Cathexis is not love
Dec. 24th, 2023 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingswordI’m re-listening to the whole of bell hooks’ book all about love: new visions, since I couldn’t remember where I left off and none of where I thought I might be sounded familiar. Memories. Brains. Why.
I think the parts of this book that I listened to a long time ago are, in hindsight, probably responsible for my giving up on continuing my unfulfilling relationship with Dad. I love him in the distant way that one loves all fellow human beings, but not in the familiar way we love our friends and chosen families. So even if I was not ready to admit it at the time of first reading this, the theory that investing emotional intensity into the idea of a person, ideal, or object is not equivalent to love was slowly working in me. It has been wearing away at the falsities and bad cultural assumptions that were propping up that dysfunctional relationship on my side of things.
I wanted to be a child who had a father who loved them. I wanted to feel loved by someone I thought could love me. And I wanted those things more than I wanted to see how little use Dad really had for the person I actually am, and how bad he is at being a human being, let alone one that performs love towards other humans.
Dad is neglectful and awkward because he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s too proud and too deeply acculturated into toxic masculinity to admit that he doesn’t know how to love and then try to learn to express interest, affection, and connection. (I came by that particular way of fucking up relationships honestly, though I have gotten a lot better the last ten or so years.)
I think it would be possible for me to love my dad, but probably not for me to like him? So I guess it’s just as well that I have gone unnoticed or ignored for 98% of the bids for connection I have offered to him. I think that if I really loved Dad, knew him enough to provide specific support to the growth of his spirit, it would cause me deep grief that he would still not know how to do the loving things that parents are assumed to know. He would still never have told me that he is proud of me. It would still be at least ten years since the last time I remember him telling me he loved me (which he is arguably mistaken about, but that’s another post entirely).
I hope you have good holidays and New Years and that your own families know how to show you love in ways you can feel.
I think the parts of this book that I listened to a long time ago are, in hindsight, probably responsible for my giving up on continuing my unfulfilling relationship with Dad. I love him in the distant way that one loves all fellow human beings, but not in the familiar way we love our friends and chosen families. So even if I was not ready to admit it at the time of first reading this, the theory that investing emotional intensity into the idea of a person, ideal, or object is not equivalent to love was slowly working in me. It has been wearing away at the falsities and bad cultural assumptions that were propping up that dysfunctional relationship on my side of things.
I wanted to be a child who had a father who loved them. I wanted to feel loved by someone I thought could love me. And I wanted those things more than I wanted to see how little use Dad really had for the person I actually am, and how bad he is at being a human being, let alone one that performs love towards other humans.
Dad is neglectful and awkward because he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s too proud and too deeply acculturated into toxic masculinity to admit that he doesn’t know how to love and then try to learn to express interest, affection, and connection. (I came by that particular way of fucking up relationships honestly, though I have gotten a lot better the last ten or so years.)
I think it would be possible for me to love my dad, but probably not for me to like him? So I guess it’s just as well that I have gone unnoticed or ignored for 98% of the bids for connection I have offered to him. I think that if I really loved Dad, knew him enough to provide specific support to the growth of his spirit, it would cause me deep grief that he would still not know how to do the loving things that parents are assumed to know. He would still never have told me that he is proud of me. It would still be at least ten years since the last time I remember him telling me he loved me (which he is arguably mistaken about, but that’s another post entirely).
I hope you have good holidays and New Years and that your own families know how to show you love in ways you can feel.