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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Station H 