Tag Archives: abuse

More Manipulation from My Son’s Father

Posted on by learning to live like water

manipulation

My ex’s cousin called me last night as I was leaving work.  I haven’t talked to her as much lately, because she’s been spending a lot of time in Boston to be near her kids.

She told me that my ex-husband called her sister in Florida on Easter, and wanted to know how he could get closer to my son. Also, called his sister, asking the same thing.

This is interesting, because neither of these women EVER talks to my son. The cousin has never met my son. My ex’s sister, who lives 35 miles away, has not talked to my son in 10 years. Just a lack of interest. So why he would think either of these people could offer any useful advise I don’t know. But then, I know my ex. He is doing it to build sympathy for himself, with the few people who will talk to him. It is not a case of wanting to know, really. Because he knows. I told him.

I told him that my son said his father should write him a letter. I explained to him, clearly, that he has to remember and acknowledge that he was brutal to my son. He was extremely emotionally abusive, and became physically abusive as well, though it was kept secret from me until my son came to live with me. But it was one reason my son walked from his father and never went back.

I told my ex that his son needs to see him go out on a limb for him. To write him a letter, that he can read over and over, that he can hold on to. Address the issues. Become vulnerable, to take a chance. I told him it may not work, but it may. If he doesn’t try, there is no chance. If he tries there is some chance that they will reconcile. My ex wants to find some for sure way that my son will respond positively to him. He doesn’t understand that it will take a long time for my son, even if he writes the letter.

I don’t know why he refuses to write to my son. Well, that’s not true. Because when words are written, they are recorded. They make him accountable. Another reason is because I’m the one who told him that’s what to do, a message I was relaying from my son. As with most people who are abusive, he doesn’t trust the people who he most should. He trusts his alcoholic cousin or his very aloof sister, more than me, who would love nothing more than for the two of them to reconcile, at least to a level where they would talk.

If the situation were reversed, I would have written a letter every day. I would have filled the mailbox til the post office asked me to stop. I would have taken that doorway, and run through it toward my son.

But my ex, instead, is simply trying to manipulate the emotions of anyone he can into feeling sorry for him. “Oh the poor man, he’s all alone. His ex-wife must be influencing his son not to talk to him.” Because he still thinks we are competing for my son’s affection. Even though he himself used to complain that I was absolutely non-competitive (he was a nationally ranked swimmer at one time, and was raised on competition, not only in sports but among his two siblings, who competed for their parents love.) I know my son loves me, and I would love if my son could love his father, and have a real father in his life. But with my ex, it’s all about manipulation. It’s not about the real business of healing and rebuilding his relationship with my son.

I have told my son that I’d really be happy if we were all at least speaking to each other before we all moved. He has promised me that he is going to tell his father that he’s moving before he goes. That’s something. That’s my son, once again, going out on a limb for his father, and speaks to the fact that my son still loves his father, even though he can’t bring himself to talk to him right now. That the abuse, and the chaos his father brings to his life is still hurtful, is still there. My son lived for his father as a child. He did everything and far more than his father ever asked him to, but he could never please him. He could never meet a constantly moving bar that had to be met for his father to love him. His father has done nothing to alleviate that pain.

I couldn’t meet the bar either. At some point, I realized that that moving bar was just a tool of manipulation, to feed his ego. My son knows it too. My son has found his way. I believe that the last 8 years of living with unconditional love, and none of the chaos, have allowed him to find himself.

I have been wondering, since last night, if I should call my ex and talk to him again about writing his son. But….no. His ego would be boosted to know people have talked to me concerned for him. And would do nothing to resolve their relationship, because as long as his ego is being fed, there will be no movement toward reconciliation. As long as he is the center of attention of his cousins, his sister, and me, he will have enough ego boost, that just complaining that he is so sad that my son won’t talk to him is all he will do. He won’t make a move toward him.

I know the man well, after 40 years.

I used to think when my son was small, that a 2 parent family is infinitely better than a single parent. And of course, that’s true if both parents are normal loving people. But if one is dysfunctional, and abusive, and so damaged, it is far better for a child to have one parent that can love him unconditionally than stay in the middle of the chaos a sociopathic, narcissistic, abusive alcoholic can cause.

I hope my ex can see the light some day. But my hope for him is slight. He has lost everything, his marriage, his son, his house, his business, his yacht, and lives in a 500 sq foot rented cottage with no heat now. You’d think at some point he’d rethink the way he lives his life, and maybe do a little soul searching. If it hasn’t happened with all that loss…I can’t imagine what, if anything, could change him.

I’m so grateful that I got out when I did. And got my son out. Just so grateful.

Love and light.

Sleeping Under My Own Power

Posted on by learning to live like water

Before-I-Sleep

I have discovered a secret to sleeping well, I think.  I suppose it’s not a secret, and well-known by people more enlightened than me.  I’m not, historically a good sleeper.  I used to be, when I was much younger, until I spent years in an abusive marriage.  Being hypervigilant every minute is not good for sleep.

