Ode to the Rescuer
Posted by carolom on September 23, 2010
This poem is dedicated to the many women, especially those who I meet in domestic violence shelters, who really do believe:
‘If I just keep on loving him, he will change & we will have the relationship that I know is possible’...
Ode to the Rescuer:
There was something very appealing about his pain
It matched her pattern perfectly
and her pattern goes like this:
Give me a damaged man with potential
and I will embrace him as my life mission
My personal quest!
I will claim myself to be his Rescuer
Through my eyes he will see
how sorely he has been denied Love
And with the love of this Good Woman, he will heal!
He will heal
He will heal
He will heal
With the peace of mind that I alone have brought to him,
delivered to him on a sincere heart that pulses with conviction
His heart shall finally, after many troubled years
beat with contentment in symbiotic rhythm with my own
Ahh..this future memory brings tears to my eyes and reminds me to be patient and the reward will come
Of this truth I have created, I am sure.
He will change
He will change
He will change
I shall interpret his moodiness as poetic brooding,
his sarcasm as merely the shadow of his enormous artistic sensitivities and his broken promises as the unfortunate repercussions of a busy, preoccupied man.
I shall deny myself my heart’s desires,
less they place too much of a burden on his already busy mind.
I shall seduce him into security with words thinly veiled
with the false reassurance that I want nothing of him
After all he is the broken one…
Not me.
***
I will prove to him that I am the one single woman
on this Earth who can heal his troubled Soul.
Because I believe in him like no other has in the past
or could possibly at any time in the future….
As the rescue program gets under way I will slowly begin to allow
the duality of the situation to come to the fore
Actually I won’t have a choice!
Having ensnared him with my rescuers net
or having fallen into his
I shall wrestle with the duality of being drawn to his charismatic withdrawals
whilst also experiencing an awakening awareness
that he is indeed mirroring my own need to heal and rescue the wounded heart.
There is something painfully seductive about that wounded heart….
In order to ignore the needs of my own hopeful
desperate
optimistic
aching
wounded heart
I will plunge into my rescuing role with paradox and passion
for I am drawn to the angst of tortured feelings
which I have misconstrued as Romance and Love as haplessly as he is drawn to his broody silences
and the acidic observations he casts out to bait me every now and then.
And quite regularly at times.
Words that forge our bond like “who else would put up with you or me” and
“we were meant for one another, we are as bad as each other“
will be the hypnotic sound track of the saga of our co-dependence
He will be my co-star as my life unfolds according to the stories I believe
Stories that I have created
Fictional stories I will defend as
Love
Alas it is a tired old script with no surprises in the Story whatsoever
but it will take me a long time to understand that to reinterpret and rewrite the lead roles
because most of this is new to me!
And I am a stranger to myself…
Therefore I will need quite some time to realise any of this as this predictable Olde Story unfolds on a roller coaster of drama and desire
yearning and conflict
Those old ‘but I love him” scenarios and inevitable cycles replaying themselves in the guise of Love.
Love?
No this is just unlearnt lessons in re-enactment!
I will come to realise this one day
though I do not know that yet of course
Although my heart does skip a beat when he looks at me in that certain something way
Surely that must be Love?
though you may well think I am making a banquet from a few crumbs of moments of hard earned intimacy
You are wrong of course!
Wrong
Wrong
Wrong
I know this banquet will be rich in the fruits of my desires so long as I am patient.
I will be Patient
I will be Patient
I will be Patient
My mantras give my life meaning and hope
They really do
Really really they do.
In the meantime I will deny that the toxins of this relationship are causing me great harm.
Souring my naiveté. Poisoning the sweetness of my illusions whilst I continue to defend his lack of friendliness and warmth as justified on account of the awful things he went through as a child.
The unresolved issues with his difficult father
The conflict with his troubled mother
There was just so much trouble that went into creating his troubled life
that I share
I am perhaps the only one who really knows that
and understands him and LOVES him
The only one
The lonely one
BUT….
Love will conquer all. I think I am sure of that!
There is only one fixed rule in all of this apparent uncertainty
And this the rule I made and now obey:
I must Love him no matter how hard he is to Love.
I will Love him unconditionally
I will Love him unconditionally
I will Love him unconditionally
This one rule will make it all wonderful one day because
He will open up
He will open up
He will open up
Ultimately of course I will deny myself the right to move forward, to reach my fullest potential because I will be anchored defiantly to our co-dependence and staunchly
courageously
desperately
refer to it as
Love!
This is what I know Love to be.
The End
2001…I rededicate this to my lifelong friend Janet who was killed by her husband who then killed himself. Your life mattered, your stories are important to be told.
Carol Omer
Infinity said
Thank You sooo much. I read these words with great understanding. I’m still not sure why I have to fully experience everything in order to grasp it for all it’s worth. I am able to laugh with myself now for making it through one of the toughest learnings yet. Always from the Heart, Thank You
carolom said
You are very welcome Infinity…. I too can laugh at the outrageous misfortune I created, thinking it was “Love” and can see the dynamics with crystal clear clarity when other Women are re-enacting the pattern that is such a familiar dynamic between women and men….and men and women too of course!
Whilst a woman is in the stage of “I love him and love means sticking by him”, she will remain very loyal to her pattern, oblivious to the truth that she could be experiencing a much healthier, fulfilling, mutually engaging experience of love…if only she let go of her pattern of attraction to the wounded man who doesn’t treat her how she would love to be treated……
nancycurteman said
Your poem describes perfectly some women I’ve met. It seems so clear that they are doomed to fail and yet they continue to hope.
carolom said
Yes Nancy, it is a very familiar story for many women. Justifying unacceptable behavior because he has had a bad childhood, working hard all the time for a morsel of approval or emotional intimacy… I am very familiar with the pattern on both a personal and professional level and see it playing out in younger Women around me all the time…and not so young! I know that regardless of what I say -or share in a poem-they will only ‘get it’ when they have exhausted their optimism and out grown their interpretation that Love = anguish and struggle because the silent wounded man needs their patience and understanding….
Kate bartolo said
I read this and thought, it can’t be me, I’m not being physically abused. But the words hit me like bricks to the head. I know he doesn’t love me and as u say it’s only when the exhausting optimism runs out, do u finally see the truth.. An outlet for that anger is what I have been searching for, I will find it
http://yahoo.com said
I actually have a tendency to agree with everything that has been put
into writing within “Ode to the Rescuer ~ The Art Of Change ~”.
Thanks for all of the actual advice.Regards-Lukas
Kathleen Ingram said
You read my heart of a 21 year marriage, as emotions crush my throat and tears blur my vision you speak of me……
I see through your poem, that I am again about to enter into another relationship that is almost the same.
How do I stop choosing such men/boys?
carolom said
Thankyou for your heart felt reply Kathleen. I think “know thy self” is the key and one of the tools that has been enormously helpful in our womens healing groups is the following piece by Dr Barbara De Angelis who answers the question “Why am I attracted to the bad boy”.
Have a read of number two on the list and see if the negative love “formula” is relevant for you and please know that you are already creating positive changes by asking the question Kathleen.
http://www.barbaradeangelis.com/advice_compatibility.asp
Mary Wright said
Nelson Mandella:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Love yourself, you are worthy of love.