Slowing the Spin

Posted on by learning to live like water

Better today. Not as broken.  I spoke to a couple men on the phone from a dating site. One was a possibility. One could only talk about himself. I will probably meet the other one when I get back from the wedding.  Just knowing that there are possibilities helps.  

My friend A has gone camping, and apparently is out of cell phone range somewhere on the rio grande River. I kinda miss his consistent sunrise and sunset pictures, and good mornings and good nights. I don’t know how long he’ll be gone, but I’m sure I’ll hear from him as soon as he gets back. 

I missed S this morning. , but I’m dealing with it. I think I’d like to be friends, at some point. But there is a lot to work through even to be friends. Like I say, he’s a cool guy. I don’t think he really knows what he wants.  I would be OK as long as I was seeing, as in dinner or coffee, or a movie,  other men too, so I could stay unattached to him.  I’m getting there. Anyway, he’s made his choice so not sure how good of friends we could ever be, the sexual tension between us has always made my head spin. Never had it with anyone else. But those days are over.  

Still confused, but working my way to balance. 

Every Second Takes Me Farther Away

Posted on by learning to live like water

Here’s the problem.  I went to bed last night and thought, without thinking, this is S’s side.  I get a pizza, and think of ordering it the way S liked.  I get dressed, and he liked me in this. None of them are conscious thoughts, they are just there.  Permeating every thought.  My text alert goes off, and I think it’s him.  I put him on “do not disturb” do I still get them, but there is no alert so they don’t make my heart stop.  I will just see that he’s texted when I open my phone.  It’s a small step, but it helped a little yesterday.  There probably won’t be anymore texts anyway.  I think he’s done, he’s not going to try to pull me back. He knows my mind is made up.  I know he thinks I shouldn’t care about her being in his life….but he knows I do. I’m not sure he understands how he irretrievably broke my trust, because that would mean he had to look at what he did to figure out why.

Whatever.

This morning is easier. Every second takes me farther from him.  Every second that passes dims the memories, the hopes, the desire.  And anyway, when it gets bad for me, I can visibly see him Monday night, watching me suffer and not giving a damn.  Just drama to him.  Feelings aren’t real to him, he doesn’t have any, even though he declares he does.  He kept saying that, “I have feelings too”.  I said “but no one knows what they are.  You never talk about them.”  So…whatever they are, that might have soothed my soul to know he could feel something about the end of our relationship, will forever remain his secret.

It’s his way.  It’s why we can’t be together.  I just wish he hadn’t drawn me back in so many times.  I wish he’d just let me go the 4 or 5 times I tried over the summer.  Even when HE was the one who said he needed to go off and find out who he was, when I said, then go, S, find out.  You can check in with me whenever you want., he would be drawing me back a couple days later.  For a guy who wanted to be alone, he made a pretty concerted effort to keep me in his life.  I drew the line at having a purely physical relationship, so I didn’t see him much.  But I was there, every day, all day, texting, sharing…every day.

I guess that’s what i will miss if I ever get past the hurt, is his funny quirky sense of humor.  He says it was different when we could sit on the deck and talk.  Of course it was.  There wasn’t a third person in the relationship.  Of course it was.  I wasn’t expected to share him.

He calls it a green-eyed monster.  As if there is one woman in the world who would be ok with being dumped hours before she expected to see her man, dumped for another woman??  Is there anyone out there that would think it’s ok for him to see her Saturday and me Sunday?  Seriously?

Ii just wish the ache in my heart would go away.  Time, distance….right now it feels like I need to travel to Mars to get away.

Johnny, I Hardly Knew You

Posted on by learning to live like water

The hard thing is reconciling the man I loved, with the man he was.  I love the guy I loved so much.  It wasn’t him.  It’s hard to comprehend how I fooled myself for so long.  It’s hard to accept that I gave my heart away, to someone who didn’t want it, didn’t cherish it, didn’t even think of it as a gift but treated it like a burden.

