“Thanks, but No Thanks”

So today i had to do a bunch more college stuff, make calls, find more documents, get them scanned, more calls, find links that were emailed months ago and create portals, etc. every time i think i’ll just get this one thing taken care of, it turns into three new tasks, and i know behind each of them are more things. and this is why i hate being an adult sometimes.

then i needed to call him because apparently there were two sets of test scores (times two kids) that needed post marked by today and i have already paid for 8 (times two), so i am tapped out in that dept., so i called. he said fine and would i mind if he goes to my daughters dance performance tomorrow. i said that’s fine. its her thing, they have a rela, it’s fine. he said, well im not doing anything the rest of the day, so if you want maybe we can do something. i said, oh i have an idea you could hit the road after. which is just cheesy, wtv. he laughed, we laughed, and got off the phone

that was all it took for my mind to unravel. he doesnt have anything going on tomorrow? does that mean he has something going on tonight? why didnt he ask to spend the night tonight so he wouldn’t have to get up early to drive (since he lives 45 min away)? not that i would have agreed, but it would have been a logical excuse. maybe he does have plans, maybe he’s dating someone. the last time he came over, he spent two nights, we slept in the same bed and were not intimate at all. i thought it was my doing, since i was not inviting and had no intention of letting him be close to me. but maybe it was his plan too, because he’s dating or fucking people? 

i had a dream a couple of nights ago that he and i were in some loft and he had made all these plans and i didnt want to do them so i said so. somehow we started arguing and i started interrogating him. he confessed he’s been having casual sex and i was so angry. i didnt blow up but i just kept questioning him. this is very much what it was like after i found out about the cheating. just pure hell. and not like me. i hated being that way, but it was like a horrible compulsion. and in my dream it was all back. when i woke i thought, no matter what…i will never do that again. i will just walk away. i can’t be that pathetic again.

and in my head tonight im falling into that trap again. i was thinking how he wants to hang out, just wants to be friends. fuck this guy! seriously!  this sucks so much! in a normal sitch, that bridge would have long since burned, turned to ash, and blown away by now. but because of the kids, and the house and the animals, i have to walk this nightmare tightrope!  it’s murder. its so awful.

i realized today that altho i have always had serious insecurities and an overall inferiority complex (that sometimes masked as a superiority complex, i think, a little), i have never had this ridiculous self-esteem issue. like, i really feel like a piece of shit. before i met him, it never dawned on me to wonder why someone would want to be my friend or date me. i never considered myself a 10, in fact i was hyper critical and never felt “good enough”, but i based a lot of my self-worth on the reaction i got from other people. my friends seemed to genuinely think i was pretty and nice. i always had a few guys interested, and the ones i engaged with said all kinds of nice stuff about me. and i sort of gathered it up and believed about half of it and that was basically who i thought i was. 

im not saying that’s healthy. but the way i feel now, after 10 years with this guy, i mean. i feel like an absolute freak. like some kind of wretched monster. today i was going about my business, taking care of all kinds of stuff, which is rare and wonderful in these last few years of depression. there are days with depression, that i count putting a pen in a drawer to be a win. so yeah i was feeling pretty great today because i had taken care of maybe a dozen serious things. and as im walking into the post office, i caught my reflection in the glass, and i was shocked and horrified. there she was again. the hideous monster.

how did this happen? how did he do it? i wish i could delineate every little subtle thing he said and did that picked my fragile self esteem apart and left me this sad lump on the ground. because then, maybe id have something to work with. something to look at and say, “oh! yes, here! i know *this* is wrong! Ha!” and be done with it little by little. but i dont know how he did it. but i know he’ll do it again. to whoever lets him. to the next insecure girl who is willing to follow him down his dark paths in hopes of another one of his paltry stale crumbs.