The last few nights I’ve had trouble getting to sleep, or staying asleep.  I’ve resorted to a low dose Ambien a couple times, because I have to have at least 5 hours of sleep to be functional at work for 9 hours.  6 or 7 is better, but 5 is the minimum.  I don’t like doing that, though, and don’t want it to be the habit it was for 6 months, when I had carpal tunnel, and after, when S did his thing to blow my world apart.

Last night, when I shut my light off, I snuggled under my comforter, and began to recite a list of things I was grateful for.  Actually saying, thank you thank you for things like, my warm bed.  My warm house.  Food in my pantry.  My son in his space.  My upcoming trip to Florida.  My sweet cat.  The ability to pay for the muffler that I just had put on the car.  My friends.  That I have two wonderful sisters.  That I had such loving parents.

On and on.

And I slept well, and easily. When I woke at 12:45, I did the same thing, and fell back to sleep easily.  Same when I woke around 3:30

Another benefit was that I woke this morning in a good mood.  I actually woke in a state of happiness, and that’s been a long time coming.  It’s so lovely to wake up and look forward to the day, not to wish I could just stay under the covers for 3 more hours.

Tonight I have gongs again.  Gongs and crystal bowls and drums and bells, I am looking so forward to it.  Always.  It always seems like perfect timing.  Such a good place, a good way, to let go of anything that no longer serves.  If you follow my blog, you know I have plenty of that!

So here’s to letting go of the stuff that keeps us up, and being grateful for the things that make our lives beautiful!  Love and light, all.

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.

 

 

Shadows and Light

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m doing the Deepak Chopra/Oprah 21 day free meditation “Become what you Believe”.  They offer these 21 day free meditations about 3 times a year, and I’ve done them all, I think.  They are invaluable.  The insight I get is generally very enlightening.

Today’s meditation was about the shadows, our darker, hidden beliefs about ourselves that, when brought to the light, lose their power.  I think I’ve had a few, lol, that have led me to not learning the lessons and so repeating them.

With my ex…when we met, and in the early years of our relationship, he was a different man. He was a nationally ranked swimmer.  He had what appeared to be a big close family, and his father ran a very successful business. The family exuded success. I was dazzled by the accumulation of wealth, and what seemed to be a close intact family.  It took me years to see the underlying dysfunction.  He and his older brother dislike each other immensely.  His father had a foul temper, and could lace into people, my ex and his wife, and anyone in his way, at any time.  He knew it…he always said, “I will knock people down, but I then give them a hand back up.”  Well yes, he did.  He gave them a hand when they were bloody and beaten and their brain scrambled, because then one was the most vulnerable to do what he wanted, to listen out of fear of being beat up again.  When my ex was young, it wasn’t just verbal, it was physical too, until my ex got too big and could and would have fought back. The brothers hated each other because one of them had to be at fault for anything that happened bad, and they learned to point the finger at each other from the time they were babies.  The mother, stood by and watched, and allowed it all, in the interest of “backing up her husband.’  Which was really just inability to face the fear of life alone.

So there was the dysfunction. It was all about power and control, it was a gift from my father-in-laws own alcoholic father, passed down through the generations, to my ex.  I hope to have broken the cycle by getting my son away from it, and working with him, to help him understand his own shadows.

But I digress.  The point is, the dysfunction.  S also had a family of origin that was dysfunctional.  More dysfunctional? I don’t know but small bits and pieces, because I never met them.  But in neither family was there unconditional love.  In both families the mother allowed the father to run rampant over the family. That I am sure of.

So, my own shadows.  When I realized this about my ex, gradually over the years, I began to consider leaving him, which would have been the best thing to do.  But I didn’t. Fear mostly.  Of many things.  Finally, the universe put in front of me something that was just unacceptable on all levels, and I was able to gather the strength to overcome all my fears, and I left him, and began a long battle to reclaim my life, and my son’s.  Leaving earlier would have been the right thing to do for my spiritual evolution.  With S, it didn’t take me as long.  Last summer, when I realized all he wanted was a physical relationship, I tried to leave him so many times, but again…I chose the easier path, and allowed myself to be pulled back in.  The universe actually helped me out, bringing Betty Boop back, because I needed something drastic to happen in order to get away from him for my own evolution.  I needed to regard myself with more value, more worth, and to stop believing obvious untruths that soothed my ego, but hurt my soul.

I chose the easy path too long with both. And even after Betty Boop came back, and he chose her for his own reasons, (choosing the easy path, perhaps? It’s way easier to repeat the lesson, than to rumble through it. But that’s his business, not mine.) I continued to talk to him, to want to find an easy path to stay in his life, but thank God, I loved myself enough then, to not take the one he offered.

