So what am I losing 

Posted on by learning to live like water

I wrote this a couple weeks ago, when I was dealing with the aftermath of the first mention that Betty Boop was back in his life.  He was “cooling off”, he was upset over my temper.  It turned out to be propehtic.

What am I losing if I lose him?

A man who never loved me.

A man who loved having sex with me.

A man who pretended to care, so that I wouldn’t be with anyone else.

A man who only found hours for me, all summer, hours once every few weeks.

A man whose passion for me was measured in minutes, not heartbeats.

A man who didn’t want me in his life, just on the periphery, when he chose.

A man who didn’t want a relationship.

A man who said he never wanted to be in love again.

A man whose communications skills were pathetic for a grown man.

A man who needed to test his sexual ability on someone else. It wasn’t enough for him that he had it with me.

A man who would disappear for days, ignoring all my frantic communication. Frantic because he’d caused me to believe he was very sick.

A man who couldn’t be there for me. I couldn’t call him when j needed. Only he could do that, when he needed.

A man who got angry and belittling when I misunderstood him.
What will I lose if I lose him?  Not sure.

“Not sure” was my answer On September 15.  Today, my answer is clearer.  Smarter.  Wiser. 

What am I losing? Nothing, not a damn thing that’s worth anything. 

Burning the Bridge

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is an old song by Judy Collins.  It was my anthem, when i was in the process of escaping my abusive ex-husband.  But it seems appropriate again, now, with S.  Running…running….For my life.

Image result for Burning bridges

RUNNING FOR MY LIFE

Riding the night train, New York, to LA,
Gonna go and get me some sunshine.
Clipping along t’ward the Colorado Rockies,
Leaving you behind me.

There’s a cold icy wind blowing like a demon
Off Lake Michigan.
I’m going where the weather is warm and the heat off.

You burned me out and you did me in,
You beat me at the game
I can not win.

I’m going where the pace is slower,
The stakes are lower.
I’m running for my life.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up without you.
I’ll curl my hair, and listen to my heart.
I don’t want to hear a word about you,
I’ll do what I care to do,
I’ll do what I dare to do.
I’m running for my life.

I can see the switch man out in the freight yard,
Waving his lights at my train.
Red fir stopping my heart from beating,
Green for driving me insane.
And the rain is pouring,
And the wheels are rolling past that Nevada line
I’m going where the weather is hot,
And you are not.

I played the fool I believed your lies,
I danced till I was nearly paralyzed
I’m gone and going.
I’m running for my life

Tomorrow I’ll wake up without you,
I’ll get a room with windows on the sea
I’ll do all the things I could never do,
You never will find me here
Not a thing to remind me here.
I’m running for my life

Sky’s getting bright with California sunrise,
Shining its light on my train
Drying my tears soothing my fears,
Taking away my old pain.
And the engine’s rockin’ and the wheels are talkin’
About the tracks ahead,
I’m going where the world is new and the past is dead.
You brought me low and you got me high

I laughed so hard I thought that I would die.
I’m leaving you with my bridges burning,
There’s no returning.

I’m running for my life
I’m running for me life

Waves

Posted on by learning to live like water

102

Picture from East Beach, Rhode Island

The anger wave is being replaced
By the wave of complete devastation.
The one that rolls over your body,
And you begin to understand
What drowning is like.
Flooding the body with tears,
The ones that have been stuck in your throat for hours
The ones you tried so hard not to cry,
Because you were afraid
Once you started you may never stop.
The tears that come from somewhere deep in your soul
Accompanied by violent body-wracking sobs
Gurgling up as the wave rolls over you
Filling you with liquid pain
Stealing your oxygen.
You heart screams,
“Let me out,
Bring me to the surface
I’m going to die…
I’m going to stop beating.”

How it keeps on,
I don’t know.
The pain which radiates from it
Disables me.
Completely.

How I want it to be over.
To drown,
How lovely it would be
To be numb enough that the waves don’t hurt me.
Just numb.
No joy, no pain, no nothing.
No him, no her, no me.

To be in a land where nothing reminded me.
No life, only gray, only rocks, only dirt.
Nothing to stimulate a memory,
Or a desire.

