Cathexis is not love

[flamingsword]

I’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.

Comments

[havocthecat]

Your cut text didn't work. I thought you might want to know! (Please feel free to screen or delete this comment now that you've gotten notification.(

[flamingsword]

Enh, *handwaves*

It’s fine for people to know I am failsome in the ways that I am. I like for folks that know me to have an accurate view of what I am like, so it’s fine for y’all to see my foibles. I did fix the cut tag though. Thank you.

[sabotabby]

Happy holidays.

It's hard when parents fail you. I couldn't reconcile with my father, and it was always weird to me that he managed to be a parent to my half-brother when he couldn't be a parent to me.

[flamingsword]

My half-siblings from his second marriage are screwed up in a lot of the same ways I am, so even if he was physically present for them he still wasn’t emotionally present. Even though it’s not apparent to a casual observer, we all have a lot of the same flaws that my sister and I are trying to get over. (Half-brother not so much.)

I don’t know your family of origin’s situation was or what your father was like at the time, but maybe he believed the sexist lie that boys have fewer needs and are easier to raise? Failsome people will often invest in things they think are harder to mess up, and then will half-ass it and mess up anyway. I know my uncle tried that one, and it really did not work out well for him.

May our enemies and failed allies grow more mature in 2024, not for our sakes but for the sake of the world. 🕯️

[tuzemi]

Being able to understand the difference between "loving someone" and "actually liking them", especially with parents, is a huge and IMHO positive step/skill. It's a shame that so many people have children who have to do that. ☹️🫂

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 was only misgendered seven times on the two phone calls by my father, mother, and brother today. Which wasn't too bad for Christmas, for them -- I mean it's only been three years now. 🙄 Ah well, they never knew me before anyway, so what's the real loss that they won't know me after? 🤷‍♀️

I wrote a freaking book, sorry

[flamingsword]

The loss is that it grieves you/us to want to have a bio-family that likes and loves us the way they think they do, when they fail to do so. Just because it’s SNAFU doesn’t mean that our griefs and grievances are not important to acknowledge. It hurts you to be treated like you are unimportant, and I see you. 🫂 I’m sorry people keep misgendering you. It’s lazy and shitty of them.

I knew the difference between liking someone and loving them even before, but I think I had put out of my mind and refused to see the implications of the difference between “I think of this person often because they are a major figure in my life” and “I love this person, and want to do things that help them feel good enough to grow spiritually”. Like, I think fairly often of my boss, she is an important figure in my life. But that doesn’t mean that I love her, lol. Society doesn’t tell me that I’m supposed to love her, gives me no impetus to trick myself into thinking of her that way. Our relationship is not described in those terms, but bc I am my father’s child, he and I were convinced for 40 years that he “must” love me and vice versa.

But that’s what cathexis is: the raw importance placed on a person, idea, etc.. But that’s not the same thing as love at all, and it’s getting confused for love is a weird artifact of our culture’s insistence that love is a byproduct of genetic relationships. Just because someone is a part of your phenotype/kin-group does not imply that you have chosen to invest affection and effort into their feeling warm fuzzies / support their learning. My dad has not supported any part of my learning about who I am as a person. He has never expressed so much as a passing interest in that, and has expressed dissatisfaction that I learned stuff about myself which he doesn’t like, like my being bi, agender, and an intellectual.

Basically: fuck that guy. And if your family are disinterested in the awesomeness that is you? Fuck them, too. They can go to the Daughter Store and get a new one … oh wait, that’s not a real thing! I guess they just get to screw themselves out of knowing someone cool. I wish it were legally possible to adopt my friends into my legal family, I’d make you a cousin.

Re: I wrote a freaking book, sorry

[tuzemi]

I'd be happy to be a cousin! 💗

[sabethea]

I’m sorry your father isn’t worth the paper he is written on. (Or whatever. It’s tired, I’m late, or something.)

*hug*