Hard. Really hard.

But I’m getting through it, because I have clarity.  There is no mistaking the man who showed up last night, or the one who texted me to tell me he was going to be with someone else.  No mistaking that it wasn’t the man I love.

And I swear, yesterday he sent a few flirty, very sexual texts, followed by LOL.  It was his thing, it was, I thought, our thing.  It seemed inappropriate now.  I didn’t respond.  But I swear, what he thought was he might be able to get me to agree to see him while he’s seeing her.  You know, what’s wrong he said, with being with one person Tuesday and another one Friday? (With, like intimately)  I am pretty sure that he thought I’d have sex with him last night, because I was so bereft.

But I saw him, clearly.  I hugged him hello, and started to cry.  I didn’t sit by him.  I was almost doubled over most of the time, my stomach was so upset.  I am holding all of it in my sacral chakra, and it was on fire.  Sacral, the abdomen is where we hold our creativity, our sexuality, and as a result, our vulnerability.  I was hanging way out there on a limb, holding on for dear life, while he was defending his indefensible behavior.  I had known that he would not be able to ease the pain, and he didn’t.  He doesn’t know how to be compassionate, or kind, when he’s done something wrong.  It’s not intentional.  He just doesn’t know.  No one taught him, and he never tried to learn.  It was the same after the prison whore.  He couldn’t own up to the pain he caused there either.

Today he finally, in his last message, said he was really sorry I was so hurt.  SO WHAT.  He didn’t apologize for what he did to hurt me, not today, not ever.  He can’t own it.  Who care that he feels bad I was hurt.  What matters is that he was the one who caused the hurt, and couldn’t even own it.  He thinks whatever he does is ok, because he does it.  If you don’t like it, walk away.

Which I have done.  Not even reluctantly.

I still see his heart, which he has barricaded up so no one can get in, and he can’t get out, not even to comfort the woman who loved him.  He comes from the attitude of scarcity.  There’s not enough of him as it is, he’s not going to give any of it away.  He never learned that giving it away is the only way to get more.  Too bad.

He’s a really really cool but totally fucked up guy.  I will always love the man who he won’t let out.  But I see him, I see him.  The last thing I said was if he ever figures it out, he knows where I am.

I don’t expect to ever hear from him.

Disconnection

Posted on by learning to live like water

I saw S last night.  It was a kind of swan song, I guess, though not so graceful as a swan.  We got a take out pizza and took it up to a park and ate it outside, it was nice out, about 70.  He had been asking me to talk to me, so I finally relented, having things of my own to ask, and to say.

I wrote a blog last night, and then took it down.  I wrote another shorter one, and put it up, but it’s not here this morning, so I don’t know what happened to that one.  No big deal. I had just begun to process what happened anyway, and I felt confused, disjointed.  I still do, I will for some time.

He says he is not “with” her.  That he still does not want some intense loving relationship with anyone.  Ok, I can buy that.  But he’s spent part of the last two weekends with her, so he obviously would rather be with her than me.  I suppose, because I do feel intensely about him.  There is nothing about me that is not passionate.  The way I loved him, the way I love the ocean, the way I write, the way I feel about anything.  She and he don’t talk all week, they never did, he told me that when I met him. He likes that.  They would get together on the weekend, for some of the time.  I can’t even fathom, a 12 year relationship in which i didn’t communicate with my significant other all week, but got together on the weekend for some semblance of intimacy.  I could not even consider it a relationship, to bed someone that I was not involved with 5 days a week, and then suddenly saw on the weekend.  It would be like being with a stranger.

He always complained I talked too much.  I think he and she occupy the same space at times, but don’t have much to say. He buries his feelings, they are not up for discussion.  My feelings…well, my heart is on my sleeve.  No one ever has to wonder how i feel.  It’s the only way to be connected to the rest of the human race.  I know it is the only way to allow love into my life, and creativity, and joy, and trust.  I know now that not everyone deserves to hear my story, to have my trust.  But still, I will only temper the ease with which I lean into vulnerability, I won’t change it.  I think all humans crave connection, I agree with Brene Brown that it is basic to the human psyche.

