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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Day 3 Alone

I wasn’t going to write today, because i was so busy. i did a lot of christmas shopping, mainly, which was a great distraction. then dinner and working on editing the kids’ college essays. the next deadline is in 2 days, so that stress is easy to disappear into.

but I turned off the light at 11:15 and started thinking. because i got a weird email bill notification and i had to fwd it to him. even tho i said no communication til christmas, it was with the understanding that something like that comes up, we pass it on. i didn’t comment to him, just fwded the bill. and so then i wondered if he’d get it tonight. if he has internet. if he doesn’t, he must be drinking. either way he’s drinking. I’ll bet he’s gotten totally hammered every single night. without internet, is he drunk and playing music and burning incense. is it drawing the attention of the grad students that live in the building, according to the renting agent? do they like his hipstery, ripped off style?

i wouldn’t have thought of him in this way before. but he proved to me that he could attract women, young women. it changed the way i saw him. a man desperate for sexual  degradation. a man who could somehow appeal to very young women. its confusing because he paid them. at first. both the women he paid, not for sex but for sexual degradation, ended up falling for him. spending time with him “no charge”. demanding he end his relationship with me so that they could be exclusive. very young, pretty women. he’s 40, dour, unattractive, with a modest salary. he is not fun, creative, quirky or funny or charming. this boggles my mind.

but I don’t want to sit here wondering what he’s doing, who hes with. this is the man he chose to be. the type of man who uses and hurts people. takes advantage. the type of man i don’t want to know. and we have this weird situation where there are all these financial strings and this facade of a “trial separation”, so it’s confusing. and i start wondering.

whats the most frustrating is that I know he is not wondering who im with. he may be wondering if im “ok”. if im sad, if im breaking down, if i can handle it. he sees me as the needy one in the relationship, and it sickens me to know that there is truth there. as disgusting as he is, i mean physically he is quite unattractive with a thundering amount of flaws, and yet still putting himself out there and getting himself into intrigue.  why am i not doing the same?

how did I become this needy pathetic gross person? ive felt on the brink of death for years. im totally demolished inside, why? ok i know why…

• child abuse and neglect

• rape

• domestic violence

• single parenthood/poverty

• diagnosed, but untreated cPTSD, OCD

• an ever-growing weight problem

• a shattered mask revealing the fact that ive never had any self-esteem

• emotional abuse the last 10 years with this man, isolation

ok, these are some of the reasons that I’ve become pathetic. but objectively, im better looking than him with better social skills. if I could just fake it, and put myself out there, would that help? i HATE that he’s feeling sorry for me, whether he’s having fun or not.  but i desperately don’t want to go try to meet people in the dejected state i am in; that’s crazy

this is crazy reactionary thinking. who cares what he’s doing. who cares what he thinks about me. trying to change that is manipulative and dependant. this is the thinking I am trying to escape. this is the thinking that always follows any train of thought that leads to him: feeling not good enough, disgusting, pathetic, weak, worn out.

that door closed when he left saturday. why keep opening it. is it because of the financial ties? is it because I know I’ll have to see him on christmas? it is because not much time has passed? am i being to hard on myself? am i supposed to lean into this pain and cry? but i don’t want to cry anymore. i dont want to repress my feelings, but i just hate to keep crying! i must be crying wrong or about the wrong things. this is the confusion! is this from all the gaslighting? the emotional abuse?

this is my time. my time to remember who *I* am. to start to heal…

how. do. I. start.

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Day 1 Without

He moved out yesterday. I have been walking around numb, except for a vague feeling of a massive black wave of panic descending. Can I outrun it by staying busy? Can I avoid it by denying that feeling? Can I escape it with dissociation? Only time will tell.

I have bought a very easy yoga DVD and a white sage smudge stick. I plan to use both tomorrow after the kids return to school. I made a list of self-care ideas since dissociation makes it impossible to think of things. One thing on the list is fasting, but I decided against that. I have serious food issues and don’t need to trigger more problems. Instead I thought I would attempt a moderate grab at control by slowly eliminating certain type of unhealthy (for me) foods/food habits. caffeine, sugar, flour, snacking, and dairy eventually. Getting a grasp on my food habits will go a long way toward making me feel safe.

I also want to spend time outside. Wandering always makes me feel melancholy and alone, which is accurate. I want to avoid feeling this way, but I think wandering will help me integrate those true feelings into my life in a manageable way. If I bring the dogs, I will feel happy too, which is nice. a good mix of real feelings before I head back indoors to my nice warm snuggly dissociation.

I know I’m cheating. I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday, because I couldn’t bear to go into the closet and see the gaping white emptiness of his side of the closet. my stomach turned when I accidentally saw his favorite kombucha at the store. I repeatedly caught myself thinking, “oh, I’ll have to remember to tell him that.”

10 years is a long, long time. 10 years. the longest relationship I’ve had previously was 3 years, but that was off and on anyway. we only lived together a total of a year I’d guess. this is 10 years. 10 years with a slowly dwindling handful of friends, until there was just him. Last night I was putting away laundry and getting ready for bed, and the quiet was just so strange. That is one time of the day we were always together, chatting as we wrapped up our day. The only time we were separated before this was for his business trips, usually 2-5 nights, and his trips back home to visit family, usually a week or two. And on those trips he was insistent on talking, even if only a few minutes at the end of the day.

That seeming kindness burns me. The phoniness of it. The manipulation. But I can’t go down this road yet. I feel like I’m standing next to a cyclone and I desperately want to avoid it. I have these kids to be strong for, responsibilities. I have to fall apart very, very carefully.

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