Category Archives: Love and Compassion

Uncomplicated Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

“Think of someone you love who is uncomplicated to love,” the meditation guide instructed. I thought, of course, of my son. And as thoughts are liable to do, immediately after my son, I thought of my mother. And then of my father. And then of my two sisters.

All of them, uncomplicated to love, and to be loved by.

I have never known different with my family. Even when we had our disagreements, our rough patches, I never doubted that we loved each other, and that if pressed, we would be there for each other. Ever.

How friggin’ blessed I am, is something I’ve come to know as an adult. Really not until I was well past the half-way mark of my life did I realize the depth of that blessing.

I remember back when I just assumed all families were like mine. It seemed incongruous that my best friend’s father (at age 12) could put belt marks on her legs, but he did. She didn’t make a big deal of it, so no one else did. I can’t imagine what it was like, to be a 12 year old, going through puberty, and have your father take a belt to you. I remember my own father, at times in his frustration with my misbehavior as a child, raising his hand. That, the raised hand, was enough to make me know I better stop what I was doing, or saying. He never brought it down on me. I think it would have killed him to hit me.

I was SO naive.

I have known and loved men who were beaten by their fathers, whose mothers stood by and watched, thus enabling the brutality of a child. I think I made it my quest to prove to them that they were lovable, that they were in reality, as deserving of unconditional love as much as anyone. I wanted to convince them that it is possible for someone to love them purely, with no conditions. I cannot imagine a more painful thing to live with than the belief that you innately do not deserve love and belonging. Would it not instill false shame, to think you weren’t worthy of your parents love? And shame is such a destructive emotion.

I was unable to achieve this. It took me a long time to actively give up the quest. And that in itself, is not a good basis for a relationship anyway. There is no common ground. But, I love them, still. And wish they could see themselves the way I saw them. I wish they knew that all the love they think they missed is inside them now, given to them as a divine right. No one can take it from anyone else.

My childhood friend, has somehow managed to retrieve a relationship with her siblings now. They are very close. She has held onto the friendships of her youth. She’s coming to see me, and our other friend who lives in Daytona across the state, in January. This group of girls is like my family. They reconnected with me after about 40 years, and we picked up where we left off.

I think though, that it is part of my soul’s journey to love others the way that I’ve been loved. Am loved. It’s always the underlying emotion, the baseline. If I’ve loved you, I will always love you. If I never see you again, I will always love you, always wish the best for you, always feel the pain I know you feel and always send out whatever I can to assuage it. I may not like your behavior, I may choose to withdraw from it, but the love I felt, only came through me. I did not create it, I just channeled it. And will continue to do so, actively or passively.

So this was my post-meditation blog. Kind of a deep, heavy meditation, and it seems I’ve been doing a lot of reflection and introspection around this broader subject lately. I hope I’m not boring….not bringing the kiss of death on myself, lol.

Love and light, all.

How I Deal With the Pain of Having Had A Narcissist in My Bed (A Sequel)

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is actually a sequel, I guess, to the narcissist post immediately preceding this post.  In the same newsletter from Oprah.com there was this excerpt from Marianne Williamson’s book “From Tears to Triumph, The Spiritual Journey from Suffering to Enlightenment.”

So many people don’t understand how I can forgive my narc, how I can say I still love him, how I can wish good things for him. I think Marianne Williamson explains it here. My quest, my journey, has led me to believe in the power of unconditional love. I believe it is the only thing that can destroy the darkness in people, and the only way to raise the consciousness of all people, is for all of us to try to extend love whenever, wherever we can.

I know he was a classic narc. I know he’s not always happy about that. I know he finds himself in darkness so often, and can’t find a way out. I know he’s been fending for himself since he was tiny, and I know the pain he’s suffered. He’s a classic narc, whose narcissism grew out of some really horrible circumstances.

This article I just copied and will paste below one paragraph from, explains quite well where I am with my emotions for my narcissist. I think the book will probably be next on my booklist to read. I have always said that great beauty can be borne of great pain. I hope this can still be true for my narc at some point in his life, that he’s able to see the soul I’ve always seen and let it shine.

Here are Marianne’s words, with a link to the whole article if you’re interested. Love and light all.

