It is true. He is. Which is a relief. But also it makes me anxious. I so want to spare anyone else from having to live through what I just did. I can’t. I know that.
I hate feeling like the buck has just been passed. I like resolution. Healing. Change. But I am only responsible for myself.
One of the blessings (and curses) is that I have almost total recall of how it all began...how it started, how I walked into that web of lies and deceit and bullshit. And that is the exact image I have, a spider carefully constructing his web. And there I am, that stupid fucking fly just flying around like a moron, until I landed smack dab in the middle of it. Then I was surrounded. Then I was caught. And the only thing to do when caught is to relax, it is the only way to truly get free.
But I didn’t stay relaxed, I struggled. I thought things, I saw things, I felt things that were not really comporting to my own reality. Was I delusional? Was he? Why would he do that? Say that? Ask for that? If it wasn’t true?
I have lied about things in my life. But most of those lies were to protect me from being hurt. Or to protect you from a truth that would hurt you, or I was afraid would hurt you. I am not a person full of guile. I, and this is hard to admit, have mostly just been a little kid running scared. Covering that all over with bravado, ego and lies designed to make me look more competent than I really am.
And because of my unhealed childhood trauma, I was left with two things that have been perverse and life lasting: a naïveté and a fundamental mistrust of men and their motives. The fact that I continued to engage with them in the way that I did for decades is something that is overwhelmingly painful. I do not want to be that person, like at all. But I was. And I fear that I am still. Although I know the fucking fire I just walked through has changed me. And that is, in the end, a good thing.
So I found myself caught. I was honest. I was truthful. I did not share some things and I faked a few others. So I am not blameless. And I guess we both did the same thing, lied to keep the whole charade going. I didn’t trust him, and it is clear that he didn’t trust me either. A whole two years of our lives tangled together in a relationship where there was no trust at all.
I couldn’t ever prove the lies. That came way later. I tried. I made myself crazy collecting information and attempting to put it together. Going around and around in my head. Losing sleep. I was, and I am so not proud of this, a nut job for awhile there. Of course, I didn’t really admit that to others. I told a few close friends what I suspected, but the really dark shit I kept to myself because it was all just too crazy.
And there was a part of me that just really needed it to work out. A part of me thought, really I did, that if I could just make him love me and not lie to me, and stop doing things to hurt me, that somehow all the crap that happened before would be ok. That I could finally get some peace.
I think I have always believed that since men were the abusive assholes, that if I could get just one to not act like that, then I could and would be healed. So far, not so good. Because I will always pick the one that is never, ever going to be good.
It is like making something that would be amazing, but you just keep adding this one ingredient that is always and forever going to make it taste like shit. Sure you can delude yourself that this time you waited to add it until later, that this time it will not work out like the others. But seriously, if I look at my dating history, it is an accurate representation of my own mental illness (couple of exceptions in there but not many).
I see it all so clearly now. How I got ensnared. How I stayed trapped, how desperately I needed this to work out. How much I just wanted him to love me and not be who he really is and was. I see, now, he has always been this person. And he is not likely to change. Even right now, he is setting up his life for another relapse and fuck up. Even though I have no contact, I hear things through the grapevine. I don’t like hearing them but all my attempts to stop the information from landing with me, just hasn’t worked.
So I am grateful he is no longer my problem. FUCK am I grateful. So fucking grateful. And I really wish I could just feel better about that. I should be happy. But I care deeply about other people, which is why I often keep my distance. It is too painful and I lack appropriate boundaries a lot of the time, so distance is all I have for protection. And that is why I sit here, in my house, alone a great deal of the time. It is the only way I can and do feel safe.
So why am I not happier? Because I hate that he is going to repeat the pattern with someone else. I hate that he is now going to fuck up someone else’s world with the lies, manipulations and ongoing posturing. I hate that someone else is going to suffer the way I have and the way so many before me likely did. I have their numbers, I have thought about calling, but I haven’t. Mostly because I just want to move on, but also because they got out and away, and I do not want to reintroduce that shit back into their lives. I do not have the right to do that.
I know I have done all I can. I know that I am only responsible for myself. And I also know that my feeling of over-responsibility for others is what set me up for this whole dumpster fire to begin with...so there is that. I have to change. I am not responsible for anything but me and my actions. Even though I want control over way more, I just am never going to have it and all my efforts to have it have only set me up for more pain, suffering and loss.
So I am grateful he is someone else’s problem. For sure. Totally. But I also feel badly for them. The nameless, faceless thems that are going to have to survive loving someone that is only going to hurt them. And I wouldn’t wish that on any one.
And I have been struggling with what to do with the love I felt. Now that it is unmoored, disconnected from its source. I know that grief is the path. I am just tired and I would really, really like to just be over it. To move the fuck on and take the lessons and the lumps.
I saw something last night that described the process:
Understanding your cognitive dissonance - what you see isn’t always what you get.
Delayed realization that everything was a lie.
Euphoric recall - remembering the good times and believing that they are achievable without all the lies, manipulations and pain. This leads to violating rule number 1 - no contact which just places you back in the cycle again.
Withdrawal - overcoming the addictive cycle of chaos
Obsession - reliving, reviewing and compulsively re-thinking everything.
Intense Grief - an overwhelming sadness that doesn’t feel like it will ever end.
Assimilation - where you can take everything you learned, see your part, and work to change the things about you that made you susceptible in the first place.
The good news is that I am in 6. Having completed all the other phases. And I know that I am rounding the corner into 7. And I can’t fucking wait. I am tired. It has been a long road. It has taken me to the depths of despair and the highest highs. And I am exhausted honestly. I just want a normal life. The highs not too high, the lows not too low. I am shooting for the middle going forward. Where there is balance, and calm and perhaps a love that doesn’t warp and destroy you.
Yes, I am glad he is someone else’s problem. But there is always going to be a part of me that doesn’t feel so great about the fact that some other woman is going to have to survive this. I just am never going to be able to feel good about it.
I lack power, I lack control over everything other than me. And that just has to be enough to understand about other people's problems. They are not mine.
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