It is worse than death.
There is no peace.
In death, I would be reborn.
In this,
only suffering.

The Art of War

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m sitting here so morose.  Feeling like I’m the only woman in the world who has ever been played.  Only woman who has ever been blindsided by someone she loved.  Like no one else has ever felt this kind of pain.

It’s so ridiculous.  I have friends who have endured this, and become stronger.  Some of these friends actually shared their lives, had kids, and had to somehow get through this same kind of betrayal.

I gave him the power over me.  I chose to love him. Last week, he told me I could change things between us.   I said, “No, S.  If I could have, I would have.  But you get to choose who you are going to love, who you are going to be with.  I don’t get to choose for anyone.  I chose for myself.  I chose you, I chose to love you intensely, emotionally, and physically.  You have to choose for yourself.”

And thereby…I told him what to do.  Not knowing that he was weighing me against her, I gave him the backing to choose her, over me.  To devastate me.  Because I didn’t know. I gave him the words, to justify what he did.

Which would have been fine, if he’d come clean with me at that point.  Instead of telling me I should stop talking about the past, I should should be talking about the future.  Instead of telling me, when I told him that any physical connection is only an expression of how much I love him.  And telling me, “I think you need to tell me that a dozen more times. XOXO.”  One week ago.

He couldn’t tell me.  He had to lie to me.  Because make no mistake, withholding the truth is lying.

I’ll find love again.  And it will go both ways.  The fact that he won’t, gives me no joy.

But the decision has been made.  There is no turning back. I won’t be there if it falls apart.  And how can it not?  A woman who leaves her boyfriend of 12 years when she thinks he’s dying, to get married to someone she cheated on him with, after taking him for as much as she can, and a man that uses people for his own benefit, with no care for the devastation he leaves in his wake.

Why did I allow myself to ever become a factor here?  It will take me some time to answer that question.

Betrayal goes so deep, it turns your insides out, it turns your thinking and all you held dear, upside down.  You don’t trust yourself, because you are sure you should have known better.  You should have seen it coming, but you didn’t.  You trusted the wrong person.

S used to tell me to read “The Art of War”.  He said the first rule of war was to avoid it all costs.

Well……I think it’s him should read it.  I think BETRAYAL has caused plenty of wars.  Maybe, because he felt he could play God, and play me….he thinks it doesn’t apply to him.

Trusting My Gut

Posted on by learning to live like water

I used to be good at this.  I used to be able to walk away from people and situations that my gut told me were not right.  In fact, that one ability, helped me see through the bullshit in my long contentious divorce, it allowed me to sit on the witness stand for a day and a half, and speak the truth.  It allowed me to see through my ex-husband’s profusion of lies, and advise my attorney what the truth was.  It was strong enough that the judge and the Supreme Court were able to see through him too.  I was never weak.  I always knew what I knew and could speak the truth.

It has served me at work, and with my choice of friends.

I don’t know what happened to my ability to know what the truth was when it came to S.  I have a friend who said I wanted to save him.  Did I?  My gut says no, even now.  The last 6 months with him, weren’t really with him.  I tried to break it off with him so many times.  Every time he drew me back in.  And then, he would come to me and tell me he decided he didn’t want a relationship, he wanted to be alone, and to figure out who he was.  I would always say, then go, do it.  I support you in that.  Always.  And two days later he would want to see me.  Just a couple weeks ago, he told me he thought he would always be a bachelor.  This was after Betty Boop showed up, and it made me believe that he didn’t want her either.

But my gut, when she first showed up “back in his life” told me she was back in his life for real.  I lost my mind, because I knew….  But then he came to me, and told me it wasn’t true, and all he wanted was my happiness, and I believed it.  In the face of my gut screaming at me that she was back in his life, that he was leaving me for her, I believed him.

I wanted to believe him.  There is no other excuse, for me to not listen to my gut.  For me to take apart the pieces I had put together telling me the truth, and to make a different picture.  One that didn’t include her.  His words…”I’m so disappointed that you would think I would jump back into that, after what she did to me.”

But he had.  And I knew it.  And I denied it.

