All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [78]
I pipe up that this line of thinking strikes me as pretty unsympathetic, sort of a “blame the victim” philosophy, but Martha insists that accountability is different from blame. Then she points out that I’m pretty resistant to the whole process and says, “Whatever you resist, persists.” Without being judgmental, she seems to have sized me up, suggesting that I don’t like rules or authority, I like to go off on my own, I’m a lot more sensitive than I seem, I joke to cover up my feelings, I operate out of a great deal of fear, and I’m a perfectionist, sometimes preferring not to do something than to risk failure. “Perfectionists never win,” she says.
I’m wondering if someone has slipped her my astrology chart. Maybe I am just an obvious type. In any case, I decide to set aside my reservations about people in the Third World, and play along with the game, since I am someone who is indeed lucky enough to be able to make choices in her life.
Martha asks us to try an exercise with a partner in which we tell a story where we’ve been victimized. I realize I don’t know where to start: I’m always telling those kinds of stories. Take the tales I recount about bad dates. In each, I am a fun-loving, outdoorsy gal who likes Alice Munro, African dance, organic vegetables, The Wire, and anything Italian, who mysteriously ends up being the hapless bystander on a bad date, suffering in the company of one of the many clueless, damaged, shallow, narcissistic single males over forty who populate our major coastal cities. But the Big Story, in which I’m the sorriest victim, is the tale of my divorce, betrayal, heartbreak, and subsequent financial ruin at the hands of my ex-husband.
What if, asks Martha, when we are all finished telling our stories, wiping sorry tears from our eyes, you told that story differently? What if you told it as if you were accountable for what happened? How did you end up in that situation? What was your part?
I’m reluctant, but I try it and mention the choices I made, the red flags I ignored, such as the rattling snake and the fact that I’d brushed aside my ex-husband’s ambivalence because I was determined to get married and have children. I tell the story that way, and surprisingly, it is a relief. Blame does not fall down upon my head.
I see I made mistakes, to be sure. “The great thing about mistakes is that if you recognize them, you don’t have to repeat them,” Martha says.
This is a liberating, reassuring thought: instead of being the unwitting victim in my marriage, apt to be victimized in any subsequent relationships, I simply don’t have to marry that guy again. It’s in my power to recognize my mistakes. Nor do I have to be afraid of a new relationship, constantly choosing inappropriate men to date so I’ll have an excuse to avoid what has become my greatest fear: being vulnerable, giving my heart, and being hurt. Have I been dating viable partners, Martha asks, or finding yet another character in a story who would prove it was ridiculous for me to be in a relationship? It seems that I am going to have to fundamentally change my stories about men—even if they won’t be so funny to tell my friends—if I want a different, happier ending.
I’m surprised at how happy I feel after retelling my story, a huge weight lifted from me. I’m no longer the victim of a bad marriage, destined to be hurt all over again with any man I am foolish enough to give my trust and heart to. I think of all the other victim-type stories I tell myself: it’s impossible to buy a house as a single freelance writer, my generation of independent and feminist women