On the surface it seems like such an innocent white lie. Hiking, I list as one of my favorite hobbies on dating apps. I have lived in Arizona for the past 15 years. Phoenix is surrounded by mountains and within 15 minutes there are more hiking options available than I could hike in a year, if I enjoyed hiking. There are all levels of hiking trails around. I don’t know why I don’t like it, I just don’t. I am not a mountain goat. If all the people that said they hiked actually did, you wouldn’t be able to get on a trail. Don’t get me wrong, I love to be outside and in nature, but it was walking that saved my life.
May 2021
In Brazil I discovered my love of walking and began to find my self-worth and my way back home. It had been 8 months since I had seen my boyfriend. I was leaving behind a life I didn’t want in Phoenix and was starting over. As the plane descended into my final destination in north central Brazil, I could feel the anxiety beginning to stir in my gut. I knew what I was running from and I knew the red flags ahead, but I was committed at this point. As I walked off the plane the first thing I remember was the humidity blasting me. It was the end of the rainy season and the humidity was around 80 percent. I could almost feel my ankles swelling. In Phoenix 30 percent humidity is unbearable. Give me 110 degree dry heat any day. As I waited for my new luggage to get unloaded, my thoughts turned to excitement about seeing him. I walked out into the terminal scanning for him and as the crowds cleared, hugs and kissing all around, he was not too be found. My heart sank. He knew I was coming. I had just traveled 26 hours to get here and packed into 3 different airplanes seatbelt extender and all. He was 15 minutes late. We weren’t off to a great start. He pulled up, jumped out of his car and gave me a quick hug and kiss and said he was late because he was working on a surprise for me, but then said I probably had already seen it. I hadn’t and it didn’t make sense until we got to his place. As I mentioned he is a designer and was making a show house of his work where we lived. He had spent the day shopping and installing new furniture for me. Furniture he said I couldn’t sit on as it wouldn’t support my weight. His place was beautiful. He created a lush tropical paradise that flowed inside and out. Almost hiding the 15-foot walls with razor wire and the electrified fence around his place. However, he had taken the time to take pictures of my gifts and posted them on his Instagram account. That’s why he was late. It was a theme repeated over and over. Nice things done for other people that had to be captured first by camera and posted before anyone could enjoy it. I eventually became his photographer to capture these staged moments. Neither one of us posted a picture of each other the entire time.
When I arrived, we talked about the plans for the next three months. My travel visa was good until the middle of July. At that point I would head back to Phoenix, work for three months and come back. This was going to continue until his divorce was finalized and then we would get married. He had a tourist visa for the US, so he would come back and forth with me as his work allowed. He told me that he would work during the week and we would travel the weekends. Sounded fantastic to me. I didn’t think we would get much traveling in and I wasn’t expecting it, but maybe a trip or two. I wasn’t here for a vacation, but to live and be with my boyfriend. I was going to keep busy by working on a memoir from my previous time using drugs leading to my time in the seminary and getting kicked out for smoking crack. The problem was I couldn’t write a word. No one really new the full extent of my past, especially my boyfriend. How do you write about a past you are ashamed of and about a person no one even knew existed, the real me? It was to overwhelming and to painful to even begin, so I didn’t. This became a daily argument between us. Why wasn’t I writing. I never told him. Friday evening rolls around. He gets back from work, and he begins talking about his work plans for the weekend. I mention to him our conversation from when I first arrived about traveling the weekends. He said, “What are you fucking stupid, I never said that.” I was totally caught of guard. Kept a level head and said yes you did. He then said, “if you are wanting to travel so bad, why don’t you head to Rio for the weekend and get yourself a couple of Rent Boys.” I walked away. I had never mentioned Rent Boys or going to Rio. I had never hired a escort in my life at this point or thought about it. That was his husband. It began, gaslighting and verbal abuse. Every bad thing he did, he turned it back on to me. It was my fault that he had to do things he didn’t like. I was the source of all our problems. I started to get more closed off and the mask of calm, cool, collected Jeff came out, with hints of anger, but I also started thinking that maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe he was right; I was fucking stupid. My pride got the best of me. I couldn’t go back to Phoenix after a week. After that weekend I decided to start walking around the neighborhood. I started my Samsung health app, put in a mile goal and started walking. It was sunny, hot and humid, but I was out of the house. My feet were killing me by the end of the mile, but I made it. I came home and sat on the patio while he worked inside on his computer. After a week I bumped it to two miles. After a month I was walking 8 miles and out of the house for three hours during the late morning and early afternoon and then he would be gone by the time I got back. I would have the afternoon to stare at my blank computer screen, swim in his pool and chat with a couple of friends and family back home when he wasn’t around. I would lay on the couch and watch movies and when I heard the garage door go up, I would turn off the TV and sit in front of my computer. He would get extremely jealous and upset if I spoke to anyone on the phone. He always thought I was cheating on him. I later came to believe that he was projecting his own behavior on to me, but he also wasn’t wrong.
A few things began happening the more I walked. It was through a neighborhood, but it was filled with parks. There were trees everywhere. I set a walking path, I had downloaded 2 albums and I listened to them over and over, they were by Dua Lipa and Calum Scott. The words in their songs spoke to me. The longer I walked the more I became aware of the peace in nature surrounding me, the further I became disconnected to the verbal abuse I was enduring in the house. I slowly began to hear my voice again. It started out simply asking me what was I doing here? For weeks I thought about it then it moved on to you are better than this and you deserve more than this . And finally, I heard you are worth more than this. That’s when it clicked, and I became free. I was worth more than this. The walls slammed down around my mind, and he never entered again in a way that he was able to hurt me. I deserved to be happy. I also realized that kindness and thoughtfulness are important virtues to me and that he lacked both.
