On my own, pretending....

I was thinking about the song "on my own," and why I was so fixated on using it for a dance showcase. It's about a young woman who is in love with a man who sees her only as a friend and is in love with someone else. She is talking about how she walks alone all night, pretending he is with her, and she is happy. But when the sun comes up, she has to face the real world again he fantasy bubble shatters. I was thinking how much that song reminds me of my marriage, that for some reason I can't seem to let go. It occurs to me that I was living a fantasy all those years, I was in love with an emotionally unavailable man, who only loved me in my fantasies. I have been pretending to myself that he was completely at fault for the loss of those 20 years I spent with him, I pretend that he was a deceitful, manipulative mastermind and I was just an innocent victim. And yeah, he was deceitful and manipulative, but on some level I always knew that, but I wouldn't really think about it. I loved him so much, I convinced myself that he was a much better person than he was, that deep down he really loved me but didn't know how to show it. My fantasy life was what kept that marriage going all that time. You know how I realized that? I was thinking about when we bought my ring. I worked for that ring for months before it finally came to pass. Remember I told you he just randomly said "You really deserve a diamond." and I ran with that until I got my diamond. But then I told everyone he bought it for me, like I hadn't had to lean on him for months. In my mind, he made this grand romantic gesture, EVEN THOUGH I KNEW THE TRUTH. Looking back, I did that a lot. I had a vision of a lovely romantic story for us, and I was determined to make that story come true, reality be damned. Like if I kissed this particular frog enough times, eventually he would become my prince.

How my marriage ended

 Today I was thinking about the dayI I told Ted I didn't love him anymore. I remember him saying something like, I guess you don't believe in unconditional love after all. Truth is I love that man unconditionally for 21 years. The day I told him I didn't love him anymore, he was the same asshole doing the same shit he had done the entire time we were dating. Nothing he said or did could have made me stop loving him. He lied to me, he said horrible hateful things to me, he frightened me with a threat of physical violence, he spent all our money, he stomped on all my dreams, and yet I kept loving him. The reason I stopped loving him was for my own preservation. It was my choice. I realized that loving him was killing me, and I had to stop. People sometimes ask me if there was an exact moment when I knew it was over. Honestly, it was a lot of little moments that built up over time. But there are three that I remember vividly. One was the shaken baby incident. One was the day he picked a fight with me while we were sitting on the porch swing talking about our future, and right out of the blue he said so many hateful hurtful things. That day I realized I could never trust him again. It wasn't just about trusting him not to cheat on me, it was about trusting him not to hurt me. I knew I could never trust him not to do that again. Over time I came to realize that I could never trust him with my emotions, or my dreams, or my money, or my future. I realize that he had lied to me over and over again through the years, and although I forgave him every time, I didn't want to keep living like that. The other moment was when I was explaining to him for the 100th or the thousandth or the millionth time why something he had done hurt me and why he shouldn't do that anymore. I suddenly realized, I have explained this so many times. If he wanted to understand it he would have understood it by now. He apparently just didn't want to understand. Those three moments together summarize all the things that led up to the end. The other day I had a random thought in the elevator at work. For some reason I thought about the last time I saw him. I was crying over the loss of the marriage. I kept saying, I tried so hard. I tried so hard. He put his arms around me and his voice was so sad. He said, oh, e r i n, both people have to try. I was wondering why he sounded so sad. Was it actual regret for what we could have had? Was it a moment of empathy? Or was it just more acting? It turns out he was a really good actor so maybe that's what it was. Anyway, he told me he wanted our marriage to come back together. I told him that was fine but he had to work at least as hard as I had all these years. He told me he absolutely wanted to do that. Then I never heard from him again.

Crappy memories from my marriage, Memories I thought were good but turned out to have a Sinister undertone looking back , And subtle emotional abuse

 Ted would never let me get ahead in life . He stomped on every single one of my dreams . 

The day we picked up my diamond, And he purposely made a comment to Riley about how I didn't care about people because because all diamonds are mined unethically 

He let me marry him believing he wanted more children , Then years later told me he never wanted more children . 

Let's not forget the way he cheated on me , lied to me, Betrayed me, And laugh at My Pain . 

How about the night he told me he couldn't live without what's her face and that losing her would destroy him . 

How about the time you told me I should jump on the railroad tracks 

The night I tried to jump in front of a moving truck and he didn't stop me 

All the little sneaking and lying for no apparent reason 

he told me he didn't believe I could ever accomplish anything 

The moment I realized that he would always need to look down on me 

What happened to Medical school? 

He purposely left his pornography on my computer the day I went to test into buds , knowing it would upset me . 

He chose pornography over me Time After Time , Letting me feel ugly and undesirable 

Every time we tried to get ready for a family vacation , he would spend at least one day making everyone's life miserable and threatening not to go 

When we finally did get our s*** together and leave on vacation , he would say things like , goodbye house, I hope you don't burn down! Which of course just set a nasty tone for the rest of the trip . 

