I have a somewhat non-traditional love story to tell you. When I was 22, I met the father of my first daughter. We dated awhile, got engaged, got married, bought a townhouse, got a dog, and promptly arrived at the doorstep of “Time to Have a Baby!” The birth of Izzy is one of the most sacred events in my life, and I will never regret it for one second. Within months of her birth, however, it became clear that her father and I were ill-suited for one another (The specifics of his spousal and paternal ineptitude are the fabric for another story on another day.) We separated when she was 8 months old, and our divorce was final several months later.
No, that’s not the love story I was referring to. Enter my knight in paint-spattered jeans. Life as the single mother of an infant was fraught with challenges, some of them easier than others to tackle without help. One day I realized that my daughter’s crib had been compromised thanks to my well-intentioned father’s adjustment to lower the mattress. I am good at many things, but mechanical/spatial/handyman skills are not among them; I promptly called Shawn, a co-worker with whom I was barely acquainted, other than to know that he was good at fixing things and I had been slightly infatuated with him for at least five years. It was a crazy leap of faith. He came right over, fixed my crib and a handful of other things, and the rest is history.
Well, not quite. There is a whole book in the development of our relationship, our brief break-up and reunion, and all the struggles we overcame with the help of a therapist. But there is one moment that changed things for us. We had decided to part ways when Izzy was nearly two years old; Shawn, at age 39, had been through a few bad relationships and he was, for lack of a better word, bitter. Combine that with his stoic, emotionally guarded upbringing, and he was your classic emotionally unavailable commitment-phobe. Obviously his many fantastic qualities paired with the control freak woman’s delusion that she can “change” her partner had given me reason to believe our relationship was worth a shot. I had reached my limit, however, and thanks to my mantra that I could not teach my young daughter how to find happiness without showing her what it was like to be in a healthy, loving relationship, I knew I needed to leave.
Shawn and I were extremely tuned into Izzy’s emotional needs, and made sure that he was still able to spend time with her. Not to mention the fact that we were still in love with each other, and the idea of cutting ties altogether was devastating. One day Izzy and I were leaving the community center where I teach classes, and we ran into Shawn, the City’s Parks Supervisor, in the parking lot. Izzy ran into his arms and kissed him, something I had never seen her do to another adult besides me. “Na Na!” she squealed, calling him by the name she invented for him. “I missed you for 2 hours!” This was the Izzy equivalent of “It’s been too long!”
I knew something shifted inside him that day, and within a month I found myself sitting across from him at a restaurant, having accepted his invitation to lunch. He told me he wanted us to try again, and that he knew everything had to be different this time. He knew that he could be a father to Izzy. He knew that this would mean that we would be getting married sometime. He was ready.
Up until this point, Shawn had struggled with the fact that he could never be Izzy’s biological father. He wasn’t sure he could get over it- he loved her deeply and it hurt him. He didn’t have confidence in his ability to be strong enough to overcome his fears and make a commitment to be part of our family. Until that day in December, when I stared across the table at him and knew he was telling the truth. In my mind, that was a clear turning point and things never went back to the way they were before. In reality, it took a lot of hard work for about 8 more months, and then Shawn proposed to “us” and we moved in. Within a month, we were married and he had begun the process of stepparent adoption. Shawn became “Daddy” very quickly, and became Izzy’s legal guardian when she was three and a half years old.
My husband is a bit of an urban legend amongst my girlfriends, particularly those who are questioning the quality of their own relationships. “Maybe he’ll pull a Shawn,” one of my best friends said hopefully, trying to justify staying with a commitment-phobic boyfriend. I don’t believe any woman should set out trying to “change” a man; a person can only truly change for themselves, when they are ready. I got very lucky- my husband has been a dedicated, loving, and committed husband and father ever since his seemingly impossible transformation.
I fully believe that it took the love of a child to help him overcome his fears of love and commitment. I knew that Shawn loved me, but a part of me will always wonder, had we gotten together ten years ago before I was married and before Izzy was born, would we have made it? In my heart I feel that it took the combination of my young daughter and myself to help open his heart.
We have another daughter now, and Shawn’s love and devotion for both of his girls equally is one of the most precious gifts I have ever been given. I had a conversation with a close friend recently about women’s tendency to “marry their father.” It is true that my own father, while very loving and committed, was in some ways emotionally unavailable at times. Certainly he wasn’t one to verbally express his feelings of love or regularly lavish you with praise. Talking about his feelings and expressing love is still not my husband’s strong suit, so I think it is safe to say that the “marrying your father” syndrome may apply to me. “Will my daughters be doomed to marry an emotionally unavailable man?” I worried.
Then it dawned on me. My children will never grow up experiencing their father as emotionally unavailable. Every single day he joyfully kisses and hugs them and tells them how much he loves them. Sometimes I catch him staring at Izzy, with an almost tearful expression on his face, quietly watching her read a book, play with her sister, or sing a song, and he’ll tell her with such pride in his voice, “You are so special. I’m so lucky to be your daddy.” The cycle has been broken.
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