To fall in love with a man who wished no real connection….well, it was not something I ever considered, that there are people who freely admit they don’t want that deep, rich, full connection with others. In this way, I understand that part of why he is “with” her, or not “with” her, as he says.  She wants no connection, nor does he.  They are acquaintances, who share some physical intimacy at times, but not really connection, because then they go their separate ways and have no interest in maintaining the tie for the next week.  No deepening of it, no reveling in it.  Just do it, enjoy it, and go home.  It’s a lifestyle I can’t fathom, and can walk away from, and leave it to them.

Personally I think she wanted more, which is why she cheated on him and left him.  Perhaps, in practicing disconnect all those year, she was unable to put herself out for someone else, and after the infatuation wore off, she couldn’t connect with her new husband.  She also went back to what she was comfortable with.  I would expect that she is a lot like S, with walls up to keep people out, and herself walled in.  The fact that she could leave him when he was dying, and take all she could from him, is another thing altogether.

I still don’t understand, why he would invite back into his life, someone who did what she did to him.  He said he wipes the slate clean, he doesn’t hold a grudge.  I said, I don’t hold one with my ex either, I have forgiven him for what he did to me.  But would I welcome him, and that, back into my life?  No, never.  I know what chaos he can cause…I know he hasn’t changed.  I know what he would bring.  It’s one thing to forgive, it’s quite another to ask to be taken down again by inviting it back in.  But it’s not my cross to bear, and I won’t be there to pick up the pieces for him when she does it again.

In the meantime, he has the relationship with which he is comfortable.  Physical need fulfilled when he needs it, and not to have to give anything up.

The whole thing makes it much easier to let go.  I can love the man, I will always love the time we spent together on my deck, in my bed, driving around on excursions, our funny flirty texts. But knowing that what drives him is an intense desire to be alone, even when he is with someone, just allows me to let go.  It is the opposite of what drives me.

I love connection. I love intimacy, emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy.  I know there are men out there who love it too.  I now look forward to finding one, and putting S into the “someone that I once loved” category.  It’s where he wants to be.

He said, “Can we still know each other, can’t I still call you and see how you’re doing in Florida?”  I suppose, maybe someday, his voice won’t hurt me, it won’t remind me how I loved a man who wanted no part of it.  Maybe someday we can be “friends”. The trouble is I will never be that disconnected.  The love I feel for him will always be there between us, even when it’s buried, and I have let a new love into my heart, and built a relationship with someone who wants to reciprocate, I’m not sure I can ever talk to him without remembering.

Right now, I am looking forward to moving on, but I’m not moved on yet.  I still feel wrecked, broken, confused, rejected.  I had hoped for some tenderness from him last night, I guess that’s why I went, hoping he’d at least own the fact that his actions devastated me.  But there was none.  There was more him telling me it was my own fault, that he was honest with me.  He was….but he knew how I felt, and did nothing to mitigate the pain that what he was doing caused me.  I can own the fact that I loved him without limit, knowing he didn’t want to, and didn’t feel the same. But so what, he knew.  He spent time with me knowing how I felt.  He pulled me back to him in every time I tried to leave. Why he did that I don’t know.  It was dishonest. There is something abusive about that, being pulled in, just to fulfill his ego, with no intention.  “I don’t want you to dump me” he said to me back then.  So, he wanted my adoration, he wanted what I did for him. And he used me, and threw me out.

Last night I realized that I am left by myself to find my way back.   He says he has feelings too.  And he’s all about what he’s feeling, making sure I understand what they are, but he’s not able to feel empathy for me.  Disconnect.  Walling oneself in, so no one can get in, and you can’t get out, and the only thing that matters is what you feel.  As I can’t comprehend the disconnect he has, he cannot fathom the love I felt.