i hate him

but let me look at it closer. all of my strife this evening comes down to Wanting Him To Love me. that same old thing. i dont actually want him. i dont find him attractive. he’s quite ugly, and his body is gross. he’s not romantic, nor does he say sweet things. i dont like hanging out with him. he hardly ever has anything interesting to say, he’s not creative, he’s not clever. he’s negative and ugly and selfish and controlling and self-obsessed. and somehow he’s made me desperately want his approval. that is his dark gift. and it doesnt matter how he does it. what matters is that i stop thinking about what he wants, and start thinking about what i want. then it’s clear: i dont want him. i want to be free of him. i feel better with him gone. im happier. my kids are happier. things are peaceful. i am more calm, and i feel my health returning. i have interacted with more people in the 6 weeks he’s been gone than i did in the last 3 years. literally. and that isolation is a real killer. and im breaking thru it. i have days without depression. i have seen a ray of hope a number of times. i heard my own intuition speak to me two nights ago!  i have faith that things can get better, that I can get better. and no matter what he’s doing with his life, whether he’s living it up or miserable, it is not my concern. i need to release that. 

so tomorrow, after the dance thing, when he asks to hang out, im going to say “no thank you”. and when he asks why, im not going to lie, nor am i going to tell him how i feel. he hasn’t earned the right to know. im just going to say…”thanks but no.”

and go home and call a friend

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6 weeks Alone, for the Most Part

So whatever stupid blip happened last week after he was here 3 days and then left, it has passed. it was abruptly halted after i sat my son down for some real-talk. because he’s been acting like a jerk lately. not just since my ex left, it started, well, it started with puberty years ago, but maybe a year ago it kicked up a lot and then continued to be a prob. the prob is arrogance and back talk and know-it-all-ism. started to feel like every single conversation we had ended up in a debate/argument and him being rude and disrespectful and me saying what’s this shit and him denying any prob and then he’d get grounded from something and he’d retreat to his room for the rest of the night/day. then i’d run over the conversation in my head wondering how i could have done things differently and altho i know i must discipline, it seemed like there were serious communication blocks. 

anyway, so i sat him down the other day and was like hey we need to talk and he played games and semantics for a while and i stayed cool. he loves to argue and has gotten pretty good at it. i wasn’t getting anywhere until my daughter came out and agreed with me that he’s been super rude lately. he tried to rile us, as that’s a natural win, but we both stayed calm and loving toward him and finally he asked her to go out of the room. once she did, he broke down crying, which is so rare for him the last few years, and we had a heart to heart. there weren’t any major revelations there, just vented stress and frustration that had been building for the last few years. i didnt want to waste time with guilt, but i totally understood where he was coming from since i have been less stable since 2012. before that i was a gd rock, but after that, i started getting really sick and ended up in therapy and trying to unpack allllll of my repressed shit. and when you do that, you’re going to have ups and downs. 

we have talked about it along the way, but at some point he was hurt and repressed it and that compounded and repeated. the way it always does. after we got thru the meat of it, he was wrapping up and we were laughing and he seemed to be headed off, and he turned to me and broke down anew and said he was so glad [my ex] was gone. this crushed my heart and i tried to not cry and said how sorry i am that i ever brought him into our lives in the first place. he said no, i love him and he did a lot for me and i had a lot of great experiences with him, but its just so. much. better. with him gone. 

i never let my ex take on a step dad role. he had no real authority over my kids, which caused much strife between us. but he never wanted to commit to me, so wtf would i allow him that? he was always half way out the door. no way i was going to give him the benefits of a permanent part of the family. if he was going to act like a roommate, that’s how he’d be treated, at least outwardly. so the kids always knew him as a very good friend, a male role model (hard not to gag, but he did have a couple good qualities, like going to work every day and being fiscally responsible etc), but never an authority figure. however, he is a very sick person, and no matter how he kept that compartmentalized and away from others as much as possible, that kind of sick is suffocating. he sucked the air out of the house. his energy dominated. 

its so hard to describe living under the thumb of a narcissist.

and to know my kids suffered because of my weakness or stupidity is so painful. but it’s a black and white way of looking at it. because even tho my son is too young to understand the subtle damage a deranged person can inflict, he does have a point that there were many positive things that my ex brought to our family. were they worth it? NO. but they shouldn’t be thrown out. and i also shouldn’t discount the immense effort i put in to protect them and shield them from a lot of his bs. or the fact that i was completely mind-fucked and lied to about things that would have allowed me to leave. for example, 2 years ago, i aggressively pursued finding an apartment for him in the town he works in, 30 min away. he always said how much he wanted to live on his own, by god i was going to make it happen. but just like the other times, he sabotaged it. lying and creating all these roadblocks. since i didn’t know how much he lied or the extent of his manipulation, i believed we really were trapped due to finances and other issues.

