The past two nights I've been having the first dreams ever of my ex husband being kind to me, of us being friends again. It's bizarre. I don't have these thoughts during the day but it's the first time I've been dreaming them, really.
This may mark the first time since everything broke up that I have truly started to miss him and wonder if I made a terrible mistake. It makes me want to howl with pain and loss.
I woke up both yesterday and today struggling with complex swirls of emotion. Warmth, emotional-longing, loss, pain, regret, anger.
Wishing I could explain what happened, have him understand what great emotional pain I was in, how two years earlier when I threatened to leave... THAT was the growl before the bite and yet he didn't realize how close I was to the end and what that would eventually mean: loss of our relationship, home, abandonment of our dreams and the discarding of memories. THAT was the edge, 2 years earlier. I was so close to leaving then and yet hung on for another two years.
THAT would have been the time to make the big changes and yet I hadn't been able to impress upon him my desperation.
And so things didn't change.
The few times we went to counseling then, expressing myself felt like a terrible experience and so I further locked down my feelings; tamping down a cauldron of emotion which would build in pressure until the final explosion which obliterated the entire relationship, destroying not only the cone itself but scalding the surrounding earth so that it'd be too sterile for any stray tendrils of hope to grow.
He still didn't grant me space, didn't make me feel safe enough to express my pain, and couldn't be there for my own problems. I didn't know how to tell him I was dying inside when he was fighting the battle of his life. He was always fighting the battle of his life. I thought I could keep swallowing my needs but I failed.
And so I ran, and I ran for a year and more, until now. I don't need to run anymore. I'm either too tired or settled enough or safe enough to face the demons. I don't know which. But here I am.
I am a realistic person and I recognize there would never be any way to reconcile or salvage any kind of relationship after what's transpired. I see the scorched and lifeless earth. I hang my head and move my aching self slowly and stiffly forward.
Stop being my twin. Seriously. I too have had a hard time coming to grips with the fact that there will be no 'after' and no reconciliation. "He" made that perfectly clear... by his actions, comments to others, and how he treated me or the thought of me after. He still blames me. It's all my fault. And you may feel much the same - at fault.. but as you said, it was always HIS issues that came first... his needs, his desires.. And if I'm projecting here, I'm sorry, but that is what it felt like you were saying... and that's how my ex treated me too. A servant of his needs, and when his needs were not met, I was at fault and had to fix things. Always. Justifying him and staying with him..why did I do that? He killed me a little more inside each passing day. What made me think that was OK? Oh yeah, that my 'role models' in life treated their partners much the same... it just never connected until we split up that is why I kept repeating the same self-abusing situations... I felt that's how it was, and to be expected from what I saw around me. Of course now, awake and wide eyed, I won't settle for that any more. I'm a person, and you take me as I am and encourage or support me as I am. (Not saying we don't grow and change and expand our horizons...but who we are at our core doesn't and shouldn't change unless we're say, a serial killer.. ;) Rock on girl, you are making steps, you are coming to realizations, no matter how painful, that will build a foundation of who you truly are, reconnect you with yourself, and build a future for you that you truly deserve. With or without the perfect partner. I personally hope with someone... but I seem to function better on the whole with someone to rely and count on, aside from family and friends... but that's me, not you.. I have no idea if that applies to you. ;) So take from my comments what you will. Sister from another mother... ;)
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect, everything looks better. Waves look beautiful and smooth from space, but as you get closer the turbulence rears it's ugly head. Break-ups and divorces are rarely, if ever, one sided. The blame game is mostly, just that, a game to help people deal with pain and the cause. What happened is done, no blame is going to change that, least of all blaming yourself.
ReplyDeleteDivorce was not a one day decision! It was a multi-moment process that you both contributed to. Would it be easier short term to stay in a horrible (in a lot of cases abusive) relationship than start your life again? We all sometimes feel that way or most divorces would happen sooner. Divorce is never easy emotionally. It takes time to heal a gaping emotional wound. It also takes time though to heal the financial and metaphysical aspects of your life. The time for the dreams you shared is over! It is time for YOUR DREAMS! Strangely, it is not easy coming up with dreams, but they will come.
Will you do the whole what if and dream of your ex? Of course, good or bad, they were a large part of your old life. Unfortunately, “what if” is not “what happened” your dreams are not based in reality, but the shadows of expectations that you had. If that was your real ex, chances are, you'd still be together. I have the advantage / disadvantage of still being friends with my ex. We make better friends than we did husband and wife. Shortly after the divorce, I was like, what the hell? She is actually... human. I then thought back to all of the reasons we got divorced and the emotional devastation that I had felt for the past, So many years. Hints of why we are not together can be witnessed, by me, on a regular basis.
Damn it Hols, DO NOT HANG YOUR HEAD!!!! Life is a journey, divorce is a course correction. If you planned a straight course from point a to point b and you were heading for a cliff at a hundred miles per hour (my appeal to your logical side :) ) would you veer left, veer right or keep going straight? The correct answer was not, keep going straight. There is no shame in turning left or right, only turning back.
This does ring a bell with me. Say no more.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written, though I can't relate to a word of it. ;) But because you're such a good writer, I feel *for* you. I sense your confusion and pain and despondence. And any writer who can elicit feelings like that from other readers truly has a talent. :)
ReplyDeleteI don't think you would be human if you didn't have the occasional twinge of missing him and what you had. But it happened the way it should have. Try not to look backwards. The best stuff is in your future.
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