Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It (25 page)

I ENJOY LEARNING HOW TO BE A
MORE THOUGHTFUL
AND CARING PERSON.

My connection with Lauren is healthier than any I’ve had because it is based on our shared desire to be better and to live more meaningful lives. Together, we feel we can do anything we put our minds to. This sort of positive, empowering bond was the major missing piece in my life. Most of my previous relationships were superficial or unbalanced on one side or the other. There wasn’t the same mutual respect and caring as I’m fortunate to experience now with Lauren. In the past, if I had a disagreement with a girlfriend it was often as if someone had lit a fuse. Explosives would go off. There was no search for understanding or solutions.

I’d become jaded. I’d given up on ever finding a person to share my life with. In a lot of ways I didn’t know what constituted good or bad, right or wrong in this arena. I’ve had to study how my friends with solid relationships treat their wives and how they respond to each other. I try to apply the lessons I’ve learned to my own life. These observations have helped make me an infinitely better partner. It’s exciting, really. I enjoy learning how to be a more thoughtful and caring person. I don’t always succeed. Most men have a lot to learn when it comes to communicating with women. But I continue to try and the results of those efforts are rewarding.

Lauren isn’t afraid to give me a reality check now and then, but even when she does, we can usually just talk through things without blowing up. Taking alcohol and drugs out of the equation definitely helps. We’re not going out partying every night. I spent so much of my life in bars and clubs, wasting time that I should’ve spent in acting classes or writing songs—making improvements that would have put me ahead of the game. I’m making up for lost time now, and having this stable relationship has been a major factor.

Whenever I’m feeling sad or depressed about Leslie’s death, my poor relationship with my parents or other personal issues, Lauren is there for me. She is so understanding. She’ll comfort me and give me time to be sad or to vent, all while encouraging me to be forgiving toward others and myself too. She gives me room to deal with my demons in a sane and healthy way.

BEING THERE FOR EACH OTHER

Other girls in my life would often criticize me for my feelings, take the other side—or worse, they just wouldn’t want to deal with me when I wasn’t fun to be around. Lauren never says that I shouldn’t feel one way or another, or that I’m wrong. She says, “I love you and I don’t want you to hurt yourself. It pains me when you are hurting and self-destructive because I want us to be together for a long time. I love you. I want you to be here.”

We’ve talked about the way my sister died from an overdose, whether intentional or accidental, and Lauren is clear about needing me and wanting us to live long lives together. We’re sometimes a little extreme in our focus on fitness, but even when we’re over the top, at least it’s a healthy fixation. If either one of us has a checkup and our blood pressure is up or we’ve gained weight, we’re all over it, correcting the problem quickly because we want to wake up every morning to see each other’s face. We want to be there for each other.

That’s such a shift for me. I’ve clearly moved away from being focused on my problems and needs and am now moving toward having a more balanced outlook in life and love. I guess it is part of an evolving and more grown-up perspective. I’ve learned with Lauren that you can’t change other people, but that’s the wrong goal anyway. If you truly care about someone and want to build a lasting relationship with them, you work on yourself first and serve as an example.

WE WANT TO
BE THERE
FOR EACH OTHER.

There may be things about your partner that you don’t like, but if you look within yourself, you’ll likely find a lack of perfection there too. You should never accept abusive behavior, of course. Sometimes we do fall for people who aren’t right for us. In that instance, you have to be able to see the relationship for what it is and make the decision to walk away. I’ve made that decision before and know it can be painful, even when it’s apparent that it’s the right thing to do. Remember that when you walk away from a bad relationship, you’re actually taking one step closer to finding a better relationship. One that’s truly right for you.

With Lauren, I want to be a better person, which tells me that she is good for me. We make each other want to strive to be our best selves. The point I want to make in this last chapter is that if you aren’t finding long-term relationships that make you want to be a better partner and person, maybe the problem isn’t the people you are dating. Maybe the problem lies somewhere within you.