the only option left was for me to pick up and leave. with my fixed income, i would have struggled to afford even the scuzziest apartment, and leaving my animals would have been brutal for the three of us. but i was willing to do anything and at two specific points, just as i was about to sign the lease, he would come up with something that would make me stop. and the kids wouldn’t want to leave. they would tell me how much they loved our home and begged me not to. then i felt terrible for causing them strife, and i would acquiesce in confusion and despair. and the thick, wet fog of depression. 

im not making excuses. i know that we would have been better off if i had never let him in, or if i had left after one year, or two. i just dont want to get sucked in to regret now, because thats such a hopeless place. A friend from the program reminds me not to future-trip or to let the past in. not now. there’s just too much going on emotionally. i need to stay in the present if im going to get thru this, process all this. and i know that’s true.

after my talk with my son and daughter, i had a heavy dream. there was a million things going on, but only one thing stuck with me. my daughter called me into another room. when i walked in there, it was a cave, it was dark and i could only see her shadow on the wall. instead of being 17, she was 2 years old and she was holding hands with two shadow creatures that were the same size as her. i wasn’t afraid, but i was concerned and asked her who the two shadows were. she said one was her shadow and one was mine.  and i awoke with that feeling you get when you know your brain is trying to tell you something. but im not sure what it means.

overall, the conversation with my son really hit home the idea that i have done the right thing. any melancholy and wistfulness i felt after spending those three days with him vanished in the wash of my child’s pain. and i felt invigorated and stronger than ever. because ive done it. the thing i thought i could never do, the thing i dreamed up in my hot coffin of depression, the thing he constantly fought behind the scenes. i have got him routed out. ive exercised the incubus that would have killed me. and i know now that i will never, ever let him back in. not this summer when he thinks hes coming back, not once the kids leave. i have shaken him, and i wont look back.

i need to be prepared for whatever sneak attack he is planning. i know he wont let go easily.

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Day 8. Misery

Today was the hardest day by far. I don’t know if it was lack of sleep, or because the last few days i felt strong, or because i didn’t exercise today, or because of the dream. im sure i dreamed it because of the book i read yesterday, “it’s called a break-up, because it’s broken,” by the Behrendts. they said (paraphrase), stop thinking about him, stop wondering if he’s seeing someone else. he is and its heidi klum. now move on. I laughed at that, because it’s great. who cares what he’s doing. and i wrote yesterday that i didn’t. 

then I had a nightmare that i was waiting outside his apartment and he was taking forever. then i realized he was in there with ~~HER~~ the last person he was involved with, the one who “made him” do horrible things to me to prove himself to her. so i stormed in there and sure enough it was her. i really believe (irl) that he is not interested in rekindling anything with her because he seemed to be truly afraid of her and to think she is totally nuts. but he lies. so in the dream i was aghast — “of all ppl!” i thought.  i dragged him out by his ear (violence!) and into another apartment (ours?) and forced his nose down into the dirty carpet (he’s a germophobe). i clearly remember his long skinny nose bending as i pressed his face down into the grime. and i somehow stepped on the tip of his nose with the point of my shoe. he did not resist, nor did he enjoy this. i knew that it wasn’t “working” because i was way too emotional. i gave up and we both sat back against the wall, and i cried and asked him, “why? why couldn’t you have put all that time and energy into making things work with us instead of doing all this…” he looked bored and said, “if id wanted to i would have.”

damn.