He hated my house and did everything he could to ruin it 

He spent all our money so that I could never get away 

He isolated me bit by bit 

He forced me to choose between him and Riley , and between him and the dogs . Guess who won both times ? 

A visit to LaSalle

 Coming back to LaSalle usually gives me a Bittersweet feeling. It's beautiful here. It's wild and open full of life. Today we saw otters and maybe beavers, Canada geese, swallows, cardinals, Blue Jays, wood ducks, and turtles I can hear songbirds and woodpeckers and frogs. There are some people out on the water but it's mostly silent. This place s o o t h s my soul as much as it ever did. It also brings back memories from my marriage. It reminds me of peaceful times walking together out here. Sometimes we used to take night hikes. It was originally Ted's idea to bring the dogs out here in the winter time and let them run. Every time I come here I have to Grapple with those memories compared to the reality of how my marriage really was. I'm trying to come to terms with knowing that two things can be true at the same time. On the w h o l e, my marriage sucked. Ted is not a good man and he went out of his way to hurt me. He saw to it that everything I tried to do got ruined, and almost every dream was thwarted. I lived through a lot of pain. But it's also true that those years were studded with good moments. There are happy memories. My memory holds snapshots of good, pure, real moments. They were there. They were fleeting. Ted simply didn't have the wherewithal for the innate character to be the man I needed over the long term. Those good moments were few and far between. Even though I tried, I couldn't string them together into an overall good marriage. I'm pretty sure I have journaled about something like this before every time I come back here it strikes me again.

Things I did wrong in my marriage

 1. Didn't have strong boundaries

2. Try to love unconditionally rather than applying natural consequences

3. I believed my love could change a man who didn't want to change

4. I held on to his idealized false self even after he showed me his true self repeatedly 

5. I didn't pay attention to early red flags

6. I took on far too much of the responsibility to make the marriage work

7. I stayed when I should have left.

How did my marriage end up the way it did?

 It started because I was vulnerable. I was fragile from dealing with Rick's cancer and even more so after he died. Ted stepped in and filled in some of the gaps in my life. He was supportive, and he held me when I cried. He was companionship because I had lost my beloved and The Sisterhood within a year's time and I was so so lonely. He provided physical comfort in the form of sex. I didn't know sex can actually create emotions and the illusion of intimacy. And I didn't realize that Ted was actually so invested in me being vulnerable. When I got pregnant, and then when Riley was born I was even more of an emotional mess. I was separated from the few friends I had. My mother and Len were absolutely no help to me at all. I didn't know how to meet other mothers. I literally had no one to lean on but him. I didn't know he was creating a trauma Bond by repeatedly pretending to support me and then pulling the rug out from under me. To be fair, I don't think he understood exactly what was going on either. I think it was more like he just found fun in building me up and tearing me down without any real thought about the result.  After a while, I became just as invested in keeping the relationship. Since I knew his interest in me was tied to my weakness, I worked hard to keep myself weak. Because my life was so filled with loss and the loss of Rick had hurt me so deeply, I was willing to do almost anything to keep the marriage going. I did everything I could imagine to try and be a good wife, because I wanted him to love me the way I thought he had in the beginning. I held on to hope for so long because I didn't want to be alone. I've been thinking a lot about how our marriage came to the point of his infidelity. And I've come to these conclusions. I was not at fault for his infidelity or for the failure of the marriage. His emotional immaturity was the reason the marriage failed and the reason he felt justified in cheating on me. As for sticking around until it came to that and then even worse, that was on me. I should have walked out, years before I did. I should have let go of hoping he would change. I should have paid attention to his action and not his words

Shit I am never going to do to myself again

 

Let anyone talk me into doing something that I believe is morally wrong

Let anyone disrespect me

Let anyone cross my boundaries

Put up with people who don't respect boundaries

Stay silent when I know I should speak up

Listen to the bullshit voices in my head that tell me I can't do something. This would include any comment about being too sick, too fragile, too old, too weak, too broke, Etc

Tell myself something doesn't matter to me when actually it does.

Shame myself or let anyone else shame me for the things that matter to me

Tell myself that my needs come a boundaries, or priorities are less important than someone else's

Expect anyone to read my mind

Listen to a person's words rather than watch their actions

Let fear control me

Worry what other people think of me. Admittedly, this one is going to take some work.

Pretend to be something I'm not so that someone else will like me

Hide my badass light under a bushel because I'm afraid to outshine somebody else

Depend on a man for anything

Get into a living situation with a man where I don't have my own home to fall back on

God damn you, husband.

  (In the first place, there is no guartanty I am going to really publish this one. But I need to write it.) 

Dear Husband:

God damn you. God damn you for being a liar from the very start.  God damn you for pretending to be the man I needed.  For pretending to be supportive of my dreams and for figuring out how to feel like my safe place, even though apparently you never were.  

God damn you for every time you told me it would be ok.  For every time you promised to change. For the times it seemed like you really were changing and I fell for it.  God damn you for abusing my hope and my faith in you.  God damn you for taking advantage of my optimism and my love for you, my patience and my kindness and my good will and good nature.  

