Trusting a Man

Oof. This is a tough one. A really tough one.

There have been so many things that have come up for me that are really uncomfortable throughout Zephyr’s and my relationship. The biggest thing by far, though, is trust.

I mean, I’ve said more than once that I’m still not 100% sure that he won’t turn out to be a murderer one day like you hear about on the news. The kind that seemed totally fine and then one day suddenly murders his whole family.

You know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t, don’t look it up. It’ll make you anxious and suspicious.

Over the last year, we have built a lot between us. Memories, shared experiences, healing, growth, victories, sorrows, tears, Luna, and most importantly, trust. Recently, something jeopardized the trust between us, and I’ve been questioning things. But I’m going to write a post about it in a few weeks. I’m still processing.

Today, I am writing at home alone. On a Saturday.

Why is this significant? Because Zeph and Luna are out on a daddy-daughter Valentine’s Day date.

Oh yes. This post is about learning to trust Zephyr with my precious baby Luna.

This isn’t the first time they’ve been on their own together. They’ve stayed at home together alone before, been on a daddy-daughter date before, and he even took her to a birthday party on his own last weekend.

But this is different.

Why?

Because when they’re home, they’re home. I know where she is, and there are no strangers involved.

When they went on their first daddy-daughter date, I was close by. Tessa and I were just a couple miles away having some BFF time of our own while Zeph and Luna went to a little kiddy carnival. We met up after just a couple hours.

At the birthday party last weekend, she was around her friends and some other parents that I know from her school. There were strangers involved, but more parents who she could go to for help if she needed it.

This time, it’s just them. Away from me for several hours, not just a couple miles away where I could get to them almost immediately but a solid 20 miles away. Around strangers where I can’t help protect my baby. Am I ready to go at a moment’s notice? Yes, but I also may not know if something happens and she needs me. Gone for about 4 hours and back home.

I thought after the birthday party, I was perfectly ready.

Except today, when it was time to go, I spent 20 minutes making sure that Luna knows how to call me if she needs me. That she knows what to do if she gets separated from Zeph. That she knows she needs to hold his hand and stay within his sight at all times. And then I spent 10 minutes making sure that Zeph knew that I need him to text me with updates so I know nothing has gone horribly wrong. That he knows that she needs to be within his sight at all times, preferably within arm’s reach. That if he doesn’t update me often enough, I will be calling him. And that he knows that if he doesn’t bring my baby home safely, I will hunt him down.

All of which he knows because he’s been learning how to take care of Luna properly for the last 10 months or so. And this isn’t his first rodeo. And he’s a good man and will not hurt her or let anything happen to her.

All of which I logically know.

But I am not governed by logic today.

Today, I am governed by the mama bear brain that tells me that nothing and no one is safe for my children except for me. Today, my anxiety and worry are in the driver’s seat.

I eventually let them go on their excursion, knowing how much fun they would have. I made a promise to Zephyr that I would continue to try to build their one-on-one relationship and that I would allow excursions like this so they can continue to build trust together as well. Their relationship can’t continue to be facilitated entirely by me, it needs to be strong between the two of them, and I know that.

I remember Kristina telling me about her new husband and how he takes Matt out to go fishing or play at the park or get ice cream just because he wants to. And she told me that there are good men out there, and that she hoped I would find one for Luna. At the time, my mind reeled at the idea.

Trust a man?

With my child, no less???

I couldn’t trust her own father with her. One of the biggest things that drove me to reopen the custody case with Donna was that whenever Luna would go over on her weekends, I never felt that she was safe or taken care of. I would call to check in every single day, and almost every time, Luna would tell me that “daddy got mad at me” because she would ask for some food or water, but Donna was sleeping and didn’t want to get up. The sheer negligence was awful.

I had to tell Donna to get Luna food and water, to bathe her, to make sure she did more than sit on the couch and watch TV all day.

Whenever she would come home, at first Luna didn’t like it. She didn’t want to leave her dad, and she would cry big, sad alligator tears. But as time went on, she stopped being sad, and that’s when the nightmares started.

She would have nightmares about me blowing up, going away forever, and otherwise not being around to take care of her. She would wake up inconsolable at night, pointing up in her nightmare-hazed mind crying that “the daddies” were hurting her. She had nightmares about the time when Donna choked Yolanda in the living room, too. When she went for her weekend visits, it took a toll on her mental health.

And it showed in her behavior. Anytime she made a mistake, she would immediately start crying, saying she was the worst and that it’s all her fault, that she’s so sorry. She started getting aggressive and wanting to hit, scratch, and head butt things, being really irritable and easily angered.

And I don’t think Luna will ever forget the time that Donna attacked me while I was holding her in my arms. To this day, almost 3 years later, she talks about it. She brings up the time when her “old dad” (that’s what she calls Donna now) pushed me and tried to take my purse so we couldn’t leave while I was holding her.

This is the person who was always supposed to care for her. To keep her safe, not be the one who neglects her and is the one she’s in danger from.

So trusting a man who is not her biological father seemed ludicrous to me. But she insisted that while it took time to trust him, she learned to trust him little by little, and now her husband is more of a father to Matt than Donna ever was.

Hmm. That sounds familiar.

