Relationship Advice: mostly a monologue by Owen R. Hart to his son Cain
When Cain called his father for relationship advice, he was desperate. By the time the phone call was done, he was…surprised. Owen may have been talking to himself. Comforting himself. Reminiscing a little bit. Reassuring himself. He may have been manic rambling due to being high on cocaine. Or he may have spontaneously tapped into a well of self-reflection he didn’t know existed inside himself.
O: This is either going to be the worst relationship advice you’ll ever get, or the best. Maybe both. I don’t know. For someone who’s apparently survived relationship storms and made it work, I still haven’t figured anything out yet. And besides, nobody ever came to me for advice before. So here it goes. Listen up:
First of all, you shouldn’t be too worried. You can fix this. If she ever stops asking you for more, that’s when you should be afraid, that’s when it’s truly over, that’s when she’s given up. Setting boundaries and moving boundaries and asking for more, are signs of a healthy relationship, in my experience. There’s no such thing as a stagnant relationship held together by unconditional love. It simply does not exist. You may differ philosophically with me on this one, but I’m preemptively pulling the ‘I’m older and I have more experience with relationships’ card. And if you find yourself in a stagnant relationship with a woman who supposedly loves you unconditionally, it’s probably fatally boring. You should run away as fast as you can. That’s not healthy, or fun, or passionate, or anything you want. Relationships are flux. There’s peaks and valleys. And its commitment, expectations, and boundaries that keep it surviving through the valley and into the next peak.
Now second of all, I know you suffer from the same disease of feigned indifference that I do. And believe me, I’m sorry about that. It’s passed down on the Hart Y chromosome. I know it seems cool to be unfazed, to act unmoved, or unaffected by anything. To never admit that you’re vulnerable, or scared, or need anything. But that also translates into nothing exciting you, nothing impressing you, nothing making you happy. And that is the root of your current problem. When you’re protecting yourself from any unexpected hurt that means you miss out on a lot of the good stuff too. Specifically, you’re missing out on what she’s offering you. I don’t mean you need to walk through life catching all the bad things, letting in all the pain, having all the bullshit affect you. But if you’re not willing to let some of that stuff in then you’ll never get the good stuff. If you’re indiscriminately closed to everything you’re closed off to her too. So open up and let her in there with you. Maybe you’re afraid to be vulnerable, maybe you’re afraid she’ll figure out she doesn’t really like you all that much. But maybe actually some bad stuff will happen when you open up. Stuff you have to fight about. Like secret raves and secret drugs. But over time maybe the good outweighs the bad. I don’t know. I can’t say for sure. It’s some sappy ass sounding bullshit, I know. But I do know that I, at some point, decided that potential pain, heartbreak, disappointment, it was all worth the risk to be with your mother. So that’s something you gotta choose for yourself.
Third, I know recreational substance use is fun and all. Believe me I get it. But don’t make the same mistake that I did. Don’t have a love affair with substances, they will never love you back. Invest that in something else, someone else, anything. Just be smart about it.
And last here’s the worst advice ever, I don’t really care if you’re sorry about what you did or didn’t do. Admittedly, a lot of the time, I wasn’t sorry. Speaking as an addict here, I was never really sorry for getting high. I was sorry that your mother was mad at me or hurt by me for it. I was sorry that I got in trouble. I was sorry about the consequences. But the behavior itself. Getting high? Fuck it, I was never sorry for that. But that’s beside the point. You don’t necessarily have to be sorry for the behaviors. She just needs to know you’ve heard her. You’re listening. You’ve acknowledged her feelings. Tell her you’re sorry, even if you’re not that sorry. Try to change, even if you can’t really. Pretend you can. A lot of change comes from pretending. It feels like faking, but it’s not really, not if it actually changes you a little bit. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘well dad I’m not being true to myself if I fake being sorry’ or whatever. But are we ever really one hundred percent true to ourselves? No we constantly confine ourselves. Do you ram your car into every asshole who pulls out in front of you? Do you call your co-worker a fucking bitch when she throws you under the bus for being late? Do you kick your dog in the face when she ate your favorite shoes? Do you ever pretend to feel okay when you just fucking don’t? We pretend all the fuck day long to survive. So pretend a little bit with Akiko so your relationship can survive, see what I’m saying? I’m not saying pretend you love her when you don’t. That’s not fair to her or you. I’m saying pretend you’re sorry for not coming home on time, even if you’re not. Pretend you want to ‘share your feelings’ even when you don’t. Because that little bit of contrition, that bit of openness means more to her than it means to you to protect yourself from the momentary discomfort you experience in vulnerability. And at some point, somehow the cognitive dissonance goes away, maybe you do actually feel sorry for not calling. Maybe you do actually like the way she nods her head and touches your arm sympathetically when you tell her how you feel.