Because I loved him so much.  I think I was addicted to loving him.  It was obviously unhealthy. We were never on an even keel.  And it was so incredibly one sided.  It was all about him, his pleasure, his happiness, what he wanted always came before us.  There was no us, really.  It was momentary.  Fleeting,  There were moments even days, sometimes a week or two. But it was still all about S.

Except after he fucked the prison whore, and I was seeing A, then he came to me and for about a week, maybe two, there was us.  The memory, the promise of that short time stayed with me, teasing me, telling me that he did care for me.  Then, I guess it was when his best friend died, he was so morose and depressed, and withdrew into himself again.  Whatever fledgling thing that had started between us, disappeared.  I could never get it back.

I could read him so well.  The day his friend died, I had not talked to him in a couple days, but that morning, I knew something was wrong, and messaged him, asking if he was ok.  He messaged back, funny you should ask, Gus died last night.

This kind of thing happened all the time with us.  He would call or text when I had my hand on the phone.  I’d be deep in thought about him, or something related to him, and he’d call.  I know he feels my pain now, but I also know he won’t call.  I may hear from him, when she’s gone home…asking if I’m ok.

Don’t, S, call me.  Don’t, S, ask.  I’m not ok.  You have your answer.  You don’t need any more.  Any interest you show is only to make you feel good about yourself.  To make you convince yourself you are not a monster.  It would do nothing but cause me more pain.

So…my gut tells me, I need to block him.  I need to set myself up so I don’t ever hear his voice, or his name.  That I need to try to erase as much as I can of him from my life.  I need to allow the love I have for him to sink into the deep recesses of my soul, where it can sleep undisturbed, and without disturbing me.

My ego won’t let me do that yet.  I’m working on it.  I need to cut the cords, over and over.  I need to break that connection with him.  If our souls have some connection, which I have always believed, they will meet again when this life is over.  When it won’t hurt me any more.  Til then, I need to get as much distance between he and I and our non-relationship as possible.

I’m so grateful I will be going to my niece’s wedding in VA in a couple weeks.  It will be so wonderful to be with my warm family, loving family, to be with people who have, as the basis from which they live, unconditional love.  I wish I could go and stay there.  I am so glad that I have in place a plan to leave this area.  Now more than ever.  The driving force has always been that I can’t retire and stay in Connecticut, it is just too expensive to live here.  Moving to Florida will allow me to own a home with no mortgage and have enough money to live without working.  Now, equally as strong a driving force as that, and maybe even more powerful, more urgent, is the desire to get as far away from S as I can.

He was going to come stay with me there, I had talked about coming up here in the summer and staying with him.

Another dream, another plan, another hope, washed away with the tsunami of “She’s back in my life.”

Why I ever ever allowed him to make believe that it wasn’t true, I’ll never know.  My gut screamed it.  My friends said, “how do you know it’s true?” when I lost my mind when she first showed up.  “I just know….I just know.  I can’t explain it, I just know.”  I was so sure, I convinced them.  Then I listened to him, and took him back into my heart, and let myself love him without limit, again, and here I am, 4 weeks later, looking at what I knew was true in the first place.  Emptier now than I was then, and not only do I have to deal with the loss of him, but with the pain of knowing I was played by someone I loved so much.  That he bold-faced lied to me.

It’s like a kick in stomach, a knife in the back, and a hard left to my temple. I am so beat up and bruised.  The scars will run deep, there will be tender spots there for long into the forseeable future.  I keep wanting someone to wake me up, and tell me it’s just a nightmare.  That he’s not really waking up with her this morning, taking her to breakfast, loving her the way he could never love me.  And I know, in my gut, that I loved him better than she ever will, or is even capable of.

It’s hard, to give someone your all, and be rejected.  To give them your all and find out it was just a plaything for them, that it never meant anything of any substance.  It feels like a waste, a waste of precious love.  Even though, I know to love is never a waste, but really, there shouldn’t be so much pain attached to it.  It seems so unfair, to hurt so much when all you did was love too much.

He wasn’t the one.  The universe has been pointing me away from him for months, trying to spare me this pain.  Finally, I had to get to a place where the road closed behind me, the bridge burned as I crossed it.  It was the only way I could gain my freedom to love someone who could share that glorious experience with me.