I woke up in a great deal of emotional pain. it was 6 am, three hours of sleep. i was wracked with the intense desire to text him right then. tshhh! so stupid! this is what i REALLY NEEDED to know, this is what i was literally going to text him:

what did you do last night? are you ok?

gah! how horrible and pathetic would it have been, my god. I struggled mightily for probably half an hour, it was crazy. i felt almost convinced that the dream was prophetic. i took a pill (legally prescribed, but still cheating) and fell back to sleep for two hours. it’s annoying because all last week i wasn’t tempted. i did text him once last week about a business thing and stayed distant. wasn’t at all tempted. but that book went on and on about not calling no matter what, no matter your desperate reason. i swear they put it in my head.

so I basically felt grinding heartache all day. i met with a friend from 11-2 and we talked for a while about my sitch, and i cried and felt awful. i haven’t talked to her in over a year. we’d both gotten busy idk. she is really the only friend that understand the nuances of the situation. the bdsm side of our relationship. she’s the only one i can trust to tell the whole truth to. my other friends, i had to give them the edited version, because they’d just get distracted with the “weirdness”. it felt so good to be able to say it out loud for the first time in 11 months. to be held in her understanding sympathy and to hear her horrified anger. i thought i was stronger but the way she reacted made me cry like a baby for the first time since he left. not just angry tears i fight off, but baby crying. the rest of the day i did my basic tasks: laundry, cheerful chatting with kids, made dinner, ate dinner, walking dead with my daughter, fed animals, cleaned. but the whole time i was split into two people. i was the robot doing the stuff, but i was also just me sitting with the pain. i was holding it in my two hands weeping. 

i wish i could end there. but…then I had to text him, no really i did, about a credit card thing for our google movie account so he wouldn’t accidentally be charging my card, but all i said was, 

I added my cc to google movies so i could rent smth. you will have to select “family payment method” from now on to charge your card.

my cc # is xxxx. don’t use k.

he waited 7 min after viewing to respond with,

ok thanks for the heads up baby (kissy winky heart face).

i did not respond.

I realize that it seems mighty suspicious me needing to text that. it’s twice in 8 days. but we have shared a household for 10 years and little things come up. still, i commit to no more contact for real now. because it just added to my pain. seeing that he’d read it. waiting for the stupid fake ass reply. why’d he wait? drunk most likely. or at a show. or with someone. maybe on the phone with family or some ho…

so yeah, this is why the no contact thing really is important.

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Day 6

after all the quotes last night and nietzsche’s questions, I fell asleep surprisingly easy. i slept over 9 hours. it was beautiful. i had a pretty wild dream too. the first thing i remember is apartment hunting with him. we approached this huge complex that was kind of like a project, but with a Hawaiian style. i was not thrilled. next thing i know we’re inside and it’s furnished and kinda cool with its island vibe, but it’s ridiculous. totally rickety. the floors and walls and ceilings are made of these thin wood beams and covered with a thin canvas. you could see down into the apartment below you, and above. so, like, if i got out of bed, the person below could look right up my nightgown at my butt. i remember thinking that with horror. plus it felt like the whole thing was going to collapse. and it was 7-8 stories. as if that wasn’t bad enough, some old dude lets himself in and stomps thru the bedroom indignantly, heading to the bathroom where apparently he lives? he looks at us and shakes his head, “oh no! no way! i told them no young people!” he says and heads to his corner of the bathroom. i turn to my ex and say, “um wtf this isn’t going to work. this place is like match sticks and that dude? with the kids here? i can’t!” he agrees and says he’s going to talk to the manager and get our money back. he returns and says, “so they said if we stay they’ll give us another better unit”. i decided to view it before saying anything. we walk in and it’s pretty nice. real walls, nice antique furniture. im liking it a lot better, but i want to see the whole place. we walk down a hall and there’s a crack in the wall. well, the wall is like a plaster canvas that isn’t covering the whole space, so you can see thru. about 3-5″ is open. what i see is an enormous warehouse, like super old, 200 years old. really old equipment just packed right up against the plaster canvas wall. weird gears, all rusted. i ask the manager wth.  im thinking its crawling with spiders. she says oh yeah we’ll get this fully covered. pretty sketchy. but i am distracted cuz he calls me into the master bedroom. first i see the master bath. it’s pretty fricken nice. huge walk in shower you step down into , all marble, bunch of shower heads everywhere. everything super luxe vintage. wow! i think. then i turn to the master bedroom itself and my mind basically explodes. it’s the most luxurious things ive ever seen. remember back, it doesn’t seem all that great, but in my dream im just agog. it’s really long and just huge with very plush carpet and amazing windows. at the end of the room (im running with my arms outstretched in joy haha for real), there is a massive set of french doors. i bust thru them and find a very steep set of stairs down into a beautiful blue-green lush grass expanse. i cant stop running in ecstasy. just when i think I’ll have to stop, i see that the fence is quite low and i can step over it. i keep going and realize that i am in a communal grassy area for 5 mansions. i look at them and turn back to look at the building from which I’ve come. its huge and brick and the windows are like deep black pits. it’s haunted, i think, but i don’t care. i turn and keep running towards the ocean it seems. i reach the ocean and know that its the atlantic. there is a small bait and tackle houseboat there and i go inside. a handful of yuppy boys are running it. my joy has ebbed and i go to the counter and wait for someone to buy a pack of cigarettes. he opens the pack and the cigarette is shaped like a small crab wrapped in rolling paper. i buy my own pack, but ask for a different one. i feel defensive. i open mine and they’re smaller crab shapes wrapped in paper. i go to the back of the building and find a mattress on the floor with some haphazard bedding. the guy who bought the first pack joins me, altho we dont speak. im fiddling with my weird cigarette and he lights his and passes it to me. he says its weed. basically they just wrapped buds in paper without breaking them up. weird. but i take a few hits and the guy and i start talking. turns out it’s Lip from the show Shameless. after a while i realize uh im really into him rn. i start poking him with my toe. he’s like “what”, and i dont say it but wow im suddenly completely turned on, and he pretty much knows it. then there’s overly romantic cuddling and kissing, which i vividly remember being not great, and then some kind of dry humping that was really, REALLY amazing, and then! i woke up.