He watched me cry and shake.  He made no move to comfort me.  He had no remorse, no empathy. Cold.

It was a little hard to take.

But he is who he is.  Like I said, I can much more easily let go.  I knew when I met with him, that if nothing else, I would get clarity.  And really, that’s all I got.  But it’s something. It is positive motion.  Pretty soon, I’ll stop writing about him.  This blog will anger him I’m sure, but that seems to be all he can feel with me anyway.  Anger because I wanted to be with him, anger that I loved him and wanted him to love me back.  Anger that I wasn’t satisfied with the non-loving relationship he’s been trying to push on me for 6 months now. Anger that I can write so openly about him and I.  Don’t worry S, no one will ever know who you are.  She walked back into his life, and he could suddenly have that disconnected, shallow relationship that he wants, where he doesn’t have to give anything of himself.  Oh, maybe money, maybe things, but not anything of himself.

It was me who finally said, “We really don’t have anything to talk about” and got up to walk to the car.  There was no hug and kiss goodbye, there was nothing said.  I gave him the pizza I’d bought, that i didn’t eat one piece of. We just each got in our car, and drove home, knowing that there really was no way back.

Disconnected. Over. Done.

Onward, as Liz Gilbert says.  Onward.

Add-on:  I just remembered, when I talked to him on that fateful Saturday, when he told me he was going to be with her, I asked  him if she knew that he texted me at 4 am, that he asked for pictures of me the night before.  He said, no.  I said “well tell her, she deserves to know the truth. ” When he objected, I said, you tell her, or I will do everything in my power to tell her myself.”  At that, he got furious, and threatened me, enough so that I screen-shot the text, for my own protection.  So, that he’s not “with” her seems to be her doing, not his.  He clearly thought he was “with” her when he spoke to me that morning, and didn’t want any interference of the truth to change it.  And now he rewrites history.

No Man’s Land

Posted on by learning to live like water

Broken

Reduced to less than zero.

Complete wreckage

strewn across the cold stark landscape.

Impossible to see the original intent

Of all the pieces.

What were they?

No one knows.

Unrecognizable.

The pieces lay ,

silent,

And numb.

The screaming over,

The tears dried.

No one to pick them up

No one remembers, or cares, to put them back together.

A no man’s land

Nothing comes,

nothing goes.

It ended

As if it never existed.

Set Back

Posted on by learning to live like water

I set myself back today, way back. I was so good this morning. And I cried all the way home, and haven’t stopped.  He started off with an angry text because of my last blog, Questions Without Answers.  I apologize to all of you, who were cheering me on.

First off, he’s with her.  Why is he even reading my blogs, and 2nd, why does he care what I write? What does it matter, she’s his life now, what I say is just peripheral, and should have no effect on him.  I have to write.  It’s my only outlet.  My friends are sick of listening to me cry.  Complain.  Bitch.  And cry some more.  I can’t even tell A, he has been so good to me, he loves me, but even he will want to excuse himself if I start up with him again.  This is all I have, and he hovers over it as if he cared, but he doesn’t.

He says he apologized.  I said, yes you apologized for choosing her, and breaking my heart.  You didn’t ever apologize for telling via text, like a 14 yr old adolescent boy, hit and run.  “I’m with someone else and I’m busy and I don’t want to talk about it.”  Never.  No apology.  You should have been here, face to face, and dealt with the devastation you caused like a man.  Not left me in the street bleeding. Not treated me like yesterday’s trash.

But this is all repetitive.

We texted for about 3 hours.  I told him that calling him a 14 yr old adolescent was only stating the obvious.  That everyone’s first words, were “Really???  Like a teenager?? How old is this guy?”  No one needed me to tell them how immature and cruel and thoughtless that was.

But it’s water over the dam now.  He wants her, I don’t want him.  Well, I do.  I will for a long time.  But he wants her, even if he didn’t want her, I could never ever expose my heart to this much pain again.

