You know, living where I do now, it's pleasant to put behind the awful feelings that I lived with so long. It's convenient to live in a new place and to feel satisfied and fulfilled where I am. But, sometimes, I feel like I have to go back and revisit those painful places in order to make others understand. It's as if some people.....who, by the way, do really care about me.....simply don't understand because I haven't shared the horrid depths of the pit. The use of sex and money for power. The depth of his disdain for me and feelings of superiority.....while behaving like a martyr. The constant emotional roller coaster. The always walking on eggshells to keep things livable for everyone. It's as if some people won't believe my "it was worse than it looked." They can't take me at my word because all they seem to see is his charm.
He hurt me. More than anyone else in my life ever has. Including my step mother who didn't really take care of me and my dad who was absent from birth. Those people I could talk to. Those people have no pull over my forever life. But my ex did...and will. Because forevermore, people will question why I chose divorce. I will be considered less than whole. Less than the best. I'm not too distressed about it. However, I deeply desire to have my friends know me well enough to know how much, how long, how hard, how unending it was for me to come to this place.
One in particular pretends to get it when she is in the midst of others, but when it's the two of us, she says hurtful things. She can be quite cutting when she chooses, but I'm not so used to her turning it on me. She assumed that I would go to the party that my husband was throwing today because it was neutral territory. She didn't get the emotional upheaval, the sense of loss because he nabbed the last night, the uncomfortableness of going with him being the host and needing to interact. Going to an event that both of us are attending but not hosting is somehow easier. As long as there are enough people to be a buffer.
I don't know all of the answers, but I know that I don't want to have to live in that place anymore. I know that I am where I am as a gift of God. Alive and breathing. Not wishing to simply not wake up, and fearing for my children if I didn't. No longer wishing that he just wouldn't make it home. It was a deep and dark and painful place. He was as unkind as many others who LOOK mean. He just looks so very good. And I keep thinking...maybe he is to others. Maybe he just resented or hated me. He called it love. It was a bad kind of "love". It was need. It was dependence. It was ownership. It was control. It was jealousy. It was "comfortable." It was so many things. But it was NOT love. Love doesn't seek to put down. To diminish another. It encourages and builds.
And I tried to keep giving that kind of love. To help him. To understand him. To support him. But he simply sucked it all up and wanted more. Nothing was ever enough or good enough.
I hated the life I was living. I loved the kids. Loved that marriage had given me them. But I came to a place that I knew that I couldn't live a life that was so full of pain for another 40 years. And I said so. And I begged for change. And I said how things made me feel. And he always turned it around to how it was my fault. Or would cry and be needy so that I would once again make things right.
It was too hideous to even consider ever going back to. Just thinking the thought now, that cold, shaking feeling overtook me. A primal response. The shutting down. No. Though some simply won't understand, and though I can't explain well enough, I can't live there. I can't live with him. I need a good long time truly separated from him. I need time to heal.
I guess I feel that I have these gaping wounds and they choose not to see them. They think that a bandaid will suffice. But under the bandaid, the life drains out. I can't comply. Though I want them to like me. Though I am quite nearly desperate for words of encouragement and support. So tired of the "I'll just be friends with both of you like it has always been." I want to be a big girl and have that be ok. But in the depths of my heart, sometimes I just long for someone to say, "I totally choose you, you are my real friend, I'm not going anywhere, you are very important to me." How nice that would be. But alas, I would have to moan and complain and tell it like it is and cause them to hate him....and I don't have that in me. People are just going to have to make their own decisions. Period.
And I just have to live my decisions. And when I think it's too hard, all I have to do is remember the impossibility of the alternative. There's no way that I can be married to him. No trust. No love. No hope that he will ever treat me as a husband. No nurture. No comfort. No co-parenting.
No, I'm done. I know it for sure. And it just hurts when some push me to be "nicer" when I'm being as nice as I possibly can be for how new and raw it all is.
Actually, I think that I'm doing a damn fine job.
Even if I have to say so myself...:)
blessings.
He hurt me. More than anyone else in my life ever has. Including my step mother who didn't really take care of me and my dad who was absent from birth. Those people I could talk to. Those people have no pull over my forever life. But my ex did...and will. Because forevermore, people will question why I chose divorce. I will be considered less than whole. Less than the best. I'm not too distressed about it. However, I deeply desire to have my friends know me well enough to know how much, how long, how hard, how unending it was for me to come to this place.
One in particular pretends to get it when she is in the midst of others, but when it's the two of us, she says hurtful things. She can be quite cutting when she chooses, but I'm not so used to her turning it on me. She assumed that I would go to the party that my husband was throwing today because it was neutral territory. She didn't get the emotional upheaval, the sense of loss because he nabbed the last night, the uncomfortableness of going with him being the host and needing to interact. Going to an event that both of us are attending but not hosting is somehow easier. As long as there are enough people to be a buffer.
I don't know all of the answers, but I know that I don't want to have to live in that place anymore. I know that I am where I am as a gift of God. Alive and breathing. Not wishing to simply not wake up, and fearing for my children if I didn't. No longer wishing that he just wouldn't make it home. It was a deep and dark and painful place. He was as unkind as many others who LOOK mean. He just looks so very good. And I keep thinking...maybe he is to others. Maybe he just resented or hated me. He called it love. It was a bad kind of "love". It was need. It was dependence. It was ownership. It was control. It was jealousy. It was "comfortable." It was so many things. But it was NOT love. Love doesn't seek to put down. To diminish another. It encourages and builds.
And I tried to keep giving that kind of love. To help him. To understand him. To support him. But he simply sucked it all up and wanted more. Nothing was ever enough or good enough.
I hated the life I was living. I loved the kids. Loved that marriage had given me them. But I came to a place that I knew that I couldn't live a life that was so full of pain for another 40 years. And I said so. And I begged for change. And I said how things made me feel. And he always turned it around to how it was my fault. Or would cry and be needy so that I would once again make things right.
It was too hideous to even consider ever going back to. Just thinking the thought now, that cold, shaking feeling overtook me. A primal response. The shutting down. No. Though some simply won't understand, and though I can't explain well enough, I can't live there. I can't live with him. I need a good long time truly separated from him. I need time to heal.
I guess I feel that I have these gaping wounds and they choose not to see them. They think that a bandaid will suffice. But under the bandaid, the life drains out. I can't comply. Though I want them to like me. Though I am quite nearly desperate for words of encouragement and support. So tired of the "I'll just be friends with both of you like it has always been." I want to be a big girl and have that be ok. But in the depths of my heart, sometimes I just long for someone to say, "I totally choose you, you are my real friend, I'm not going anywhere, you are very important to me." How nice that would be. But alas, I would have to moan and complain and tell it like it is and cause them to hate him....and I don't have that in me. People are just going to have to make their own decisions. Period.
And I just have to live my decisions. And when I think it's too hard, all I have to do is remember the impossibility of the alternative. There's no way that I can be married to him. No trust. No love. No hope that he will ever treat me as a husband. No nurture. No comfort. No co-parenting.
No, I'm done. I know it for sure. And it just hurts when some push me to be "nicer" when I'm being as nice as I possibly can be for how new and raw it all is.
Actually, I think that I'm doing a damn fine job.
Even if I have to say so myself...:)
blessings.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Go ahead. Make my day. Leave me a comment.