I’ll be smarter next time.  I’ll be wiser.  I’ll be harder.  But some man, at some time will break through that, and relish my ability to love him.  I believe he’s out there.

First, I will have to learn to trust my gut again.  And to walk away from anyone it screams no to.

The journey continues.  But it’s hard today, unfairly hard.

Cold Blue Eyes (Ice)

Posted on by learning to live like water

Those eyes,

Those cold blue eyes.

I wanted to swim in them,

I loved when they gazed upon me,

The corners turned up with a small grin.

Little did I know

That they were a reflection of a heart

As cold as an Arctic iceberg.

They were the tip of it,

Fooling me,

Teasing me

(we only tease the people we like….)

I thought they were a piece of the ocean

that I loved so much.

That I’d found a place

A person

whose eyes reflected my own passion.

Unbeknownst to me

Danger lay below them,

Life threatening,

Heart wrenching

Mind numbing danger.

I sailed right into them,

In fact,

I dove.

Head first

To find that they were cold blue ice,

masking a monumental block of

frigid ice.

That thaws only when it’s hurt.

And I could not hurt it.

And so…

I froze to death,

in it’s shadow.

Wow, This is So Hard.

Posted on by learning to live like water

This is hard.  Really hard.  I think the universe did me a favor, really, in my head I know this.  I needed something from which there is no return, I needed the bridge to be burned, to begin the letting go. And as my close friends, and my son, have told me, this relationship has been bad since the beginning.  It’s what I said, when, a month ago, he told me she was back in his life.  He somehow convinced me that those words didn’t mean what I thought.  But in the end, they did.  What they meant is exactly what I thought they meant.  He was not just talking to her.  She was back in his life.  I should have stayed with my gut, it never lies.  I knew it then.  I knew it last night, i knew it this morning.

He came here, when I was losing my mind a month ago, a few days after he told me she was back in his life.  He got right in his car and came here.  He told me the night that he said she was back in is life that he wished I’d be happy for him, that was all he ever wanted, when he left a voice mail.   Then when I saw him that night, he said, he meant all he ever wanted was MY happiness. That he thought I’d be happy because I knew he had so many loose ends,questions that had never been answered with her. But when he told me it was my happiness that he wanted,  I cried, and I melted, and I took him to me, and loved him again.  And it was all a lie.  She was all he ever wanted, just like I first thought.  My happiness was not even on the table.  So played.  She must have played him, not wanting to see  him right away.  He was hedging his bets, I guess.  In case she didn’t want him, he’d still have me.

God I am stupid.  As if the words “She’s back in my life” can be misunderstood.

S always said water seeks it’s own level.  Usually it was in reference to me, still being with him when he treated me badly.  But I see the wisdom now.  I could never seek the level he wanted.  I could just not do it, it was so far from what I wanted.  Betty Boop…she wants it. She wants a relationship, at least, from what he told me of their past, where there  is no communication all week, except maybe a “are we on for the weekend?” message, email…and then get together for a lustful weekend.  He thinks that’s love.  Now that someone has really loved him, I wonder if it will ever be the same for him.  If he’ll figure out that sex is not love, but should be an expression of it.  He knew that with me.  Because I told him, those exact words. Now he has the words….from me, to fool himself with her. ]

He chose the level he’s comfortable with.  He was never comfortable with my level.  Too much emotion, raw emotion from me.  Too much truth on the table.  And I could stay with it, physically, emotionally.  I only ran when he made it all about a physical relationship.  Ran.  Told him a hundred times, we want different things.  Go get what you want, I don’t want that.  So…he has what he wants.  He doesn’t have to be accountable, he doesn’t have to acknowledge emotions that are uncomfortable for him.  He can pretend that sex is love, and he can set himself up to be hurt again….I feel bad about that, really, but it’s his choice.  It’s his comfort level, and he has no desire to rise above it.

I still see him, I still feel him.  I know when he’s with her tonight, and tomorrow, he will be held back by the scope of what he did to me.  I hope he is.  I hope he finds he cannot fuck people over that easily.

He should have taken some time off from either of us, and figured out what he wanted, and met with me face to face.  But he’s not able to stand on his own two feet, he’s not able to man up, and face the consequences of the choices he makes.  I deserved so much better.