“And that is the ultimate deliverance from suffering—the realization that we can be better people because of it. The spiritual journey from emotional pain to inner peace entails a transformation of our personalities, from being someone weakened by suffering to someone honed by it. Yes, we must look at the darkness within ourselves, and forgive others for the darkness that we see within them, in order to experience the miracle of love that only forgiveness brings. Yet, in so doing, we emerge victorious. And within that light, endless miracles abound. For miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. We grow less imprisoned by our fears as we release them to thoughts of love. No longer in denial about our issues, we atone and learn to forgive ourselves. No longer blaming others, we are able to forgive them. We experience a cosmic re-parenting from which we grow, at last, into the adults we were meant to be. This is the greatest story, the story of all stories, and it is the story of every one of us.”


Read more: http://www.oprah.com/inspiration/the-unexpected-route-to-a-spiritual-miracle#ixzz4GY4zsREc

Tuesday Updates

Posted on by learning to live like water

desert sunrise

The house.

My sis has been making calls about the mold. There is a test that can be done for $375 to see if there’s a mold problem. So we’re going to order it, and try to get an extension on the contract until that test is in. All these inspections are gonna run about $1000. But at least I’ll know what I’m buying. My sis is building lots of good karma, I’ll tell you. I could never do this without being there without her. So much to organize. My sis is good at that stuff, lol, but I will be forever grateful.

Addie

I texted with Addie again today, 3 days in a row. After only intermittent convos over the last 2 or 3 months. He sent me the picture he took of the desert sunrise this morning (above). He used to do that every morning. And send a selfie of him waking up. He would always ask for one of me. I would protest. I had bed hair, no make up, you know….. He would always say, “But that’s when you are the most beautiful.” Sigh………

He is such a good guy. I hope everything is ok with the gf, and I hope he’s not falling for me again. Much as I love him, and love having him in my life, I can’t go there with him. It’s just never worked, and I’ve tried. I keep breaking his heart, as he rather succintly reminded me back in December.

The first time was because S was doing his thing, to get me back from Addie. I’d been seeing Addie for about a month, after the prison whore. But I still loved S, and S was really working it. He said everything I’d ever dreamed of hearing from him, and did everything I’d ever wanted, and I left Addie in a heart beat. (I guess that’s when he cared for me, as B said, “not in the way I wanted or dreamed of” except it was everything I’d ever wanted from him.) I was unbelievably happy for about 6 weeks, till B decided she wanted him back. Then began the S torture. Not letting me go, not seeing me much, pushing, pulling. Having a great time watching me cry over him. Getting his huge ego boost from all the tortured poems I wrote last summer. Playing the game, the great player. See how long he could get away with it. No wonder he thought I was weak, that I “broke like a little girl”. Well, I bet he doesn’t think that now.

The second time I broke Addie’s heart big time was last November, when we were talking about him coming to visit. I suggested New Year’s Eve, for a few days. He wanted to come for 2 ½ weeks. “I’ll rent a car when you go back to work, I’ll make you dinner every night….” I know he meant it to show how he loved me.  He was so excited about it. But I didn’t want it. I was not, am not, ready to have someone here every night. It’s like a commitment, and I didn’t want it. I called it off, the whole thing. I told him I wasn’t ready, that I hadn’t gotten over S yet, and I hadn’t, that was true. I had just found out a couple weeks before, the full extent of S’s deception, and I was still trying to assimilate all that bad news. I was still rebounding from all the push pull, which continued right up to the moment I found out the whole truth.

That’s my biggest problem with Addie, is that he won’t allow time for a relationship to just grow. But also, because I don’t want to be in love with someone who lives 2000 miles away. And in the desert…I could visit, but I need the water. I have to be by the ocean. There were some physical issues too, which I never mentioned to him, because he couldn’t do anything about them, and I didn’t want to make him ashamed or even feel bad because of them.

For whatever the reason, it’s nice to have Addie in my life again. No games, just a good, intimate friend. Someone you can count on. Someone who constantly fills up my marble jar. It is so nice to be reminded, reassured that there are men in the world capable of selfless loving. Who take pleasure in pleasing their woman. I hope all is well with his gf, and he’s not talking to me every day because there’s something wrong, or worse, because he’s still in love with me. I don’t want to break his heart again. But I love having a man in my life who wants nothing from me, except a little of my time, and a little of my affection, and is never anything but loving and kind. I want nothing from him but his friendship. We are more than friends, we are very close. There was a tenuous time, when I broke his heart, the last time, that I didn’t know if we would make it through as friends. But we have, and I couldn’t be happier about it.  I’m so grateful the Universe has brought him back to my life right now.  Just so glad.