typical of me to have a sexy dream, but no sex. 

I know there’s a lot going on in that dream, but im just not even ready to think about it.

today I felt a bit happy, that’s the good news. i lost my temper once and yelled “fuck!” when i lost a stitch for the 4th time on this cowl im trying to knit in time to mail to the UK by christmas. embarrassing cuz my son was there ughhhh sux. i did apologize. not for cussing, but for startling him, poor guy. but other than that it was a pretty damn good day. i walked, i did yoga, i made good food choices, i connected with two friends, i even told an old friend who i love how hurt ive been that she’s ditched me the last 8 months when i really needed her most. she got defensive and nasty, like i knew she would. but i wanted to be honest and vulnerable with her even though i know she hates that. im actually not sure how thats going to work out. it could end the friendship, but if so, guess it’s meant to be. im not wasting my time contorting myself to please selfish, passive aggressive people anymore. 

oh another thing is, the kids mentioned casually that he has been texting them, and that he asked them to come visit him this weekend. I wanted to rip the phone out of their hands and read the texts, but i played it a little cooler than that. like, i asked a few more questions than i should have. when they said why don’t you just text him and ask him yourself i dropped it. dang. wish I’d asked nothing. i dont want them to know he and i aren’t talking for december, because they would think it weird. i dont want anything to seem weird or stressful for them, becasue they have so much going on with their senior year and sports and work etc. i dont want to add to it. but basically i discovered that every day he asks them the same questions: how are things at home: lots of cat barf? (not so cleverly disguised attempt to see if im ok, i’d guess), how is school? how is the college thing going? also today he asked if they’d like to come hang at his place. they said no we’re just too busy, which is true. 

ive really been thinking a lot about christmas and his visit. its only 6 days into the split and I can’t stop thinking of the best way to handle that. ive gone from one end of the spectrum to the other, but i think i need to let it go for a while. there’s time.

