For all of us who are a few years past AP History… “The Sword of Damocles” was an Ancient Greek morality tale about a courtier who wanted to be king. Damocles was a hanger-on in the court of the tyrant Dionysius II of Sicily, and one day he got carried away with his flattery and declared the king the luckiest man on the planet. Dionysius smiled and invited Damocles to trade places with him for a day, an offer the courtier greedily accepted. But when he sat down to dinner the next evening in the king’s seat, weighed down by the royal diadem and embroidered robes, with the choicest dishes set before him, he noticed all the other courtiers staring not at him but above him, their faces pinched and pale. Damocles looked up, and spinning slowly in the air over him was the king’s own sword suspended from the ceiling by a single horsetail hair. “This,” Dionysius leaned over and whispered in the would-be king’s ear, “is what it feels like to be the luckiest man on the planet.”
Anyone who has been in a performance-based relationship can relate to Damocles’s situation. At first, you feel like the luckiest girl in the world, like you’ve been plucked from the ranks of the nobodies and enthroned by your partner’s love. They’re nothing but praise and solicitude; everything you do is perfect, everything you want is their desire, too. And then, there’s this little smirk and that little silent treatment. And then it starts: why can’t you wear this dress, or cook this way, or not laugh so loud, and for God’s sake, exercise more. And then you you look up….
I know exactly how Damocles felt at that moment—the feeling in the pit of his stomach like he’d swallowed an ice cube whole, his heart whooshing in his ears, his shoulders hunched as if they could somehow stop the tip of the sword from plunging straight down through his skull to his heart. But unlike Damocles, who begged Dionysius and was allowed to exile himself from Sicily, I stayed. Because my ex was my whole world. And so I did my best to appease him and put up with his gaslighting, constant criticism, demands, withdrawal and withholding, controlling behaviors, name-calling, fits of rage, and threats. All the while the dreaded sword of abandonment spun lazily over my head on its thin, thin hair.
Of course the suspense took its toll: in bills for therapy, in migraines, stomach problems, hormonal dysregulation, fatigue, weight gain, anxiety, and depression. It got harder and harder to jump through the hoops my ex set up for me. He started setting them higher, then lit them on fire…. Before, I had to let him win arguments; now I had to never argue with him. Before, I could go to church each week with no complaint, and he would even come with me sometimes; now, he acted surprised and disgusted every Sunday morning that I couldn’t go climbing or biking with him. And the sword started spinning faster
I can’t tell you the relief when that hair finally snapped. Even though my ex’s deception and betrayal pierced me straight through to the heart, just as I had feared it would—still, the weirdest thing happened. About three days after he left me for another woman, I felt as if someone had just lifted a giant steel plate from my shoulders. I could breathe again, stand up straight. I noticed the sky. And through the hell that followed for the next six months, I never lost that feeling; I clung to it when I had no other hope of ever feeling better again. Because it still felt better than living under the sword.
I will never submit to a performance-based intimate relationship again. I will never accept a partner whose “love” comes with (thin) strings attached because for me that is the worst feeling in the world: knowing that failure means losing the most important thing to you in the world, and knowing at the same time that failure is inevitable. Either I will find a partner who loves me for me, full stop, or I will stay independent. Because I know now, from growing more deeply in my relationship with God, what unconditional love feels like. It’s the best feeling in the world; it’s what love should feel like.
The Rookery 