He says he told me he was no good, that he would hurt me.  I said, so what, that relieves you of no accountability for what you have done.  So what if you know who you are?  You don’t change, and you think I’m gonna write it off?  Make excuses for you?  That’s the most pathetic of statements.  “I told you I’m bad,and I’m bad.”  It implies I should excuse it, because after all he told me he would do it.  Just like he told me about the prison whore, last winter.  When he fucked the hooker as a test….this is just another prison whore.  Just another test for him.  To see…..

He reads this.  He will know what I mean.

Shoudda, wouldda, couldda.  He wrote it all off.  I need to do the same.  Just putting things right in my mind.  Trying to make sense of senseless hurt.  Senseless pain.  Unspeakable cruelty.  And really, unbelievably stupid, ego-centered but self destructive decisions on the part of someone I loved.   Of course, when the ego rules, it is always self destructive.  That’s how the ego keeps power, by lying to the heart.

A month ago when he told me she was back in his life….I was driven by jealousy.  I could not stand the thought of him with another woman.  This time, almost a month later, it’s not jealousy.  If that’s what he wants, he better go for it, because I will never fuck a man over like she did, and if that’s what makes him comfortable, then he needs to be with her.  But how he played me, how he purposefully made me think something else was going on between us, how he manipulated me for his own benefit, not giving a good goddam whether or not his actions would devastate me, that’s what’s unforgivable.  At least for now.  To use another human for your own purposes is the lowest of the low.  She used him…in their last relationship.  I would guess he also used her.  They are both users.  Liars. Manipulators.  They belong together.  I don’t belong with him.

But the pain of what he did to me will take some time to get over.  The way he devastated so easily my emotional landscape.  For his own prurient interests.  And I fucking loved this man, as he’s never been loved before.

I guess this is it for now.  There will be more.

Well-Played. Another Story of Betrayal, but This One is True

Posted on by learning to live like water

Last weekend, the day of the eclipse, I hadn’t talked to S in 2 or 3 days, and was fine with it.  But I thought it was a really sucky way to end a relationship, so I texted him “Are you really never going to talk to me again?”

We texted.  That’s all we ever did.  A torrid texting affair. Why did I care?  Idk, I always saw the good in him, the desire to be good, the desire not to fuck things up.  I once gave him an inner child crystal, because his inner child was so tortured. That day, his whole tone changed with me, as if heard me (thus, the poem “The Gift of Being Heard.)  Well I might have been heard, but I was still fucked over.

All week, we texted intimately.  I LONGED for him, I wanted him so bad.  He talked of doing intimate things with me, alluding to the weekend.  I held back asking for plans, it’s always been the kiss of death for me with him.  He likes to feel he’s driving the train, and that things are spontaneous.  Just yesterday, I sent him intimate pictures of me, because he asked.  But he was quiet last night.  Before I went to bed I asked him “S, is something wrong?  Please talk to me.”  He answered that he fell asleep on the couch…we texted a few times, and said goodnight.  I thought everything was ok.   Just this morning, he texted me at 4 am.

Then, no word.  I sent him one text, but held back….fearful of ruining it.  But then I got this text….

“I don’t know how to deal with this…so I am just going to say it.  I am going to be with someone else this weekend.  I am busy and don’t want to talk about it.  Peace.”

A TEXT.  A FUCKING TEXT.

Well, you all know the wave of emotions that hit you like a tsunami.  Like you can’t breathe, you can’t think, you can’t talk.  My son was in the room with me, and I’d been waiting for my phone to update to go somewhere.  This text was the first thing I saw when it was done.  I managed to say to my son, “Well the phone’s done.  I’m gonna go.”  He was leaving for work soon, won’t be home til later, and will never know what S did to me today.  Bad enough, I told my son last night I’d be going to S”s or he’d probably be coming here tonight. My son scolded me for being stupid, told me that S has made me cry more than his father.  Why am I being so stupid about him?  But all I have to say is that we decided not to, and let it fade.  I haven’t seen much of S for months, my son won’t think much of it, except he’ll be glad he doesn’t have to deal with him.  I am ashamed and embarrassed at how I made excuses for S with my son.  Geezus.  The kid at 23 is 100 times the man S will ever be. He’s a stand-up honest and decent young man.  I thought if nothing else S was honest with me.  I have said so here….that he was an honest and decent man…  If only I could re-write history.