All is well, as I watch the Universe self-correct, and self-organize, and help me along the way to the fulfillment of my dreams. Love and light.

Thoughts on Compassion

Posted on by learning to live like water

thich nhat hanh compassion quotes

It seems that winter has hit the northeast USA today.  It is cold, but not unseasonably so.  It’s just hovering around freezing.  But that’s the problem, it’s precipitating, and it’s sleet, not snow.  Frozen pellets falling from the sky.

Thankfully, I don’t have to work.  Thankfully it’s supposed to change to rain by late morning.  However, I had a dental appointment at 8 AM for a crown, which I just canceled.  To get there I have to drive over a huge hill, in some places it would be called a small mountain.  And there are accidents galore on the highways this morning.  I’m guessing that getting out of my driveway would be challenging.  So, now I have to wait to get this crown done.  I hope the tooth does not fall apart in the meantime.

I still am waiting to hear from the vet for an appointment for Maggie.  I called them late last evening, so I’m guessing they will call back this morning.

So, I’m home for the morning anyway.  I think I may make some jewelry.  I have so many lovely stones I can wire-wrap.  I need to use that part of my brain for awhile.  It will refresh my outlook on things.  Give me some perspective. 

Tomorrow I’m going to see Joy  with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro with a few of my friends, and get a bite to eat.  Looking forward to it.  Although, I may have to take Maggie to the vet tomorrow also.  If I don’t get an appointment tomorrow, I’ll have to wait til next week, I doubt that it would get done New Year’s Eve. 

I did a guided meditation on Forgiveness this morning.  I chose that one, because I felt I was slipping backwards a bit.  I know from the experience with my ex-husband that the only way I can move forward and truly let go of the past is to forgive.  I see my ex now as the flawed damaged person he is, who is still seeking the unconditional love, though he doesn’t believe in it, and in his damaged psyche, doesn’t believe he deserves it.  Which is how, in my heart, I see Scott too. 

I know too much about both men, I know what their lives were like as children, I know the struggles they went through.  I know my ex’s from experience, from almost 40 years of living with his extended family and seeing the dysfunction in action.  I know Scott’s experience from what he told me.  I believe it to be true, because his actions, and his relationships with his sister and his mother bear the stories out. 

When I know this, and see this, I have to feel compassion.  I don’t have to feel love in the way that I did, I don’t have to want to be with them, but I have to feel compassion.  I am just more comfortable that way. 

I believed with Scott that if I loved him unconditionally, as he had never been, it would eventually bring him around.  That was my Pollyanna side, because one person’s unconditional love for that time was not going to be enough to undo years of conditioning.  It was my naivete.  I was coming off of the power it had to give my son strength, but my son had my unconditional love for his whole life, and had a frame of reference.  Scott had none, and so, had no reason to believe that it was real, that I was not just naive and stupid.  In hindsight, he had affection for me, but it was very mixed with his own self-centered self-absorbed desires, and needs.  He is a typical child of an abusive dysfunctional household. 

My ex’s childhood was similar, with different twists.  I know first hand how verbally and emotionally abusive his father could be, because I worked for him for 20 years, before we bought the business, and he visited it upon me a few times. I also know how his mother passively endorsed the abuse, while professing love for her children. It was not until I left that marriage that I learned about abuse, that I even realized there was a name for what I lived through.  I found an online community of over 8000 members, and I remember reading their posts, thinking “Oh My God!  There are OTHER people who have lived with this!  There’s  NAME for what he did to me!”  I remained very active in that community for at least 5 years.  I went in naive, I came out with an education.  The friends I made there are still some of my closest friends.  We still call on each other as our children deal with the repercussions of abuse.

