Accepting the Other Half of Your Other Half

Being committed to someone – really committed – means accepting their good with their bad. Yes, we've all heard that before. But, make no mistake, 'accepting' someone doesn't mean spending the rest of your life with them. I 'accept' that my co-worker waits until the last minute to do every project then frantically pulls me in for help, I 'accept' that my insurance agent thinks email is an appropriate way to sell me life insurance, I 'accepted' that my ex-boyfriend was a chronic philanderer, but I certainly won't spend the rest of my life with these people. Everyone has a line. And it's important that we define it early on in relationships to prepare for situations like this:

My husband, Rick and I were freshly engaged when I had the second of many memorable meetings with his alter ego, 'Drunk Rick'. You see, Drunk Rick is the result of an avid beer drinker getting his hands on something much harder, say vodka, tequila, or – worse yet – whiskey. Drunk Rick creeps in quietly telling my otherwise well-meaning, level-headed husband  'pour yourself another...you can handle it'.  

On one evening in particular, we were celebrating the 20-something birthday of a mutual friend in the VIP section of a club with a steady stream of Grey Goose. Between songs, I noticed Drunk Rick stumble toward a table and clumsily pour himself a drink, having needed because he'd spilled two others before. I grabbed him explaining that it was "time to go." Drunk Rick followed drunkenly along behind me as I said good-byes on behalf of us both. Upon arriving at the coat check we realized that Drunk Rick lost my coat check ticket. The sign "lost tickets must wait until after closing to collect coats" glared down at me from its taped up position on the wall. An ocean of black Pea coats of all shapes, sizes, and materials spread out ahead of me. My favorite London Fog somewhere lost out to sea. It was hours before closing time and there was no way I could keep Drunk Rick in line during that time. As I turned to leave, livid over the ridiculous loss of a coat quite possibly right in front of my face, Rick grabbed at my shirt and refused to let go. Security quickly scooped him up and commenced to carrying him out as he yelled "do you know who I am" all the way down the two flights of stairs to the exit. Horrified, I retrieved my husband's best friend who would be much more likely to claim relation to Drunk Rick than me.

At that point, everyone in our party decided to call it a night mercifully sharing in my walk of shame. Outside security had Drunk Rick pinned against a gate while he continued to question, loudly, as to if they knew who is was and when they didn't answer replied "I'M RICK!". (Side Note: Rick had started working part-time for the same security firm that employed these guys a few weeks prior. The firm was owned by an alderman whose son was a good friend of Rick's, which is how he got the job. Apparently, he felt this gave him some clout. It didn't.) Eventually Drunk Rick's best friend managed to dump him into the passenger seat of my car. And when he leaned over the door to throw up I noticed, in all his rage, Drunk Rick had almost completely ripped the arm off of the Calvin Klein blazer he was wearing that I'd gotten him for Christmas the year before. Icing on the cake.

This wouldn't be the last time Drunk Rick showed his face; each time with its own flavor of ridiculousness or rage. Like the time he threw up in the coat closet because he angrily insisted he 'WAS in the bathroom', or the time he made a teary-eyed, but fake marriage proposal to me in front of our family and friends only to claim he couldn't remember anything the next day, or the time he started spitting on the floor of our bedroom because I wouldn't let him sleep in his shoes.

While these all make for hilarious stories (our friends and I considered getting shirts made that said 'do you know who I am' on the front and 'I'M RICK' on the back one year as a joke Christmas gift), they typically end in a hung over, regretful apology coupled with promises to never drink hard liquor again. Now, do I ever really think this will never happen again? Of course not! That's why it keeps happening. The point is that months before that embarrassing exile from a club we can never go back to, Rick and I got engaged (for real engaged, not Drunk Rick engaged) which meant that I love this a**hole enough to put up with Drunk Rick coming out every once in a while over an entire lifetime. I don't get any less angry and Rick doesn't apologize any less shamefully, it's just something that happens. In the voice of a Jehovah's witness on my front porch at 7AM, I have accepted Drunk Rick into my life. Because he carries so much good along with him.

So the question remains, how much bad are you taking with your good?

Maybe it's time to accept someone, but let them go. Or maybe it's time to accept someone and let 'it' go so you can love them anyway. Either way, 'acceptance' does not signify 'commitment'.