So I had a PROFOUND experience yesterday. I had a dream yesterday morning that I was having a conversation with my dad. Before I went to bed, I asked my dreams to show me something I was not seeing. So in the dream I was talking to my father, asking him questions:
“Dad, if you love mom, then why do you look at other women and flirt with other girls?”
“Dad, I look up to you as my role model–when you do things and say things, I see you, and it is being imprinted within me subconsciously the way men are supposed to relate with women.”
“Why do you go to strip clubs when you’re with mom?”
So I was asking my dad these questions that I had on my mind–especially in my own relationship with Ivan. In the dream, all I remember was me asking and my dad was silent. So I woke up and the rest of the day, I had several hunches to call my dad. I called him a few times in the morning/afternoon, but his phone was off. Ivan and I went out for vegan pizza and we had a conversation about how it would be awesome to wipe away the memory of some things because I hate rethinking the same things. Ivan opened up and told me he had things that he also wished he could just dismiss from his thought process. I knew he was talking about Buzz.
So then he asked me what it was I kept thinking about and I told him it has been repetitive thoughts of him going to the strip club, and that it comes up at least 2 to 5 times a day and some days I am better at dismissing it than others. Some days it feels as painful as when he told me and I get re-triggered. Then I cried, and he held my hand. I came home and as I picked my phone up, I saw my dad calling, so I answered. I listened and trusted what my dream showed me.
I explained to my dad how I had a bad dream, and then I asked, “Do you love mom?”
Then in his cute Lithuanian accent he says, “Of course.”
And here’s how the rest went:
“If you love mom, then why do you look at other girls and flirt with them?”
He said, “No, no, no. Hold on. I do not flirt with other girls.”
“Dad, you hired only young European girls to work for you and then you flirted with them.”
He said, “I do not do that. It may seem like that to you, but it’s not what is really happening.”
“Okay, so why do you go to strip clubs?”
He said, “Goda, I do not go to strip clubs. You asked me if I ever went, and I am answering your question. Yes, I went in the past. I don’t go now.”
“I just don’t understand, if you love mom, why don’t you put in consideration her feelings? How would Mom feel about you watching girls my age dance naked for you?”
He said, “Goda, let me explain to you… Guys go to the club just for fun, just to have a few beers and spend time with the guys. That’s it. It’s nothing more than that. It’s just for fun. You look at a few girls, and they are nothing more than sluts and you look at one and say I fucked that one and I’d fuck this one.”
At this point, I begin bawling my eyes out because I’m full on visualizing Ivan doing this, and my heart breaks, so I begin taking it out on my dad.
I start yelling, “How is that NORMAL?!”
He says, “Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what you need help being explained.”
“It hurts! My heart hurts, Dad!”
“Why does it hurt?” he asked.
“Because I can’t see how that’s just for fun! You’re MARRIED to mom. What makes it normal and fun to have naked girls rub their vaginas all over you? That’s worse than cheating in my eyes.”
“Hold on,” he said, “NO. I never had any naked girls dancing and rubbing on me naked. The most we would do is leave a few tips for the girls.”
“DAD! Don’t you understand when you do this stuff, it’s being subconsciously imprinted in my head that this is how all guys are and that it’s okay to exploit women with the support of your dollar. You are PAYING to keep supporting this, and then you claim that you’re against it!”
“Goda,” he says, “you are right. But I went to strip clubs when I was younger, I don’t now–I don’t have any desire to.”
Then I explained to him how it hurts to be with Ivan, especially knowing that he went to a strip club.
“How could he do that if he loves me?” I asked.
Then my dad said something very powerful.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “You were not looking at things from his perspective. You were going around having sex with other guys and flirting and whatever. What does he expect? He’s going to do the same that you do to him. What makes you think that he’ll treat you with respect if you’re going around with other people?”
Wow. He saw right through me. I don’t even know he knew what I was doing, maybe he had been reading my personal messages somehow. Regardless, it stopped me in my tracks.
“I never thought of it like that. Thank you, dad.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You’re not looking at it from his point of view. What you did to him was much worse compared to him just going to the club. Those girls at the clubs are not the girls that guy likes. They are just sluts and let me say something else. When a guy really loves you and you want to work with him and he works with you, you help each other grow and there’s no way he’s even going to have the desire to go out to a club or hit on another woman. If you’re not good with him, of course he’ll go out, if you’re not giving him that emotional connection.”
“ Well, can I ask you something else?” I took a deep breath. “There’s a stripper that lives here and she goes back-and-forth to Honolulu and she has a boyfriend and her guy could care less if she goes out and does that. If anything, he supports her. He loves that she does that.”
“No,” my dad said, “if a guy lets his girl do that or seems to not care then he doesn’t love her. The relationship is a ‘using one another’ exchange. She goes out to dance and comes back with money for her guy. That’s not love.”
I cannot explain what that conversation did for me. I needed to get the message from my dream because I needed to talk to my father. I was attracted to the exact relationship of my mother and father and I felt I needed to understand my mother and father’s relationship more clearly so that I could understand my own. There was even a moment where I felt like I wanted to give up on the conversation and my dad picked up on it, and was said, “No, keep going. Keep explaining to me what’s hurting.”
Oh, I am beyond grateful for opening up to him like that. I saw how easy it is to communicate, and people are honest when you simply allow yourself to be honest. I went to bed last night and I had the same thoughts arise about being at the club, and for the first time I experienced no triggering feeling. It was just another thought. I gave no power to it and it disappeared. That right there is a fucking miracle.