Combine this education, with embarking on a spiritual path, to regain my sense of self, to rediscover who I was when I left my marriage.  Because when you live with abuse, you end up spending 24/7 just trying to keep the peace.  Just trying to stay a step ahead of the abuser, to protect yourself and your kids.  You try to become what they want, so they will be happy.  Of course, they always change what they want, the minute you achieve it, so that you never know what’s going to come at you.  A true honest mind-fuck of the first degree.

I began to recognize the same pattern with Scott, with his push pull game.  The same thing, in a different form. Which is why I kept trying to break up with him, but was unable to let go.  Until, it’s all I could do to save myself.

I cleansed my pendulums this morning with white sage and asked some very pointed questions.  I got what I believe are real answers, and I’m going to try to follow the path that they put me on. They were questions and answers about dealing with these issues with compassion.  Both men and the issues still come into my head way too much, and I don’t want to fear them, I don’t want to hate them, I don’t want to feel angry. 

There was something for me to learn in both situations, and I think, something for me to teach.  If the student refuses the lesson, that’s not my problem.  I think I’ve learned mine.  I’m open to them, and to any that are still hanging out there for me to learn.

I sense that my ex has been humbled.  Not completely, but he is sounding more like he’s reaching out, that he misses having some communication with someone who knows him.  That’s a good thing.  I won’t get caught in his web again, but it’s possible that now that he’s lost everything, and I mean everything….he can be a little vulnerable, because he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.  I’m not jumping in, but neither will I be afraid to communicate with him.

Scott, I don’t sense much from.  I think he’s closed whatever small opening he had in his heart that would have allowed love to enter and to extend from him.  I do sense though, that perhaps he’s doing what I suggested, and taking some time to re-evaluate the way he lives.  He’s not doing this because I suggested it, he’s doing it because in his mind he’s lost everything too.  He’s heading into his final years, when he should be retiring, and enjoying life with people he loves, but he’s all alone.  His ploy to keep people in his life based on deception didn’t work.  So I hope he’s going to go within, and try to find his own light.  I still can see that soul, I still can see his light. I have been on an emotional roller coaster with my feelings for him:  love, hate, anger, compassion, longing, repulsion….. 

At the end of the day, I have to go with compassion, because it’s my comfort zone.  It’s what I believe in my heart to be the only way to move forward.  My pendulums seem to concur with that. 

One thing I learned in the abuse community was that hurt people hurt people.  I am no exception.  When each of these men hurt me, I hurt them back.  My words with Scott, while true….were scathing. My actions with my ex, while necessary for my survival and my son’s, blindsided him.  I make no apologies, really, because Scott devastated me, I had to release that pain.  My ex was on a quest to steal my soul…my son…my breath.  If I didn’t leave him we both would have died, literally…because the dysfunction was truly affecting our health.  My son would have never seen that there is a different way to live, he would have been doomed to repeat what he did not understand.

Lord, I did not expect this blog to go here.  But it did, and that’s the reason I write mostly.  To work things out, to express things that I am trying to understand, and in the expression to find the understanding.  If you made it this far, thank you. 

Love and light.

 

 

 

Is He a Narcissist? Maybe…..

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’ve been reading about narcissists, and relationships.  And sociopaths.  I always thought my ex was a sociopath…he fit the bill perfectly.  I think S, my only other relationship, was more of a narcissist.  In my never-to-be-humble but honest opinion.

Here’s what I just read about a narcissist in a relationship, from Emmagc75’s blog Recovering from Narcissistic Abuse.  ( https://emma75love.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/recovering-from-narcissistic-abuse-2/ )

“People with narcissistic traits are known for targeting intelligent, self-sufficient, empathic individuals as partners. They tend to lack core identity (Brown, 2013), and need narcissistic supply to fill their empty psyches. Narcissistic supply comes mostly in the form of adulation, adoration, and attention, but any sort of feedback allows the individual with narcissistic qualities to feel alive (including negative attention). ”

I don’t know about Betty Boop, but I am intelligent enough to be self-sufficient, and empathetic (which is why I feel his energy so acutely at times).  I am sure I filled S’s need for adoration and attention.  I believe it’s why he could not let go of me.   I can’t say my ex thrived on adoration, because I didn’t adore him, but I did S.

And those of us who have been involved with someone like this, have a hard time getting over it because not only do we have to deal with a “fake relationship” but we have to deal with emotional and possibly sexual abuse.  There’s usually a good bit of post-traumatic stress thrown in there.