Then again maybe you can’t change. Maybe it’s not that we change or we don’t change. Maybe we just cycle around. But we’re never completely static as people. We never stop killing off these little bits of ourselves that we don’t like or that she doesn’t like and then letting those bits grow back, like warts or something. And we kill it again, digging deeper next time. So maybe if you at least try a little bit, pretend for her sometimes, that will probably get you a long way. And she’ll help you make up the distance you can’t reach. Trust me, if she loves you, she’ll meet you there wherever you get. If you just try a little bit.
C: I feel like I don't deserve her.
O: Fuck that. Listen if everyone got what they deserved, there would be no such thing as injustice. Do you think I got what I deserved when I was executed? Maybe. Probably. I did a lot of fucking horrible shit in my life. But do you think your mother deserved to be widowed because of that, because of me? Did you and Anita and Keiavan deserved to lose their father? The world just doesn’t work on the merit system. But I can tell you something about who deserves what. Akiko doesn’t deserve to have the love and affection she wants to give you minimized by your low assessment of yourself. Julianna… your mother, didn’t deserve to have me repeatedly throw her love and commitment for me back in her face like she made a bad call for choosing me. We can’t help who we love sometimes, I know. But this goes back again to boundaries and expectations. Again we can’t help who we love sometimes. But we can say, enough is enough. When Akiko says I need ‘x’ for this to continue. That’s her claiming what she deserves in love. Akiko is reaching out to you to give her what she deserves. And you have direct control over that. You have the power in this situation to give the woman you love what she deserves. And that’s a fucking opportunity you shouldn’t throw away. My marriage worked out because I cashed in on the opportunity your mother gave me. So, you feel like you don’t deserve her? Well a) stop telling her how to feel about you. Her feelings are valid, her feelings are hers, they’re not yours to control. And I, perhaps am biased as your father, think she made a fucking great choice with you. Hart men, are one of a kind. We’re not a credit to our kind, surely not. But we’re something. And b) do as she asks, meet her expectations, and I guarantee you’ll feel more like you deserve her.
C: So what do I do?
O: Send her some flowers. Put on that aftershave, or cologne, or whatever scent she craves. Whether you think it sucks or not, just put it on. Put on that shirt she complimented you on. Put on those pants she likes. Clean yourself up. Listen to some sappy love songs. Have a couple of drinks. Then call her and tell her you want to meet her to talk. You’ll be looking good, all contrite, smelling fucking fantastic, and you’ll apologize. Things might get heated, you might argue. But if she tries to walk away you stop her. You tell her to sit back down, you’re not leaving without me, or I’m not leaving without you, whichever the case may be. Tell her you belong together. Tell her she belongs to you, and you’re not willing to let go without a fight. Ask her to give you another chance. And before you know you’ll be having make up sex. You aren’t on a quest to resolve unrequited love. She already loves you. You just suck at loving her back. So show her you don’t suck as much as she thought. Or you’re willing to not suck so much at it. If it doesn’t work, remember, I warned you I am not good at relationships. Your mother was good at that. She showed me what to do, and even though I was a slow learner, she was a heavy weight champion at forgiveness. Let’s hope Akiko is too.
Bitch, I'm limited edition.
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