He told me I wasn’t devastated, just jealous.  Wow…..I said, Yeah I’m jealous.  A woman who is a whore, a bitch and a bimbo is sleeping with the man I love.  You BET I am jealous.

After I’d said that about 5 times, he asked why I keep trashing her.  I said, I call a spade a spade.  I had to learn to read people when I was married and divorcing a manipulative asshole.    She #1) makes sure she gets paid for her time with you.  A new kitchen, a new car, maybe help with her credit card debt.  Who knows this time, probably help with her divorce.  Just like the prison whore, just the stakes are higher.  No different than the $50 you paid the prison whore, just cost you way more. She #2) left you when you were diagnosed with untreatable liver cancer.  (A miracle experimental drug saved his life).  If that’s not being a total bitch, and devoid of any human feeling, I don’t know what is. She thought you were dying, and she left you. She #3) left you then, as soon as you were done with the kitchen, I think you said the day later on your birthday…to marry some man she’d been cheating on you with.  That’s a bimbo.  The definition of all 3, in Websters, should have her picture.  I asked him what he did to piss her off.  Because he says he hates my temper.  I said, oh, yeah, well I do have a temper, and I lose it and then I get over it, and I don’t hold a grudge once something is settled it’s settled.  I don’t store it up, so that I can fuck someone up 6 months later when they are at their most vulnerable moment.  Personally, I think THAT’S a bad temper.  And a devious one, and a manipulative one.  Mine, is flat out anger, at injustice usually. It is fiery for a few minutes.  Seems to me, that would be easier to deal with than having someone leave you when you’re sick, after they’ve gotten 10’s of $1000’s from you, to be with someone they cheated on you with.  But that’s just me.  I’d take the honesty any day.

And then I said, so she comes back to you.  And she’s so sweet and cunning, isn’t she….you just can’t resist….You don’t even know where she’s been all week?  Do you care? It is sickening, that that’s the kind of woman he wants.  Just sickening.  Fucked up.  Royally.

I think that’s when he told me to leave him alone.  But I didn’t….because I was on a roll.  And he didn’t either. But we did say some t things that weren’t ugly, that we both needed to say.  And I ended up in the bathroom at work, sitting in there, crying. Wondering how I was gonna finish the day.  Not devastated?  No, decimated.  Crushed. Used Up. Wrecked. Shattered.  Broken.  Bruised.  Beat up. DEVASTATED.

Someone else is in his bed and his heart, no, I’m not devastated.  He is denying it, but he knows it’s true.  He knows I loved him more than I can say.  He knows I gave him everything I could give him, and asked for nothing.  Those things he knows.

I will never ever be the same.  I will be ok, I will recover, but I will never ever be the same.  I will look twice before I trust again.  Maybe 3, 4, 10 times.  100 times.  I will hold onto my heart, and probably fuck it up with a good man because I’m so fucking scared to give my heart away again.  I’ll never go to a beach around here without wishing he were with me.  Good thing I’m moving.  New beaches, new places, where he won’t be ghosting my psyche all the time.  Even the town he lives in, I won’t want to go to anymore.  And it’s a beautiful little town. Lots of tourists because it’s so beautiful.

He wanted me to go to the beach with him yesterday, why didn’t I go?  “Do you think I want to see you when you are sleeping with someone else?  Do you think I want to look in those eyes and see someone else’s reflection?  Are you THAT cold, that you think that would be ok with me?”

He blasted me for being online, on a dating site.  Why does he care?  What does he expect.  Yes, I said.  Of course I am.  Of course I’m looking for a man that will soothe my aching heart, and make me forget about you.

So, I have been messaging with a nice man, looks nice in his pics, loves the ocean like me.  Seems we have something in common.  My heart isn’t in it, but I’m going to meet him for coffee after work one day, because I have to force myself to get out there, and stop sitting home making myself sick.  I got a nice message from a different man today, but too busy to check him out. I might respond, just to put the energy out there, just to get used to trying to deal with the fact that this is where I’m at. That the man I love wants someone else, and ruined me. The fact that she’s the kind of woman she is, only rubs salt in the wound. I have to start from square 1 again.

