Back in 2005, I had front row access to my father’s spiral towards suicide after his second divorce. In the 22 years I’d been alive, I’d never seen him alone. He’d always had a wife, or a woman he was dating, or a dream for what lover he might have next. But now, I saw hopelessness set up camp in his little Maine condo. He started drinking more. He started throwing around phrases like: “What’s the point?” Within months he was dead. And I made a promise to myself: I will never end up like that. I will never be alone.
At the time of his death, I was casually dating a young woman, a classmate of mine at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Western New York. We were late-night party friends who became lovers, and I didn’t see us as having long-term potential, but I can remember the shift that occurred in me watching my father decline—I latched onto her. We would date five, mostly terrible years. When we split, I almost immediately met another woman, then another, then another, then another. For eighteen-and-a-half years, I never let that space stay empty longer than a frantic day or two: I always had a girlfriend, a hookup, an intrigue, an ex I was still emotionally attached to, someone I was messaging on the apps, a fantasy, a crush, or a friend where sexual energy was being exchanged.
I was never without a woman.
I knew this obsession had become problematic as far back as 2016 (when I was essentially in relationships with two women at once), and by the beginning of 2018, I was looking into solutions for how I could free myself from what had become a full-blown addiction. I made a swing through SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous), but didn’t stick around. I tried spirituality as a remedy, but that turned me into a self-righteous faux-monk who still couldn’t be alone. And while COVID-19 quarantine put me face-to-face with the “unmanageability” of my predicament, I still found ways around it. I remember meeting another equally as attention-starved woman in Venice during the most heated months of lockdown. We spent the afternoon together strolling the boardwalk, and she expected we would continue on to her place to seal the deal. But I told her I had to go. It wasn’t her I wanted. I just needed to feel her wanting me.
My predicament — like any addiction — was shame-inducing enough as it was, but it was doubly impacted by the fact I became a men’s coach who had read every book under the sun about male initiation, mother wounds, and the importance of breaking free of the attachment to women for approval. As I coached my clients through their own sticky situations, I was caught up in my own. And at times, I felt scared and ashamed to share what was really happening for me. I’m sure this unconscious desire to withhold affected the quality of my work, as any secret affects the quality of any relationship.
By the summer of 2021, I was so frustrated with myself, I did what I’ve done several times before: I wrote a very public essay in the hopes that outing myself to the masses would magically cure my condition. And while it didn’t immediately cease the pattern, it did lead to a yearlong stretch of new ownership, and really seeing how my fear of being alone was not getting me where I wanted to go in life or in love, not to mention confusing and potentially harming the women I was with. I knew I had to face the void of being truly on my own, and figuring out who I was without a woman. So, last week, when my most recent relationship ended, I knew now was the time.
I sit here today, writing to you, from a very strange place indeed. Each morning, for the last several mornings, I’ve awoken and immediately felt a cocktail of emotions.
First off, there is the obvious feeling that something is missing—the objective that drove me and all my actions on this earth for eighteen-plus years is not there. Without my identity as a sort of “ladies man,” I am not entirely sure who I am. I look forward to finding out.
Second, I’ve realized in these days that because I latched onto women as a salve while watching my father’s decline and subsequent death, I am now feeling the grief I wasn’t ready to feel then. I miss my dad. A lot. I’ve been crying for days, and in those tears, I’ve come to really know in my bones that the greatest pain a boy can endure is not feeling seen by his father. I am now positive it led to the feeling of invisibility that made me crave approval from the world — and women — as compensation. But of course, that attention could only temporarily fill the void.
Third, I am aware of the impact that my lack of integrity and inability to be alone had on all of my past partners. I wish I could have known then what I know now. The amount of hurt and chaos caused in almost two decades of running from myself and my pain into the arms of women is clear to me in a way it never has been. And that is something I am sitting with in a profound and sobering way right now.
Fourth, I am hopeful. It feels empowering to be in this position, as much as I am undeniably awkward, stumbling and lonely at times. I am a shade freer than I was a week ago, a shade closer to knowing all of me, and a shade closer to healing what I need to heal so I can have the kind of relationship I want with myself, and with another someday—a relationship built not on my wounds or fears, but built on a sense of wholeness, a wholeness I will no doubt discover in these unchartered lands I now traverse.
I will, as they say, keep you posted-
Sean
Thank you for your reply. Yes! to healing self first. Funny I wrote "heeling" first. I also hope that at the right time, someone important comes along to walk with you. I look forward to reading more about your journey. May the road rise up to meet you Sean!
Thank you for the interesting article, sharing and being commented to growing. I see things through my own experience of course, so I could not help but notice you say "women" or as you referred to women it was always plural. "Ladies Man" struck me. As though "all the ladies" are there to sort through and apply to the wound. I felt that could be a problem. Looking at them from a distance. Close up we all know women aren't plural they are individuals/persons. Only an individual can comfort you, choose you and be a partner - not the whole species. The answer is not in being alone but to recognizing the sacred personhood of individual and that requires a depth of respect we must all work to master. It's easier to be alone than sacrifice ourselves to love. Love is an action not a feeling. It's putting another's well being before our own. If we can't prioritize the act of love we have may never find meaning for ourselves. I call that the sacred dichotomy. - Just my thoughts. All the best. GM