And yes, having sex with us both for months without us knowing about the other, is sexual and emotional abuse. It feels like rape, to be honest. Telling me that he was going to be with her, and then refusing to let me go, trying to get me to see him, to have sex with him, continuing intimate conversations when he was “with” someone else (even though he denied that he was with her, he only admitted that he slept with her once a week, making it sound like he was just getting laid….) is sexual and emotional abuse.  Denying her to me, and hiding me from her, is emotional abuse of both of us, in two ways.  It is a lie, but it is also betrayal of the relationship he had with either of us, to deny it to the other.  The narcissist disappears for hours or days.  He is unreliable, read that, lies.

The thing is, he didn’t just do it to me.  He did it to her too.  So…while it’s obviously personal, he devastated me, now I can see that that’s who he is.  He didn’t give me special treatment, he didn’t single me out….he gave it to her too.  He acted it out differently with each of us. He had a long history with her, which differentiated how he abused her from how he abused me.  He’s probably done something similar to every other woman in his life, all of whom he claimed “hurt” him.  He used to say, “how could I have been so wrong about her (Betty)?”  Oh that’s funny, when he was the one who had sex with her (former) best friend and caused the break-up during which I met him.  Did he think she would stay?  Geezus.

Which is, just, Wow.  The man walks through life devastating people who innocently and lovingly buy into his bullshit, and then claims he’s been hurt.  I remember him saying to me when all the lies and deception were exposed, but Betty didn’t know yet, how he was hurt too. That’s just funny, really.  HE was hurt?  OMG, I feel so sorry for him, lol. He lies and deceives two women who loved him, and speaking only for myself, beyond limit and reason, and when both women refused to play his game, he is hurt.  OMG.  It’s like theater of the absurd.  I have to laugh, now.

God, he has no idea what hurt is.  NONE.  He’s incapable of that much emotion.  You can’t set yourself up knowingly to fail, and then cry about it.

But still….I feel sorry for him, because he’s never going to know the joy of real connection in his lifetime.  I still don’t know why I feel him so much.  And, I am still a believer in the power of unconditional love, (which means, I have to love him in that generic way because we don’t get to pick and choose who we love if we believe in unconditional love and it’s those who appear to least deserve it that need it the most) and when I feel his energy winding it’s way into my gut, I’ll continue to send him Reiki.  He used to talk about going to live in a monastery for 6 months, and I’d laugh….because I couldn’t imagine him going with out sex that long, lol.  But it would be a good thing for him to do, with counseling.  Maybe he could salvage the remaining years of his life.  And stop fucking over people who love him.  If there are any left.

They say a narcissist loves attention, and so does a sociopath.  Doesn’t matter if it’s positive or negative attention, it’s just attention.  It’s just knowing that someone else’s head is wrapped around them.  Well…S, this one’s on me.  Here’s a bunch of attention for you.  I hope you enjoy it.

But really, I hope you take it to heart, and get some help, and learn how to love people and let them love you.  There’s so much more to living than playing these childish games. Love always.

 

 

Tale of Two Men, or , Too Long In the Darkness

Posted on by learning to live like water

two men

One man is mad with power.  Unable to feel empathy.  Disrespectful of everyone’s wishes, desires, love, care….dishonors everyone, in the pursuit of what he wants.  Never accountable for the destruction that he leave behind him with every footstep.   Convincingly, he tells people what they want to hear, and when they believe his false story, he uses them to do his bidding.  So they will fill his need, his desire.  He offers them some future compensation that he knows he will never give them.  Pretty soon everything he says is a lie, and darkness surrounds him and follows him and envelops anyone who tries to love him.

One man is vulnerable, sweet, loving, fearless.  He feels others pain, more acutely than his own, and is there. Beside them.  Wiping their tears, reminding them they have worth.  Sees people at their worst and tells them that’s when he loves them the most.   He never misses a chance to connect. To be kind.  To show his love, even if he knows you don’t feel quite the same. The light follows him everywhere, every word, every breath.  If he goes into the dark, he brings the light with him.

With the first man, the love was fire, and now it’s ash.  It’s a gray film on the heart, all the loving fire has been dulled, and burned out, burned away.  The fire of lies, and deception reduced it all to nothing but powdery ash, waiting for the first rain to wash it into the ground, to begin transformation into something else.