Zeph is more of a dad to Luna than Donna ever was. And he’s proven that to me over and over and over again. I talked about it in one of my blog posts a couple of months ago, the way he takes care of her, takes responsibility for his mistakes, and tries to be better to her every single day. He wants to be a good dad. He wants to earn her trust. And mine, of course, but he doesn’t want to just be another mediocre dad. He wants to build a real relationship with her, and that takes trust.

It may be even harder to build trust with Luna than it is to do with me. For a few reasons, actually.

1. She was betrayed, hurt, and abandoned by her biological father in her earliest years, and that has taught her not to trust anyone but me as her default.
   
2. She and I have been thick as thieves since before she was born. She had a brief Daddy’s Girl phase when she was 1 for about 6 months, but after that, she and I have had a very close relationship.
   
   After we left the family home just after she turned 3, we became even closer. I adopted an emotional openness policy with her, meaning that I allowed myself to be human around her, and I let her be human, and I let her see me be human too. She and I have always had openness between us, and she has gotten very comfortable with telling me everything from how she is feeling about circumstances, how my actions make her feel, and when she makes a mistake.
   
   We had to work on this for a while because while she still had weekends with Donna, she wouldn’t want to share some things with me because she thought it would get her in trouble. She was too scared to tell me some things, and she thought she would be in trouble if she told me she was feeling angry or upset.
   
   Part of how we worked through that was that I allowed her to see me vulnerable too. When I was sad, I cried. And when she asked me why, I shared what I could with her without telling her anything she wouldn’t understand or that would scare her. When I felt overwhelmed and irritable, I would tell her what I was feeling, reassuring her that she hadn’t done anything to upset me, just that I was feeling stressed. I showed her that just like she didn’t get mad at me for sharing my emotions, I wouldn’t get mad at her either.
   
   And maybe most importantly, I learned to apologize to her, which I think so many parents have no idea how to do. Whenever I would snap at her, hurt her feelings, or otherwise mess something up with her, I owned up to it and apologized to her. She and I have built trust in this way for years, and she comes to me for everything. It’s hard to build a one-on-one relationship with her because she relies on me for so much, not only for her physical needs but emotional needs. I’m her rock.
   
3. Finally, it’s hard for Luna to build a trusting relationship because she is a spicy little booger pie, just like her mama. And she’s got walls that I have to convince her to take down so the two of them can communicate sometimes. She’s definitely emotionally intelligent for her age, but she doesn’t have the vocabulary to discuss, nor can she always understand, the concepts of deeper emotional intelligence needed to heal the kind of betrayal she’s experienced. And that just makes it that much more difficult.

I want Luna and Zeph to have a meaningful, trusting relationship. Despite the obstacles we’re all up against.

And when I invited him into our lives, I knew that it meant trusting Zephyr to actually truly by an integrated member of our family, and that means being a dad to Luna. Not an outsider who hangs around because he and mom are dating. That’s not the kind of life I want for her.

And letting him be a dad to her means letting him do things like this with her on his own. I spend time with her all on my own all the time. I’m her mom, of course I do. So letting the two of them have similar time together is crucial for their relationship. Especially knowing how hard it is for Luna to build that kind of trust.

She’s so used to me being there to swoop in and smooth things over. Or anticipating things because I know what will upset her and protecting her from it before it ever happens. But if I do that, Zeph will never have the chance learn about his daughter. The two of them won’t have the chance to build a relationship between just the two of them. And they need to be able to function without me if we’re all going to part of this family together.

Truly a family.

So I am fighting my anxiety brain. Zeph is helping by giving me regular updates, pictures, and calls. I am writing, doing work, and house chores. I am also taking breaks to play a phone game I like and watch a few short, entertaining videos on social media. Also admiring my latest crystal haul. Which I will actually go into next week.

And now at the end of writing this post, there are only a couple more hours until they come home.

Look at me go. I’ve done several exercises where I built trust with Zephyr. The first time was when I asked him to pick Luna up from my parents’ and bring her home because I was stuck in the next town over for work. And slowly, slowly, incrementally, I’ve built trust to now, I’ve allowed this lengthy daddy-daughter date.

With a man and my child alone.

And look at Luna go. She’s built this trust with Zeph too. She’s OK to go out on her own without me, knowing that she is safe with her dad, that she can talk to him and resolve any conflicts that may come up between them.

Don’t get me wrong. I am still biting my nails over here (figuratively), and that won’t stop until my baby is back home and safely in my arms. But this is a big step for us.

I hope to get to the point that Kristina was already at a year and a half ago. I want to be able to trust Zeph so much that I am telling other women who are where I’ve been that it’s possible to find a good man to trust, not only for yourself, but for your kids.

I hope Zeph is the one who teaches me that Kristina was right.

**READ ME (please)**
Two things!

One, please note that the names of everyone in this blog have been altered to protect the people I write about. My main goal is to explore my experiences and my growth, not air anyone’s dirty laundry out. Any likeness to people you know in real life are probably coincidental. (I mean what are the chances? It’s a pretty big world!)

Two, the thoughts and opinions I express in this blog are merely a result of my personal experiences to this point in my life. If there is anything I have misrepresented, overlooked, or have a blind spot for, feel free to leave a comment or email me at contact@livingbetween.net. (Yes, this includes typos. Let me fix my typos, please!) All I ask is that you always remain respectful.

Talk soon!
– Lynda –