Words

i write a lot of words.  but i still have trouble putting into words that place in my heart that has been wounded.  crushed.  i have trouble putting to words how someone who seems so "nice" could have used me...used me up.  i can't articulate how he emptied me drop by drop.  taking for himself.  wanting for himself.  resenting anything given to anyone else...even our kids....even....me.  how he felt entitled by the fact that i "belonged" to him.  not protective.  not as a care taker.  no.  as an owner.  over me.  and yet.  somehow.  always making me decide.  always falling behind.  cowering? when i had to decide, he could...blame me if it went badly and take credit if it went well.  i was to act submissive....but not....it was all very confusing.  submissive in that if he did anything, it was supposed to be viewed as right.  even if it only had him in mind.  submissive in sex.  submissive.  less.  lower.  i remember once when a little girl we knew was under water at the pool and she couldn't swim...my little bit older than her son got under her and lifted her out of the water so that she could breathe.  but, he was not tall enough in the five foot water to also be above water.  he chose to hold her up.  and...i rescued him.  i pulled him up and we got them both to safety.  that's how i felt with my ex.  like i had to stand under the water to let him be up.  like i wasn't allowed to breathe....and should not expect to.  he didn't hit me.  yet, he beat me down.  he didn't scream profanity.  yet, he made me feel small.  never enough.  pretty enough.  neat enough.  organized enough.  frugal enough.  hardworking enough. pleasant enough.  kind enough.  encouraging enough.  spiritual enough.  i was never enough.  what i was.  how i was.  what i thought. how i thought.
my life was a constant battle.  even when i quit fighting with him. there was not peace.  no calm.  oh, there were moments.  good moments.  i liked them.  and at the same time they frightened me.  because i wondered what was coming next.  whenever i let my guard down again, the arrows would hit there mark much more assuredly.  i learned, therefore, even in the good times, to be wary.
and there he stands in church.  as he should, i suppose.  because aren't we all just simply where we are?  yet, even that wounds me.  because he makes it seem as if he chose everything right.  as if he is willing to go back to being married and that that makes him more "right".  willing to work it out.  and he, again in my life, can point at me and say how i'm not willing.  how sad it is for him that i have pushed him away.  yet. strangely.  what he doesn't say.  what others don't seem to bother to ask.  is what about those over twenty years?  why wasn't he willing then?  why did conversation after conversation end in the same way..with him guilting me.  with him crying and acting as if he were a worm...all so i would comfort him and stay with him and help him.  always about him.  always was.  they don't ask him why it took him all of the time when i was out of our room for a couple of years before he left.  nor why it was only after i filed papers and he had to move out that he began to "get help" by confiding in other men.  they don't ask why nothing changed with his family and how he allows them to treat some of his kids and i poorly..and turns away so that he can act as if he doesn't notice or understand.
my wounding is amplified by the response of christians.  that it wasn't enough to admit failure.  to have to walk into that courthouse and file those papers.  that it wasn't enough to live through having to tell him that he had to move out.  that it wasn't enough to have him tell me that i was his and that he could do as he pleased.....that nothing was enough.  that they feel obligated to be sure that i know that i am wrong.  that i am not being kind.  that i am not as good.  that they can't look at me.  or see me.  or hear me.
my wounding began with a bad marriage, but it has been continued and increased by those who side with the one who hurt me.  who work to not hurt his feelings.  to meet his needs.  to uphold him.  and leaving me on my own.  to walk.  to live.  apart.  without their support.  because i decided this horrific thing.  they have wounded me not by the fact that they haven't bought me groceries nor mowed my grass nor helped me around my house nor helped me with my kids nor given me financial help....no, it's not that they haven't done these things.....it's that nobody even bothers to ask, inquire, nor care whether i might need or appreciate them.  it's as if i am supposed to expect to be punished and to have a harder life because i chose to be apart from someone who harmed me.  and they want to be sure that i serve my full sentence.  that's what it feels like.  though i'm sure that they don't mentally process that.
i still can't get to the whole part of why or how he hurt me so much.  it has to do with how i allowed it.  how i enabled him.  how i gave him permission by not setting boundaries.  it's all coming together in my heart.  i am learning.  i am healing.
but sometimes, i wish i had the exact words so that i could concisely articulate to others the "why".
blessings.