With the he second man, the love was cool, and now it builds.  He is easy, his warmth crosses the miles.  His unconditional love floats on the breeze and caresses my soul.  She thinks, why….do I deserve this?  It’s not to ask….

There is no asking, why, for either of them.

One chooses disconnection, disinterest, disharmony, solitary solitude.  Why?  It’s not to ask, it’s his to tell, if he ever chooses to.  Or to hide.  Or to hide from.

One chooses love, connection, compassion, kindness richness of life.  His light just shines.  Why?  It’s not to ask.  It’s to accept. Why?  It’s his to tell if he chooses.  Or to live.  He doesn’t care why, he just is.

Two men, a perfect dichotomy.  Everything one is, the other is not.  The ying and the yang, clear in front of me.   I rest.  Too long in the darkness, I seek the light.

 

Soothed

Posted on by learning to live like water

My lovely weekend had a little blip last night.  But it didn’t last, it didn’t hurt. It just triggered some anger, some negative emotion.

It was soothed by a long intimate conversation with A, until way past my bedtime.  At times I wish A was here with me that way.  I love him too.  Our relationship is close, deep, intimate, a human connection. Telling secrets, being honest, and non-judgmental.  It is so good for me, right now, to have a man in my life I can trust completely, implicitly.

He asked me to send a pic of S, he wanted to visualize the devil.  I obliged, I only have one picture on my phone still.  The rest are on the computer that crashed.

A tells me a woman invited him to her hot tub.  He tells me he doesn’t trust her. But he’s going to go anyway, lol.  I said, go….but does she know about the one in MI you are going to see?  No….but he said he wasn’t going to get intimate with the hot tub woman.

We watch out for each other, we love each other more than friends, not like lovers, but deeply.  We are a blessing to each other.  He tells me I saved his life.  I tell him, he saved mine when S tried to crush my soul.  A has always been there for me, to pick me up, to make me look in the mirror, and see that I am still a beautiful person, worthy of love and belonging.  Even with the faults that the mirror shines back at me.  He offers his shoulder, he offers his heart.  He gives me a soft place to land. I hope I do that for him too.

Lucky, so lucky to have him in my life.  It’s no coincidence that we met the day after Scott told me about doing the prison whore, when I was so down, so miserable, so broken.  He was and is a gift from the universe.

I told him, I can be such a shit…and he said, yes, and I love that about you too.

It’s a love like the sun has for the earth….he never says I owe him.  I never say he owes me.

Blessed.

 

 

Releasing the Past, With Love and Light

Posted on by learning to live like water

I did a meditation this morning on releasing the past.  Bits and pieces of memories still pop up from time to time, usually first thing in the morning, and I ask the universe, why?  He just so didn’t have to do that to me.

So, I’m trying to just find a way to let those memories come and go, and not unpack and take up a room in my psyche.  The guide in the meditation suggested re-framing those things, realizing that people who did things that hurt us were acting from their level of consciousness at the time.  Brene Brown, in her book Rising Strong, has a whole chapter on the debate as to whether or not people are doing the best they can.

When I went to the wedding in VA, a couple of weeks after I was devastated by S, I read that chapter of Brene’s book on the plane.  I had to stop reading, when I read that, and hugged the book to me and looked out the window, tears in my eyes.  I sent him a text, when the plane landed, and told him that I knew he was doing the best he could.  And so was I.

But that was before I found out that he’d been lying to me all summer.  That’s when I thought they had just gotten back together the weekend he dumped me.

Now I ask, do I have to still accept that he was doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that when he would tell me he wanted to be alone, that he didn’t want a loving relationship right now, he wanted to find himself, all the while the truth having been that he was seeing Betty Boop on the weekend, that he was doing the best that he could?  When I would tell him to let me go, and he would ask me not to go, when he would tell me how he missed me, and come to see me, all the while lying to me, and to her, was he doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that?

It seems naive.  It seems false.  He knew neither of us would share him, if we knew.  And he played us both to keep us in his life.  He played me harder than her, because she had no idea he was doing anything other than spending Saturday night with her.  She had no desires that weren’t getting met, she had no longing he wasn’t fulfilling.  I had them every day, and every day I had to hear what I now know was another lie as to why he wasn’t available.  I was far more work…and got far less.

