I’m starting to see what Freud may have meant. He says we all seek a mate who mirrors our opposite sex parents. I don’t believe in the full-fledged Oedipus complex theory (I don’t romantically seek to date my actual father or anything remotely creepy).
When I was a little girl, I could always count on my Dad to comfort me when I was sad or in trouble. Even when I stole a chocolate bar, and when I threatened to beat up a girl in my grade two class, he gave me a hug, pressing my head into his belly or armpit (as I grew) and kiss the top of my head. When a girl was picking on me in grade seven and I finally told him about it, he held me while I cried and rocked me back and forth in a tight hug. I know that even today, if I really needed to, I could go to him with anything and he’d hug me and tell me it’d be all right. He’d mean it too. I had a strained relationship with my mum in my teenage years, which retrospect has allowed me to see is fairly typical. During all that though, my Dad was always on my side. He wrote back to the teenage angst- notes I’d leave him, telling me it would be OK.
Now, I feel like no matter what, I could go to boyfriend and he always knows just what to say, and just how to hug me, to make me feel better. Last night, for instance, I was upset and down and mad and sad. He took me and buried my face on his shoulder and held me tight and told me it’d be OK. He kissed the top of my head, and let me collapse my arms, shoulders and head on top of his shoulders and chest. I even thought to myself how glad I was to have a man who knew how to make me feel better the way my Dad used to when I was little.
It’s a nice feeling, a comfort, to know that no matter how bad I screw up, or how miserable I am, I always have a shoulder and a set of arms to wrap me up and tell me it will be OK. It’s more than faith in the universe and belief that everything truly will be OK, because there’s only so much I can believe in when left on my own and when it seems things couldn’t get worse. I’m supported, and that makes everything OK.