Safety, I assumed, required freedom from others: freedom from commitment, something as close to full material and psychological autonomy as possible. But freedom from others had left me enslaved to an untethered, empty self. In these times it became obvious that the freedom I was pursuing turned out to be utter isolation. Maybe I could just unburden the world of my presence. And that’s when I encountered God.

I remember the moment I told myself I would never talk to my dad again. I was sixteen years old, and my dad’s adoptive parents had just surprised me with my first car: a bright yellow used Geo Tracker (that I would soon trade for a truck). After a slight disagreement, we split into separate vehicles to drive back to my mother’s house. In the other car my dad was drinking while driving my little brother, and I drove my new car with his new wife. When we arrived at my mom’s, she chastised my dad because we were much later than expected (at this time we did not have cellphones) and she noticed the alcohol on his breath. He got out and yelled at her. And then he took my keys and told me he was going to tell my grandparents I didn’t want the car. For the first time in my life, I gave verbal expression to the anger I had internalized for years: “Get out of here. You can’t treat us like this. We don’t need you.”

I come from a stock of relationship-quitters. During my childhood, pretty much everyone in my life had divorced at least once, extended family connections were strained, long-term friends were nonexistent, and moves were frequent. Over time I came to adopt a conception of freedom that had destroyed the lives of many around me, and which would threaten to destroy my own as well: the popular idea of freedom as unconstrained choice. Since this is impossible, the default was a more achievable version: the ability to drop commitments and relationships at any point when they become too complicated. Freedom as the license to leave when things get tough. Live by the mantra of Robert De Niro’s character in Heat: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in thirty seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” If complications come, don’t worry. You can always go.

I eventually came to see that such freedom left me and some of those I loved unfree to love and to be known in love. Furthermore, this approach to freedom is a form of self-harm that also harms those dependent on you.

As Andrew Root has explained in his masterful work The Children of Divorce, divorce affects kids at a fundamental level. Their memories are tarnished and their family relations are frayed. Did we truly have any happy moments? Were we ever a loving family? Which cousins can we see now? Where will we go for holidays? How do we navigate the family gossip about our parents? Do we need to choose sides? Will we lose connection with those on one side of the family if we live with one parent as opposed to the other?

Children always complicate things – especially social theories that are fundamentally grounded in the autonomous individual. Children expose the lie that we are primarily individuals who only enter relationships voluntarily according to rational self-interest. The involuntary nature of the most important things in life can be experienced both for good or ill. No, we are not free to choose our parents, and that is a good thing: we do not choose to come into the world; our existence is the pure gift of our parents to us.

But the unchosen can be a curse as well. In divorce, children are not free to grow up in an intact family. And things are often (though not always) made worse with the introduction (and often quick exit) of new parent-alternatives. I had hoped that Michael, my mother’s first husband after my dad, would take care of us, would show the warmth to my brother and me that my father never did, would be a safe person for my mom. I mean, he even played guitar. We would sing together. But the emotional outbursts began shortly and became recurrent. And then one day he was gone. By the time John entered the scene a couple of years later, I had already built up defenses, and I kept him at a distance, certain that things wouldn’t work out and that he too would abandon us. Which is what happened. Frequent moves and multiple marriages meant that relationships were always on trial, always conditional. Best to hijack rejection by preemptively refusing to connect.

As C. S. Lewis vividly explained, connection makes you vulnerable: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” This is inevitable. For some, though, the lesson is rubbed in one’s face early and often. Love, I learned, is not safe. Commitment is not real. What is safe is hardened independence, especially toward these parental figures. And for me this began to trickle into other relationships.

We moved every year or so, and thus I was always the “new kid.” This meant I had to regularly audition for friend groups. Since I wasn’t particularly funny or cool, I tried to ingratiate myself with others by letting them copy my homework – because at least I was a decent student. Later I would make friends through basketball, which became my first love. When things got difficult in a friendship, as inevitably happens, I would quickly abandon the relationship, knowing we would likely move soon anyway.

In eighth grade, I was living with my best friend’s family so I could finish the school year before rejoining my own family, who had moved to a new city. Right before one of our basketball games, I got in an argument with him and, instead of resolving it, I just phoned my mom to come get me and take me to our new home.

Commitment was for suckers, I was convinced. But what I eventually came to learn was that this “safety” was not so safe after all. Was I ever known? Did I even know myself? With whom was I connected in an enduring way? Was anything stable? Would anyone stick with me? Am I simply unlovable? Are we all alone?

Lewis was correct – safety through hardening is no real safety at all:

If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

I gave more and more of myself to school and sports, all the while running from difficult relationships. I became increasingly anxious. On perpetual trial in friendships, and never reaching the other side of conflict, I became excessively defensive with others.

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