But back to the question, was he doing the best he could?

I wish I could say yes.  I wish I could say yes, and just forgive it and move on from it.  Sometimes I can.  More and more of the time.  But sometimes I say, this is a smart man. It was one of the things I loved about him, was how smart he was, how he could discuss almost anything, could solve problems, could fix things.  This is a man with whom I was so clear…he would get aggravated with me for saying the same thing over and over in a million different ways to make sure he understood me.  I never wanted to hear from him, or another man, that they didn’t know how I felt.  He knew, unequivocally, how I felt.  And how Betty felt for that matter.  At least, that’s what he told me back at the beginning of our relationship, that she had told him that she wouldn’t tolerate him cheating on her.

Was he doing the best he could?  God, I hope not.  I hope he knows better than to treat people he loves in that way.  There was no honor, no respect, not even a tiny bit of love for either of us, in his actions.  It was just self-serving, it was stealing our love, and our energy, to fill his holes.

Perhaps therein lies the problem.  His holes.  He has so many….and I knew of them.  He told me.  He told me so many things, of his past.  Things that were horrible, that he lived through.  That he did.  Things that he swore he’d never told another soul, and didn’t know why he was telling me.  I still will hold his confidence, and never tell a soul those things.   I never judged him for any of it.  It was all in the past, way past, and I always felt that his experiences made him into the man I loved.  Let me say, though, that the knowledge of these things, allowed me to always see his inner child, the one who just wanted to be loved like all children do.  I gave him an inner child crystal early in our relationship, after he told me some of these things, which he used to keep next to his bed.  When we broke up over the prison whore, I think it was, he threw it into the river near his house.

I suppose it doesn’t matter how smart he is.  I suppose that what happened to him, and the way he acted out on it in his lifetime don’t have anything to do with his ability to solve problems, and do the work he does.  Emotionally, with me and Betty, he was doing the best he could.  He had two women who loved him the way he always wanted to be loved, unconditionally.  Although, I can’t speak for her.  I can only speak for me.  He didn’t want to lose that, but he knew he couldn’t keep us both if we knew about the other.  He lied and lied, to create a false world, a different world for each of us, so we would stay in his life, and continue to love him.  Fear…of losing what felt so good to him.  What is not love, is fear.

The answer is, yes, I guess he was doing the best he could.   The best he could was destined to eventually blow up in his face.  And mine.  And hers.  It was destined to absolutely devastate me.  I assume it did Betty also.  I think it has more than anything devastated S, because he now has neither of us (unless Betty has forgiven him, but I kinda don’t think that’s happened….) and has none of that unconditional love that he had.

If he had been honest with me in the beginning, when he began the song and dance about wanting to be alone,  we would still be friends. If he had just told me that then they had talked and he really wanted to see if they had a future. That he still had a lot of feelings for her.  If he had just been honest.   We would still be talking.  The hurt would have just been hurt, it never would have turned to anger, it never had to affect Betty at all.

I told him, so many times, that I would always love him.  That the love I gave to him he could take to the grave with him.  My heart still aches for that child, the one who steered the riverboat right into the deep and was lost.  My heart also sees the grown man, who denied the light, who fought for the darkness, who chose to allow his darkness to hurt people who loved him.  That was a choice.  No matter what he felt emotionally, he knew it was wrong.  He should have made another choice.

He can’t undo what he has done.  He can only make different choices going forward.  As can I.  I have to, as the meditation suggested, re-frame his actions, realizing that what he did reflected his level of consciousness at that time.   The pain is down to the level of a thorn stuck in my thumb every once in awhile, that needs extracting. I keep wondering why I keep grabbing the thornbush, and don’t just walk away from it.

I’ll attempt to do that, so that I can fully let it go, with love and light.  I can wish for him, that in his final years, he will welcome the light that I always saw in him, that he will learn to love himself enough to make himself proud from here on out.  To make decisions that he can live with, to be honorable, because I know right now, he’s having a hard time living with what he did to us.

Love and compassion are, apparently, and gratefully, my default settings, and I’ll return to those.

Love and light S. May you someday see the light in you that was always so apparent to me.