God damn you for wasting all these years of my life.  Damn you for the kids I never had and the career I abandoned because I put you first.  Damn you for not being the man I always believed you could be.  Damn you for not making the effort.  

And while we are at it, damn you for being a rotten father for the one child we did have.  Damn you for the emotional neglect and the name calling and the sly verbal abuse when I wan't around to see it.  Damn you for being a rotten example of any possible virtue I tried to instill, for not teaching your son how to be a decent adult.  Damn you for the problems with relationships and people he will have to struggle to overcome.  Damn you for all the completely unnecessary pain you have created in this young person who you helped bring into this world.  Damn you for destroying our family. Damn you for not even trying to save it.  

Damn you and your stupid stroke.  It is entirely your own fault, you know.  You made the decision to go to sleep instead of going to the emergency room.  You knew what the consequences could be.  You laid your lazy self down in this bed, had a stroke, and left me to deal with the consequences.  Now you are going about your life as you choose, and I am left behind in all this pain.  Damn you and your laziness and your selfishness. Damn you, you son of a bitch.

And damn that bitch, too, the miserable cow.  Damn her for continuing the abuse cycle left over from her own bastard of a father.  Damn her for the cruelty she laid on you, because she would rather neglect and damage her own children  than break that chain.  Damn her for her cowardice, her laziness, and her selfish need for....for whatever it was. 

Damn your father, too for letting her get away with it.  And damn my parents, for the same reasons.  We all have our pain, but when we become parents, we have a responsibility to get over ourselves and be the best people we can for our children.  Damn all of them for not putting on their big-kid pants and being better parents. Screw them. Screw you.

And damn me, too.  I let you do this to me for so long.  I kept believing your lies, even when I knew I shouldn't.  Damn me for all the times I didn't leave when I knew I should.  For all the times I let you get the better of me. Damn me for all the screaming arguments when I didn't shield our son from the violence.  All the times I focused on my own pain and misery and didn't protect him.  

Crumbling foundations of house and marriage

 Today really is the fist day of the rest of my life.  I know that could be said about any day, but this is a big one. Things have ended  or are ending and other things are about to begin.

To start with, there is a huge RV in my driveway.  It arrived here yesterday from Ohio, where I found it on Craig's list just 3 weeks ago.  It is going to be my and my son's new home, once my divorce is final and we can no longer stay in the house.  I signed all the papers pertaining to it with my maiden name, and that in itself was horrifying.  

The house itself, my history with it and and my anticipated escape from it, are a metaphor for the marriage that has played out within its walls for the past 14 years. The house, like the marriage, was a fixer-upper from the start.  There were issues with both from the beginning, some obvious, some not so much.  Fixing the issues of both the house and the marriage was always my project.  I dreamed and planned for the futures of both the house and the marriage.  I had dreams and plans for myself, too, which were intertwined with my plans for the house and the marriage.  I planned garden parties and a hobby farm, more children and a small business.  I planned comfortable rooms and a place to find peace.  My house and my marriage were supposed to be my safe space, the place to come home to.  

I approached both my home and my marriage with the absolute best of intentions.  Even though I was terrified on my wedding day and on closing day, I promised myself, my husband, and the house that I would give my best to them.  These were supposed to be my forever:  My forever husband, and my forever home.  

For years I buzzed around, trying to make things nicer:  a day trip here, a throw pillow there.  This week a date night, next week a garden project. I never believed there was anything I couldn't fix with a book and my own two hands.  My bookshelves and my browser bookmarks list are cram-packed with ideas I tried or wanted to try. I plowed ahead, ignoring all the warning signs.  The emotional neglect, the ominous scratching in the attic, the explosive arguments, the holes in the drywall.  If I just worked a little harder, I could fix it.  Just a little more time to get it right, just one more trip to Menards to buy one more thing.  I threw time and money at my problems like there was no tomorrow. 

As it turns out, both the marriage and the home were doomed, for pretty much the same reason:  The foundations were bad. As hard as it is to accept, there are things I cannot fix by myself.  I cannot make my husband be someone he isn't, no matter what I do.  I can't love him into being a better man.  No amount of dialogue or love-language speaking is going to change who he is or make him into the man I need him to be.  I can't change him any more than I can fix the foundations in this house with paint.  eventually I realized the only thing to do is to cut my losses and walk away. 

The RV in my driveway is my new start. Now that it is here, my imminent departure from my home and my marriage are suddenly real things.  My heart feels like it is being pulled from the frozen flagpole it licked so many years ago. If I pay attention, I can feel a huge raw spot on my soul like a fresh scrape or a chemical burn.  The frightened child within my soul weeps for the loss.  She wants to turn around and run headlong into the past, the rickety house and the rickety marriage that once seemed so safe.  She does not care that the safety was only ever an illusion, it would be good enough for now.  She wants to be held once more, coddled and petted like a child and told everything will be ok.  Even if it's not true, she wants to believe.