That was my case, for the most part. I wasn’t satisfied with anyone else primarily because I wasn’t satisfied with myself. My relationship with Lauren didn’t really take root until I became committed to having a healthier, saner, and more positive life. Lauren bought into that person and now we inspire each other to fulfill that dream for ourselves and for each other.

SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND

We’ve both done self-destructive things in the past. However, now that we’ve built something really beautiful together, we realize that we’d have so much more to lose if we ever jeopardized it. That knowledge gives us greater incentive to preserve and cultivate what we have. We’ve identified not only the sort of people we want to be, but the kind of relationship we want to enjoy together. Our physical attraction is strong. Being friends to each other is equally important. Sometimes that means giving each other a friendly kick in the butt, or a wake-up call, or another point of view. Love is not just about smiling and being agreeable.

If relationships were an extreme sport, my family would have been Olympians in that category. When things were good, we were all hugs and kisses and “I love you, too.” When things were bad, we’d shriek, throw things at each other, and punch and scream for hours. There was very little middle ground. Lauren and I don’t want that.

IF
RELATIONSHIPS
WERE AN EXTREME SPORT, MY FAMILY WOULD HAVE BEEN OLYMPIANS IN THAT CATEGORY.

We don’t mind being a boring couple now and then. Boring has its good points. We try not to let small things blow up into big problems. Before meeting Lauren, I had a tendency to sulk and keep my feelings locked up until the pressure built so much that I’d explode. I avoided conflict because in my childhood, there was no such thing as a gentle disagreement. My father let off steam by shooting a gun out the window. Can you imagine the fear that created in our household?

Lauren is a strong woman, physically and emotionally, but I don’t ever want her to fear me in that way. So, building a relationship is just as much about knowing what you don’t want, as knowing what you do want. That’s all part of it. I’m learning to take responsibility for how I make her feel, which is a big step for me and for most guys.

Women often assume we understand their feelings, but most men aren’t wired like that. So when we are committed to someone who matters to us, we are sometimes slow to grasp that women don’t want us to
fix
their situations as much as they want us to understand how they feel about them.

I don’t pretend to have the male-female dynamics all figured out yet. At one time in my life, I feared I’d never have a girlfriend for more than a few years.

And even if I did, I feared marriage. (Don’t even get me started on my fear of kids!) But I am maturing and my outlook on many things is changing.

When I first met Lauren, I told her that I never wanted to get married. My parents’
union
had served as such a bad example, I just didn’t believe in it. I wanted her to hear it from me firsthand. But when you grow to truly love someone, you feel very protective of that person. Especially when that person is as dedicated to you as Lauren is to me—when that person is by your side everyday supporting your needs and goals. You see in their actions that they have committed their life to you. And because their life has value, too, you have to be fair. You can’t just play with another person’s life. You’re either in or you’re out. Before I knew it, I was dedicated to Lauren, too.

WHEREAS THE THOUGHT OF
BEING COMMITTED
TO ONE PERSON FOR SO LONG WAS ONCE SCARY TO ME, I ACTUALLY FIND IT LIBERATING NOW.

Whereas the thought of being committed to one person for so long was once scary to me, I actually find it liberating now. I am much freer to be myself when I’m with Lauren because she and I know and trust each other so much. That sense of freedom is something I never expected in a relationship, but I’m really grateful for it.

Today, I’m happy to say that not only can I
imagine
spending a lifetime with Lauren, I‘m really
looking forward
to it. In February of 2013, I proposed to her in one of my favorite places on earth and she said, “Yes!” We had planned a 10-day vacation in the Florida Keys. I bought the ring in advance, and by the time we got down there I had wanted to finally give it to her. I felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket for a while already. The plan was to take a 25-foot boat I kept down there to a private island that is very special to me. I chose that location because I wanted Lauren to visit a place from my childhood that held happy memories, especially since she had mostly heard about all the bad things from that time in my life.

