to overcome the habit-energy that tells her to flee whenever anything is wrong. She related this back to the dharma teaching we were reading tonight, because she said that teaching is part of what helped her in this struggle.

I know this instinct is still a temptation, because as recently as three months ago Debbie was telling me she fantasizes about moving away from Mattie and her family. (You remember that Mattie is her daughter, so Mattie's family means Debbie's son-in-law and two grandchildren.) Why? Because of friction over how Mattie and her husband are raising their boys … little points in the grand scheme of things (at least in my opinion), but ones that trigger a big emotional reaction for Debbie.

And of course my point in mentioning this is that, if the habit-energy of fleeing from troubled relationships was operating in her as little as three months ago, there is every reason to assume it was functioning nine years ago when she left me. Back then I had already established (to my own satisfaction) that at some level my energy was similar to her father's. As soon as there were any points (on top of that) to make her uncomfortable—such as I discuss here, here, and here—then it seems almost natural that she would run away. Only if she had stood her ground would there be need for an explanation.

This insight does nothing to expand the list of issues that triggered her. For that, I still have to look back to the discussions in earlier posts. But it does help me see why they counted as "so severe" that she had to break off the relationship. In other words it fills in one missing piece, and that's helpful.