The crowded cloud of witnesses: on ex-lovers, memories, and the call to grow

A reprint from November 2008.

I’ve got a remarkable number of friends going through divorces or break-ups right now. And a week or so ago, one of those friends asked me a question I often get: “How did you survive three divorces?” The question is usually half-facetious, half-serious. I have the quick and facetious answer down pat: “I’m the King of Starting Over”, something I’ve blogged about in the past. I know better than most how to move out of a shared space and begin a new life with rented furniture! Three divorces before my 36th birthday (still, and one hopes always, a standing family record) have given me a great many interesting stories about “new beginnings”.

But last week, my friend asked me a question I get far more rarely: “How, Hugo, do you deal with having been in love with so many women? Where do they all ‘go’ in your head and your heart?” My friend is an evangelical cradle Christian; his soon-to-be-ex wife was his first love and his first lover. He can’t imagine ever being as intimate with anyone in the future as he was with her. He’s worried that memories of his first marriage, and his first romance, will haunt any future relationship. He repeated his question: “Where do all these past lovers ‘go’?”

There’s a great line in Jane Hamilton’s otherwise over-wrought A Map of the World (which was turned into an underrated Sigourney Weaver/David Strathairn film). I don’t have the book or the movie handy, so I’ll quote it as I remember. Near the end, the lead character (who has gone through unspeakable tragedy piled on unspeakable tragedy) says of her past loves: “They’re always with you, just not consciously. They’re right beneath the eyelids.” I may be misquoting the line, but the point is reasonably clear: the past is something you heal from, something you get over, but also something you carry with you. And the lovers and exes whose bodies you knew and whose lives you shared are gone — and in some sense, need to be gone — but their influence on your own life continues.

One of the Apostle’s loveliest images is of a “cloud of witnesses” urging us on. Whatever St. Paul meant, I’ve long cherished the idea that I am watched over, and perhaps in some sense even protected, by those who have gone before. I think of my father, my grandparents, and countless other friends and relatives who have “gone to join the great majority” on the other side. As a Christian, I believe not only in a life to come but also in the promise of being reunited with deceased loved ones. I also believe, based on Scripture and on hope, that I am watched over and cared for by these witnesses. I’m not practicing some sort of ancestor worship, never fear — but though my great hope is in Jesus, my quiet comfort is also in the presence of those who cheer me on. (I know this isn’t a comforting image for everyone. I had a friend who was raised with the belief that the dead could see you, and she grew up with a genuine phobia about going to the toilet, worried that dead people were going to watch her poop.)

In any case, I don’t just apply the “cloud of witnesses” image to the dead.

I’m not close today with my ex-wives or ex-lovers. I’ve made amends where I can and where appropriate, and in some cases (not all) I have received — and given — forgiveness. But I honor that transitioning from intense intimacy to uncomplicated platonic friendship is easier said than done. In a strange way, it has always seemed to me that staying “buddies” with an ex (when children are not involved) does a kind of violence to the reality of the relationship that was, particularly when that relationship was extraordinarily passionate. Speaking only for myself, everyone who has loved me and whom I have loved in return has left a mark (in some cases, literally) on my skin. And sometimes, “staying friends” requires a conscious effort to ignore that mark, something I am not always willing to do.

But while I don’t spend much time these days ruminating about my past (I prefer to focus my energy on my now and my tomorrow), I do feel very strongly that my ex-lovers, like my father or grandparents, are in some sense still witnesses to my life. Most of my exes are alive, as far as I know! And though on a conscious level, they probably aren’t aware of what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis, I think of them as in some sense still present, still witnessing. I have three ex-wives, and another three women with whom I lived for an extended period of time. I suppose I’ve been “seriously” in love perhaps eight or nine times, with a much-greater number of short-term and less significant relationships along the way. It’s those eight or nine exes I thought about when my friend asked me where the past lovers “go”. And I told my friend that each of those women was and is a part of making me who I am today, and that while each has gone her separate way, each stays in some sense inside of me.

I don’t know if it’s always been entirely true, but I’ve always assumed that every woman with whom I shared a bed and a life liked me and wished me well. It’s not that I imagine that I am God’s gift to women; far from it. But for whatever reason, I’ve never been the sort of person who imagines that those closest to him secretly dislike him. All of my exes found flaws in me, of course, and most of the time, those infuriating flaws played a part in the end of the relationship. But though they might have been furious with me sometimes, and even said “I hate your guts” once in a while, I always figured that deep down, they wanted nothing but the best for me as I did for them. In most of these relationships, what ended up happening was that the gulf between the “real Hugo” and the “public Hugo” became obvious and eventually overwhelming. (Ask anyone who’s had the pleasure of dating and mating with someone who was habitually diagnosed with the standard “cluster b” personality disorder.) It may well be my my old character defect of narcissism rearing its ugly head, but I remain convinced that those whom I loved genuinely and deeply loved me as well, and that even after the relationships ended, their hope and their expectation that I could grow and change endured.

And so today, I do everything I can to pour all of my sexual and romantic energy towards my wife. At the same time, I know that my ability to do so is based on experience as well as grace. I am blessed to have been loved, and loved well, by many people in many ways. Whatever confidence and optimism and resilience seems apparent in my character is a consequence of having certainty that I am loved. Loved by God, first and foremost, and — increasingly — loved by myself. Loved by my wonderful family, of course, and loved too by a series of women who in one way or another tried to build a life with me. I learned from each and every one of them, or so I tend to think; the fact that most lessons had to be repeated several times doesn’t vitiate that truth. Of course, the role of these women was not to make me a better man — they had their own drives, their own motives, and their own equally important lessons to learn. But the byproduct of the love we made and the lives we shared is a series of lessons about how to live, and live well, in this brutal and beautiful world.

I’ve got very few mementos of these past relationships. And the enthusiasm with which I entered into my fourth and final marriage may give the impression that these earlier love affairs didn’t leave enduring marks on my psyche. But the marks are there, as are the memories. And though I don’t often slip into reverie about my past, I do consciously think of my ex-wives and lovers as participants in the cloud of witnesses, both living and dead, to whom I am in a very real sense accountable in this life. For me, the chief goal of life is to transform one’s selfish nature in oder to be both deeply happy and deeply useful to God and to all of creation. I realize that some folks have more selfishness than others, and I was born with more than most. As different as they were, the girlfriends and former wives I had all challenged me to connect with others, to share courageously, to love boldly. Whether they were able to make their own changes is not something I’m going to get to know in this life; in the end, God only tell us our own story. But what I do know is that the man I am today was shaped by love, and my capacity to love one woman with all my heart is, at least to some degree, thanks to having been loved so well by so many.

And though they are scattered across the globe, and though they may not think of me or think much of me any longer, I carry those whom I once loved inside of me, behind the eyelids. And though I am chiefly accountable to God, to myself, and to my wife, I am also accountable to those who gave a great deal of time, tears, and sweat (in every sense) to shape me. Call it staggering narcissism or cheap sentimentality, but each is with me still, as my father is with me, as all whom I have loved and who have loved me are with me until — and past — the end.