So, I guess I need to stop talking to him, again, because this is all that’s going to happen.  I’m gonna miss him more, and hurt more, and still know we can never be together.  I just want to curl up in a ball and hide out.    He’s gonna get an ego boost out of my pain.  He’s going to keep me engaged.  I need to let go.

It’s only been a week and 2 days.  I guess I shouldn’t be beating myself up so much for still wanting him so much.

Questions Without Answers

Posted on by learning to live like water

I am way better today, but it still sickens me when I have to realize he can’t even say I’m sorry for the utter devastation he brought to my life. Why did I ever love soneone so incapable of feeling someone’s pain, and so incapable of extending the ounce of compassion that would have made it all so much easier?  

Questions without answers. But lesson learned for sure. 

Silence is a Response

Posted on by learning to live like water

S responded to me at midnight last night.  Except, it was a non-response.  No mention of the cruel and juvenile way he told me about Betty Boop.  Instead he has chosen to make a battle of texting vs. talking.  I’m not talking, and since he can’t address my questions about why he did what he did, or own it, I don’t need any more information.  Not going to get into a battle over how we are going to communicate, for God’s sake.  The fact that I am, after what he did, is far enough for me to go.

I won’t play a game with him about this.  His first  two texts, which he said he wouldn’t do, were angry.  He says they weren’t, but he was swearing.  Again…he wants to argue over this.  I do not.  I only want to know he owns what he does, and the consequences of that.  Anything else is frivolous, really.  He has made his choice about who he wants in his life.  And I would never trust him again, so there’s not much to talk about.

He can ease my pain if he chooses, by owning up to what he did, but really…he doesn’t have to now.  His refusal tells me where he’s at.  He’ll say he has not refused, only refused to text.  Whatever.  I refuse to talk to him, I am the one bleeding and I don’t want to give up the layer of protection that texting vs. talking gives me. If he can’t respect that, and understand it, then so be it. Again, enough of an answer, to have him demand I talk to him.

I don’t have an answer about why he was so cruel, nor has he owned the fact that he is, and I’m done asking  for either.  I am fine this morning, with a greater understanding of why he chose her (in great part because I won’t let things go until they are resolved.  There is no lump under my carpet to trip on) and the realization that I really hate these endless circular conversations that never accomplish anything.  Either way, answer or not, it helps to pave the road to letting go, and moving on.

As I said yesterday, I know I broke the rule of NC yesterday, but it gave me clarity and helped my healing get off of the stuck place it was.  So I’m glad I followed my heart, and got the information that will help me let go.  It’s all good.

Better

Posted on by learning to live like water

I ate dinner tonight!  Like a real whole dinner.  First time in days and days.  And I don’t feel nauseous.  Not guessing it will last, but it feels good to feel kind of like myself again.  I got tons of stuff done today. I know I broke the rules with S, lol, but I think I followed my heart, and the end result was progress for me. I will never contact him just to cry, or to beg him for some attention.  What I did today brought me some clarity, and I’m glad to have it.  His lack of response speaks as loudly as a response would have.  And I only wanted a response, either a conversation or silence will answer what I wanted to know.  I got one the answer of silence. So, ok…nuff said.

I am sure that I will have rough days to come, but right now, I have a good understanding of where he’s at, and why the whole thing transpired.  I get better why he chose her, I understand what he needs and it’s not some direct speaking, assertive Aries woman who doesn’t let things go til they are resolved.

I got back on one dating site last week, but haven’t been able to drum up any interest.  Today, I forced myself.  And as it turned out, I got a message from a nice man who lives about a half hour from here.  Seems he and I have things in common.

I’m tired, really, emotionally exhausted.  I’ll be going to bed early tonight.  But It’s nice to write a blog where I’m not losing it.

Peace out.  Tough day, but worth it.