“I deserve to be happy”
It’s easy to go on about someone else’s faults, but this post isn’t about my ex boyfriend, it’s about me and my issues and how I ended up in Brazil. The white lies about what I say my interests are, seemed insignificant to me. I never took the time to see what they are really saying about me and the damage they caused to my self image. I had an idealized version of myself that I presented, and that Jeff loved to hike. I ended up leaving Brazil three weeks earlier than I planned. My dad went into the hospital and my mom asked me to come home. When I left, I knew I wasn’t coming back and my boyfriend knew it as well even though we never discussed it. I just wanted out and didn’t want an argument. He told me he came to learn that I lied about my dad being in the hospital. There was no point in correcting him, because he was always right. We spoke on the phone a few times and by my third day home he had blocked me on all forms of communication. His last voice message started with “you know what your problem is..” I hit delete. I didn’t have to listen to his bullshit any more.
October 2021
In the fall I had brunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in 5 years, she had gone through a divorce and was dating. She told me about this book she had read called Attached, by Dr. Levine. The book sounded great, I downloaded it a couple of days later and dove into it. I diagnosed myself as having an avoidance attachment style. I was ready to work on myself and I wanted to know what my part was in the failure of my relationship with my ex, besides the obvious. I wanted a plan of action and tips to work on my attachment style like the author had had for other styles in the book. I get to the end of the chapter on avoidants and the doctor basically says avoidant styles are fucked and that professional therapy is required. A lot of therapy. Not to be deterred, and wanting to look at myself, I contacted my therapist in Tucson I had worked with 14 years ago after I had left rehab. She had worked in rehab centers for over 20 years and had a private practice as well. She specializes in relationships, sex and trauma. Perfect for me. We connected and began zoom meetings every week for 7 months. I compartmentalized my life once again. I caught her up, I was gay, still sober, just out of a relationship and having a lot of sex; daily with different men. She wasn’t concerned about the amount of sex; she was concerned I didn’t know why I was having so much sex. I dodged this subject the entire time. Every couple of weeks she would try to get me to dive back into it, but I didn’t want to go there. The sex was a game to me. How many guys could I sleep with or agree to sleep with me. Once they said yes, sometimes it didn’t even matter If I slept with them. The more 6 or 8 packs on their stomachs the better. I loved the hunt for men and didn’t want to quit. I was sober other than the marijuana from a couple of years prior, and I never mentioned that to her. I also never discussed my thoughts of drinking again that I began having. I kept the focus on me and wanting to work on relationships. I discovered several things about myself during that time. I had a darkness so deep and painful in me and I didn’t know how to handle it, I had sustained long term trauma by living 2 separate lives for 46 years and that I had an idealized version of myself that I presented, because If anyone really knew who I was, I wouldn’t be worthy of love.
December 2022
The ideal Jeff loves to hike, is a successful business owner, confident, adventurous, a go getter, enjoys working out, has great self-esteem, had a drinking problem and dabbled with drugs in the past, but it was no longer a problem. He is newly out and inexperienced at sex with men. He gets along with everybody, even tempered, keeps his emotions in check, faithful, had strong religious beliefs and is seeking a long term monogamous relationship. This is the Jeff my boyfriend met and had a relationship with until I got to Brazil. It had been easy to keep up the charade because we hadn’t been together much up to this point. This is also the person I wished to be. This Jeff wasn’t damaged, broken and worthy of love. I showed up in Brazil an Uber driver, overweight, tired, stressed out, no personal financial sense and living in a fantasy. There was a constant internal battle between the ideal Jeff and me. My lips moved with the Ideal Jeff, but my actions were all mine. I became bitter that my boyfriend didn’t love the real me. How could he, he had never met him, but I also believed that this was what I deserved. No one would want to be in a relationship with me, I needed to project a better version of myself. The reality is I am a spontaneous, adventurous, kind, generous, thoughtful guy who struggles with self-esteem, body image, and my past exploits. I love to watch movies, read, cook, garden, snow ski, go out to eat, and travel. I am happy to lay on the couch all day and binge watch a show when I should be doing chores or errands. Pizza is best served with ranch and any food that can be eaten with my hands is my favorite. I have social anxiety. Going to a party where I only know the host makes my skin crawl. I’ve come to realize that I hide myself, because I did it for so long. Its easier for me: it’s my natural state to hide my feelings and what I am thinking. I don’t want to appear weak and I need to keep up the façade that I’m okay. Hiding my true self for 46 years fucked me up. I am working on my trauma and my self-esteem here in treatment. My sponsor reminds me I am an addict who has done a lot of bad shit and crazy things over the years, but also a lot of good things. That’s first and foremost who I am, an addict and I forgot that. He doesn’t say it to make me feel bad about myself, but to ground me.
This story wouldn’t be complete without me giving a true account of my behavior during the time with my boyfriend. I was having sex with men right up to the day before I met my future boyfriend in Phoenix in January 2020. I had just finished my final round of antibiotics for a case of chlamydia I couldn’t shake. I didn’t have sex with another man during the 18 months except for the day after I arrived back from Brazil the first time in September 2020. My boyfriend was heading back to London and said he was going to be staying there permanently. I was upset, didn’t know where we stood and I had been chatting with a guy back in Phoenix before I had even left for Brazil. I got back and we hooked up. It was over in about 3 minutes and not worth it. I’ll spare you the boring details. I was off all the dating apps the entire time we were together, but I used the suggested friends on Facebook to meet new guys and Messenger to chat with them. I guess I was always looking for someone better or something to fill a void in me that I hadn’t realized I had. When I finally left my boyfriend and headed back to Phoenix in July of 2021, I had already booked my next trip for August. I was going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to meet the Colombian. The addict never rests.