Monday night I had to face my ex. Part of the decree was that I had to provide him with all electonic pictures and videos in my possession via an external hard drive which he provided. (No he still hasn't completed his parts, but I am complying because it is my moral obligation to do so)
So we had originally set for Saturday at noon. Late Friday, I get a text "230, please" with nothing else. I would have to change my afternoon plans, which normally I would have done for him, but not anymore. Plus, he just barked it at me, using *please* as a way to show he is attempting to be polite. But he didn't APOLOGIZE for the change, didn't ask if it worked for me and he also didn't offer an alternative. Just barked at me expecting me to jump. So, the next morning I said back, "Morning! So if you are unable to make noon, we will have to reschedule. I can't make 230. Sorry."
To which he replied, "Reschedule it is." And offered zero options.
Keep in mind, this is HIS demand. He doesn't give a flying flip about the pictures. He never has cared. But it was a way to make me go through them all and erase myself from 20 years of family memories. Can you understand how hurtful it was?
Anyway, I let him know my availability...again. Unfortunately, I am forced to orchestrate this if I want to remain within the terms of the agreement. He chooses Monday, but doesn't set a time. So...that night I lay in wait. I see him pull up...park in a handicapped spot and then walk around. He actually kind of strutted and walked all the way up to the garage entrance and stood there maybe 2 feet from the door, arms crossed. Finally he texts me that he is here. Ok. Good. I can do this. I can face him. But what I expected and what I got were two different people. The past few times I have seen him have been in court. He has been arrogant, brash and intimidating. He has stood tall and looked at me with smugness. However, this time he slumped. He barely said a dozen words. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He spoke to my feet. When asked about the transfer, he became annoyed. Its almost as if we flipped. I was standing tall. I was trying not to show him any sign of weakness. Lucy, our dog treated him as she would any other stranger. However, she also wanted to see the fire hydrant. She didn't cry or whine like she does with me or Dana or anyone else she knows. She seems to have forgotten him.
We parted and he got into his car and slammed the door shut. I don't think he liked seeing me this way. I think he had hoped to get the scared and devastated wife that he hoped to destroy. And that isn't what he got..
No tears. No shaking. He was just someone I used to know.
However, since seeing him, I have been going through the whole self doubt again. Having dreams where I am tucked in under his arm again, hugging. The feeling I used to have when I did that. I am back to crying at the drop of a hat and I don't know why.
I feel I have come SO far since the separation a year ago. I feel like I have made such strides in healing and building up my self worth. Yet when I said to him that I had hoped everything was going well for him, he dismissed me and snottily said, "Have a good night." That dismissal did something to me. It was a delayed response, but his tone, his manner, cutting me off and sending a very loud and clear message that I am no longer worth his time. That I am no one to him. He has his life and I am no longer welcome. Someone who I have loved with every fiber of my being, no longer welcomes me. He no longer includes me in his world. But then as I thought back, when did he? He had so many secrets. He had a secret life that I wasn't a part of. He would talk with his family and his mom and have dinners that I and Dana were excluded from. He had affairs and other events, that excluded us. He would make BIG decisions without me. And that's when I realized that I truly was NEVER a part of his life. I was NEVER anyone important to him. I was a means to make his first wife jealous and angry. I was someone comfortable that he knew would put up with his shit no matter what. I wasn't ever anyone important in his life. I was only a convenience. Throughout our marriage he was always testing the waters with other women. He was always searching for someone better. That is a very hard pill to swallow when you love someone. He was my everything.
In one session with my therapist, I mentioned how I drove him away. I was caustic at the end, fighting so hard to get him to see what he had done and how frustrated I was that he had no interest in fixing it but still hung around like everything was ok. How he would drop little breadcrumbs to keep me hopeful and eager to repair our marriage, but how distant he was emotionally, how he was never around and how he treated me like I was invisible most of the time. How that wore on me, how in my efforts to get him to understand I would literally jump up and down and scream if I had to to get his attention because 90% of the time, he would ignore me, stonewall me and never engage in any meaningful conversation. Then how he called me abusive, and how that hurt me further because I was not an abusive person. My therapist said, "When you cut off a person's oxygen, they flail, they fight for air to breathe. They do this until they die." So effectively, what I took from that was that he was my oxygen. He took his love, attention, affections away from me. I was starving for air and my fighting was me fighting to breathe. Quite a powerful analogy when you think about it. The panic, the fear, the sense of helplessness is all the same and it creates very strong reactions. This helped with my guilt with my behavior a little, but what I realized is that he knew what he was doing. Just like a murderer choking their victim, or smothering them with a pillow, they watched the life drain out of you until there was nothing left.
I have learned to breathe again and slowly my life is coming back. But there is this void that still exists where he used to be. Its still festering. Still infected, but it IS healing. Self care is what is going to get me through this. Self reflection will help me to recognize what I am responsible for so that it doesn't happen again. Peace is what will come when I accept what my responsibility truly is and not what he wants me to believe.
Coming to terms with his opinions of me and how they do not represent who I am is what will help me to face the future. But after spending so much of my adult life walking on eggshells around him because he was always jealous of anything that took away from him, and dealing with never being the partner or the priority I should have been it's hard to not see myself as a failure or as less than worthy. But I am getting there.
It all boils down to the fact he is incapable of loving anyone the way they deserve to be loved. This includes me, his children and any others in his life. Its not me. It's him.
No comments:
Post a Comment