David McElroy

For most of my life, I was the real problem in each of my romantic relationships. Every failure was ultimately mine.

I didn’t know that at the time, of course. If you had suggested it to me back then, I would have been aggressively defensive. I would have gotten angry. I could have explained clearly and reasonably why I was always blameless.

It wasn’t until I had gone through a lot of therapy — in bits and pieces, over a decade or so — that I finally came face to face with the demons that had stalked my life and shaped my actions.

I hadn’t been a bad person. I hadn’t been abusive in relationships. But the emotional demons within caused me to sabotage my relationships with poor decisions. And those demons gave me every excuse in the world to blame others.

I still live with those demons today. They still influence my thinking. They tell me I’ll never be good enough. They tell me that nobody will ever really love me. They tell me that I’m worthless unless I’m perfect. I now know these are lies, even though I have to keep learning that over and over.

What I’ve come to understand lately is that I need a woman who’s confronted her demons, too. That doesn’t mean I want a “perfect” partner. In fact, I’m not attracted to women who aren’t damaged in their own ways.

But I need a partner who’s already confronted her demons. I need a woman who’s already started to deal with those demons, not living in complete denial — as I did for so many years.

Keep Reading

Demand too much and you may end up empty-handed,
Demand too little and regret is your reward
— Pat Terry, “Truth is Like a Sword,” 1984

I regret that I’ve wasted the last seven years waiting for a phone call that was never going to come.

I told myself that I wasn’t waiting for her. I tried to make myself believe that. I dated a little, here and there, but my heart wasn’t in it. I thought I wanted her. I believed she would be back. She couldn’t have meant all that she said to me otherwise. She wouldn’t have urged, “Don’t give up on me,” if she wasn’t going to finally make things right. So I waited.

The weeks turned into months. The months turned into years. Somehow, I wasted seven years.

Everything changed about a month ago. The details don’t matter. She wrote one day to tell me what I had been waiting to hear. I was ecstatic. Three days later, she wrote back to say she had changed her mind. And, suddenly, everything was clear.

This woman was never going to be what I had needed her to be. Nothing about her could possibly be worth what I had lived with. A switch suddenly flipped inside my heart. Everything was over.

I was finally free. I could see her for what she really is.

Keep Reading

Baseball is no longer the most popular sport in America. But it’s not football, either. Nor is it basketball or golf or tennis.

The national sport in this country is politics. Look at social media if you don’t believe me. Almost everyone chooses a side and passionately cheers for his or her side. Team Red and Team Blue constantly clash in each new political season. There are also some minor teams which routinely lose to the major powers. And the results of these bizarre contests matter almost as little as it matters who wins the Super Bowl.

I spent 20 years working professionally in this “sport.” Before that, I had been passionate about the game as an amateur. And even after I finally got out of the political game — partly so my conscience could rest easily at night — I was still eager to argue with everybody about the game. I was eager to show others where they were wrong. I passionately begged them to adopt a rational and moral view of the game.

But I now understand just how insane that was. I finally figured out why it was a waste of my time and energy. Because I’ve finally accepted that political activism — of any kind — is just as effective as shaking my fist at the sky and screaming that it wouldn’t be right if it rained today.

Keep Reading