So played.

The thing is, I had hope all week.  I really did.  But I knew…he’s capable of withdrawing on a dime.  I asked him many times in the last few weeks, are you seeing Betty Boop?  Does she want to get back together with you?  He said always that he only talked to her a little, and he didn’t know.  Always.

He played me. Big time.  I loved him so much and he used it, to make himself feel good.  He loved my adoration, the way I was always there. We finally talked around noon, because I told him if he didn’t man up and call me that I was gonna show up on his doorstep, and tell Betty Boop about me.   He said he’d been weighing one of us against the other all week.

And that’s where I got mad.  FURIOUS.  What right does he have, to put me in competition with another woman and not tell me????  Or her??? Who the fuck does he think he is???  Fucking playing God with me. As if I’d have stuck around if I thought they were doing anything more than talking.  What a fucktard.  I am still so angry at that.  Had he chose me, would he ever have told me that I almost lost to her?  Would I ever have known the truth?  He must have seen her, I haven’t asked, I don’t want to know.  (hear Stevie Nicks in the background singing Silver Spring “I don’t want to know….”)

I told him he should have told me.  And her, and let us both make up our minds if we wanted to be in that triangle.  Because I for sure didn’t.  Don’t. Won’t EVER with any man, compete for his attention.  I loved him well, unconditionally, and he repaid me this way?  Thinking that was ok?

He said, she knows about you now.  I said, “Does she know that you asked for a picture of me last night???  That you texted me at 4 AM this morning???”  No…he said.  THEN TELL HER.  LET HER MAKE UP HER MIND.  YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO PLAY GOD WITH HER ANYMORE THAN YOU DID WITH ME.

He has called me about 5 times since then.  Because I told him, if I ever have the opportunity to tell her, I will.  (Though I don’t know her last name, so I can’t even look her address up.)  He asked why I can’t just let things unfold.  I said, this is how they unfold when you fuck someone over.  When you play people, when you hurt people, when you use people.  This is how they unfold.

But the universe will make sure she knows.  Besides, I am pretty sure that a woman who left him when he thought he was dying, (he had cancer, and only an experimental drug saved his life, and a philanthropic organization that paid for it but the drug came along after she split, she thought he was dying)  and took him for as much as she possibly could, to run off and get married to someone she’d been cheating on him with, is playing him too.  They deserve each other, and what they get. I told him, that’s all he thinks he deserves, that’s all he’s gonna get.

I am wordy, I have been sending him long texts telling him what a fuckup he is, and why.  And he knows I’m right.  But he’s stuck on this woman that will hurt him again, whatever.  He said, “this is the #1 reason I don’t want you.”  the wordy texts, the righteous indignation.  I said, “OH it’s so much harder to take my righteous indignation than a woman who will leave you when you’re dying, and who’ll take you for all she can, and run off and get married to someone she cheated on you with.”  Yeah, I can see how my truthful words are harder to take.

God he’s a real piece of work.  I sure know how to pick ’em.

I will always love this man’s soul, because that’s what unconditional love is, but I never want to see him again.  I know, I am sure, (he says I’m overconfident), because I know him, I see him, he has told me everything, things that she doesn’t know and I’m sure never will…and I was still there for him, because I could see his soul, that I loved him better than any other person in his life.  I still see his soul, and will always know he is capable of so much more.  But the human that he is…needs to stay clear of me.  Enough heartbreak for one man to accomplish.

I’m gonna get back on that horse and ride.  I haven’t cried yet, I hope I don’t.  I have wasted way too many tears on him, he has broken my heart more often than my ex did.  My ex…didn’t break my heart in the traditional sense.  He became someone I could not love, romantically.  S….has broken my heart, I loved him 1000 times more than any other man.  But I don’t want to cry for him again.  I want to actively pursue someone who can appreciate a woman who can love beyond reason, beyond all measure, both emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

I told him, finally, that he will miss me.  And he will.