 

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Day 4 Alone

I slept only 4 hours, waking at 7am with my left jaw dislocated from such clenching dreams. after easing it back into the joint, i laid back and thought about the dream. it was in my bedroom. i was laying on the bed. it was day. he was here, sitting on a table chair next to the bed. he was just as cold as ice, saying how he now realizes that this separation is for the best, that there’s no chance for us and he sees how truly fucked up i am. as he talks my anger boils, i thrash around on the bed and finally attack him. he is indignant and announces he will not be treated this way and leaves.

the emotions of the dream were so intense and horrible. yes, I clenched my jaw til the point that it popped out of place, not an uncommon situation for me lately, but i was so stressed and upset by the emotions of the dream that i could not fall back asleep and had a headache that lasted several hours. i thought about jung’s idea that everyone in your dreams is you. and how the him in my dream was me. how he announced his boundaries. some part of me wishes to be ice cold like that.

but the dream did answer my questions from last night. the questions were basically wtf is going on, why do I feel so turbulent, why am i so easily drawn into pettiness and pathos, when objectively i know better. the answer is that there is further betrayal possible. in the dream, he was essentially cutting me off completely. i understood that i would lose everything, the house, my animals. my income is from a pension that is insufficient for a family of three, certainly cannot support 5 animals as well. i greatly dread having to uproot my children and the idea of having to farm out my animals, or worse, send them to a shelter. i realize i am digressing, but being depressed for roughly 4 years now, i have spent most of my time with the animals and especially the dogs have been my only support system. 

anyway. I believe the reason i am struggling with moving on is the financial ties. most likely he will not cut us off. at least before june. i believe he wants to continue having a relationship with the kids, so he will try to keep things copacetic for their benefit. come fall, worse case…maybe i rent a room on a farm where i am allowed to keep my pets? i mean, it’s a possible option…?

I did feel good about the dream because it clarified for me the image i have of our dynamic. and it allows me to make a plan to be sure that nothing like that ever happens. i have, much to my deep shame, attacked him several times in the months following discovery of his infidelity. the attacks were symbolic more than anything, as he wasnt hurt. they symbol was for myself —

• “look at what you’re doing.”

• “this isn’t you.”

• “this isn’t working.”

• “you can’t make this work”.

that’s what they said. i remember several times being in an absolute lock down drag out battle with myself, my hands curled and trembling before me with an enormous and equal force both attacking and holding in the attack. it was truly bazaar and horrific. these moments, both when i failed and even when i battled successfully, are dark landmarks along the lowest valley of my life, and i hope one day to view them with compassion.

the dream showed me that things are not cut and dry and that’s why it is so hard. just because it is infinitely easier with him gone, doesn’t mean im in the clear. I need to be careful and plan. i deperately dont want to manipulate him even tho that is what young, damaged, vulnerable me would do, and even tho that is what he is eagerly hoping i will do. but i must make an honest plan for how to use this time in december, and how i would like to proceed once i see him on christmas. he will expect us to set up a different level of interaction — i think ! — and i need to decide what i want. 

right now I feel like never-never-never again. 

and yet, only 4 days into my month of no communication, I had to interact with him, first, yesterday, i emailed him a bill that he needed to see. when he didn’t respond i thought well maybe he’s too busy being thrilled with life, but then i remembered he doesn’t check his personal email often. so, due to the deadline noted on the bill, i decided i needed to text him. this is how that went

me:  pls check your email.

         also, i will need your correct address

him: hey (three heart-eye emojis) ok. (and his address)

me: thx (winking, heart blowing emoji)

him: miss you babe.

I need his address to send him his mail. i could have stopped texting once he sent his address, but i thought i should respond kindly to his heart-eye emojis. it seemed casual, and made me seem less pathetic, something i ranted on about yesterday. at least i thought at the time. but i probably regret it. oh well. at least i stopped there. i don’t know, pretty manipulative still. it’s so hard to not be manipulative when you dont have a connection to your real self. i read about it, but i dont know what it is. i can’t remember a time when i didn’t have to gauge my environment and adjust my behavior accordingly. my earliest memories are planning how to survive these people. my life has literally been saved more than once by my acting differently than i felt. 

which is sad. which is what this is about. no matter how much he misses me, no matter how he wants to proceed on christmas, no matter what I have to lose, i can’t go back. to him or any of the men before him. somehow i have to find a safe place where i can let it all come undone and see what crawls out of the rubble. 

 

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