Although I loved fishing and boating, I hadn’t been to the Keys in more than 8 years. What I didn’t realize before we arrived was that after all that time being docked in the marina, the boat would be in such bad condition.

I knew I just couldn’t let anything disrupt my plans, so Lauren’s father and I spent three whole days taking that boat apart and restoring it as best we could. We ripped the engine out and replaced all the gunked-up parts until it was functioning enough to take out for a ride. On that day, we almost didn’t make it to the island. We got to a sand mound and the engine stopped. I had to restart it several times, but it was really touch and go. Can you imagine if we got stuck out there? It’s so remote we would have had to call the Coast Guard. It was an adventure, but we finally got to where I intended to go. We call it
Engagement Island
because where it’s located is still a secret and we want to keep it that way. That’s where I finally popped the question and Lauren happily agreed to spend the rest of her life with me.

In so many ways that trip is a metaphor for the long and determined journey I’ve described for you in this book. I’ve had to take my life apart, examine it, figure out what needed fixing and make the necessary changes to get me where I so badly wanted to be, just as I had to do with that boat. One of the many wonderful things about returning to Florida on that trip was that I got a chance to stare down some of the worst demons of my past and prove to myself that I am stronger than I’ve ever been. It was such a mind-cleansing and healing experience and I’m so grateful for it. I am confident now that I can continue to grow and be the man I want to be for my own sake and the sake of my future wife. I’m excited by what both the present and the future hold for us.

I don’t have any further thoughts about kids at the moment, but I’ll say this much: As my married friends who served as such good relationship role models have and raise kids, I’ll be watching and learning from those relationships, too. If these friends are as good at parenting as I suspect they will be, then we might just consider it. Who knows? One thing I’ve learned from my experiences is that anything is possible, but I continue to take life one step at a time as that has been a very good approach for me.

WRITING MY OWN STORY

Every day I’m learning more about myself and my ability to create my own life story. I’m feeling better about my future thanks to my more positive outlook and lifestyle, my reunion with Backstreet Boys, my renewed interest in songwriting and acting, my solid and loving relationship with Lauren and, of course, our impending marriage. Every day is a new day, and I never know what will be thrown at me, but now I’m confident that I have the power to handle life’s challenges and the grace to appreciate its many gifts.

I know, too, that I can change myself for the better as long as I’m healthy in my mind and my body. I want to build on the good things in my life and I want to put the bad things in my rear view mirror, leaving them far behind forever. I do still deal with depression, which may be due to the drugs I’ve done in the past or, more generally, to my unhealthy former lifestyle. But I’ve learned to manage those moments, rather than allowing them to overwhelm me and trigger self-destructive behavior.

I COACH MYSELF
TO SNAP OUT OF IT.

Being aware of negative thoughts and countering them immediately has been a big help. I coach myself to snap out of it. I use them as motivation to find something positive to do—anything that steers me away from darkness and toward the light.

We have an incredible ability to adjust our actions and thoughts. If we consistently monitor our feelings and make the necessary adjustments, the process gets easier and easier over time. My addictive craving now is to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. I’m reading to open and expand my mind. I’m working out to strengthen my body. I’m in therapy to deal with my demons, manage my emotions, and just to be an all-around better person.

This book is one result of that commitment. I’ve tried to make it clear throughout these pages that I don’t see myself as wiser or more evolved than anyone else. It’s quite the opposite. The more I learn, the more humble I feel because there is so much more out there beyond my grasp. As I stated in the introduction, I hope you learn from my mistakes. I’ve shared so many of them with you and must admit that reliving them wasn’t easy.

THE MORE I LEARN, THE
MORE HUMBLE
I FEEL…

The other main point I hope you will take away from this book is that no matter how deep you may fall into that dark pit of despair, no matter how many mistakes you make, or how many failures you may experience, you can always turn your life around. You can be the person you want to be, the person you were meant to be. Don’t ever give up on yourself. Don’t ever let anyone else write your story for you. Write your own. Know that you are worthy of the best life you can create.