I now need to learn that I DO deserve a healthy relationship.  I went from one so controlling I couldn’t breathe, to one so uncaring that it ripped me open.  I gave both men my full heart, I tried with both to make it work, no matter what it took.  And it took me…it took pieces of my soul in both cases.  It took me giving myself away.  I reclaimed myself from my ex, but then, I hadn’t learned the lesson, along came a different wolf in different sheep’s clothing, and I gave myself away again.

I think I am learning the lesson now.  I think I get it.  I am reclaiming myself from S.  I woke this morning feeling ownership of my life again.  I haven’t even checked the phone to see if he tried to leave a voicemail. I am hoping he’s finally leaving me alone, and has stopped trying to keep me on the periphery of his life.

Back to beliefs.  I really believe now that dysfunction does not have to be my lot.  I want, and will find a loving passionate relationship, or not.  But I’ll never settle for one that is again dysfunctional.  My eyes are open, I don’t want to repeat this lesson.  I don’t need another teacher.  LOL.  I see the shadow, and now, it’s in the light.  I will always have compassion for those like my ex, and S, who have been buried in dysfunction all their lives.  They have the choice to change it or not.  It’s not my job.  I can shine the light, it’s all I can do.  Its their choice, to stay in the darkness, and repeat the lessons, or bring their own shadows to the light.

As for me…Onward, as Liz Gilbert says. Onward.

Halloween Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

Feeling a little disjointed this morning, I have so much I want to do today, but it’s early.  It’s Halloween, and my neighborhood is Grand Central in this small town. A friend is coming over to help me hand out candy.  I’ll make dinner, we’ll have a glass or two or three of wine and enjoy the kids.   I was just reminded we set our clocks back tonight, whoo hoo. I guess that means I’ll be waking up even earlier tomorrow, lol.

I am glad I didn’t spend more than a week figuring out Jim was not the guy for me.  I need to let my intuition guide me a little quicker.  I have been saying I didn’t really feel a connection, and trying to allow one to form.  I should know when there’s not one, there’s not one. When there is, there is.  I’d like one that is good, intimate, loving connection but not so intense that I feel the person all the time.  That’s way too distracting.

I realize I tend to be too direct for a lot of people.  I just don’t believe in pretending to be someone I’m not. Especially in the beginning, when just meeting someone.  I am not brazen, not pushy, I can usually get across what I need to say with a smile, a flirt, some humor, some self deprecation, a little funny sarcasm.  But I get it across.

Games are not part of my personna.  You know, where you pretend to be what you think the other person wants.  Or just be untruthful, because you’re unsure of yourself, because you think another person won’t like you as you really are.  Personally, I think games bite you in the ass.  I think they lead to depression, to insecurity.  Control, manipulation.  Because you have to keep up the fake personna to keep the person.  Sooner or later, you wish you could just be yourself. You would wonder why you couldn’t be, why you thought the person wouldn’t care for you if you were yourself, but by then…you’ve lied to them so much, you’ve worked so hard at this fake personna, you risk ending the relationship if you make yourself known, and admit that the person they thought they knew wasn’t you.  Vicious cycle.

Vulnerability is hard.  It’s scary to put yourself out there, not knowing what the outcome will be.  But lying, faking, game playing…is harder.  It will never end well.  At some point the truth will be known, and it will leave you cold, alone, and empty.

I think the thing that shocked me the most about S was that he was playing a game….with me, with her.  with everyone, I think. He was obsessed with the game “Go”, an ancient Chinese game where the point was to have no losers so that everyone saves “face”.  I always said, look if I screw up, I don’t need to save face.  I need to own it, and change that about myself, and make amends for any damage I did.  Save face?  A mistake is just a mistake if there is no lesson learned.That’s the bullshit about shame.  We all have it, the point is to learn from it, and use it as a tool to become a better person, and raise our vibration.

I know that the fact that I kept allowing S into my life after all the crap he pulled on me was starting to damage my relationship with my son.  What a mistake that would have been, to trade off my relationship with my son for S.  Another bullet, that would have literally killed me, dodged.

It just occurred to me, that my ex, who obviously didn’t think he was lovable because he grew up in a family where love was a reward, not a fact of life, felt he had to manipulate and control people to keep them in his life.  He truly thought that if I professed to love him, which I did, it meant that I was either a.) stupid or b.) wanted something from him.  I think perhaps the same was true of S.  Because it is an innate human condition to want to be loved, but when we are taught at a young age that we are not lovable, we learn not to trust it.  To see it as another manipulation, since in an abusive household everything is a manipulation. My ex’s father was physically and emotionally abusive, his mother was passively abusive, she didn’t stop his father, and used the threat of him to keep my ex in line and in fear.  S had the same situation.

S says I can’t let go of my marriage, that I talk about it all the time.  Well, yeah, I do talk about the things I learned from it.  It was the experience from which I learned the most in my life.  I spent the first 5 years of freedom trying to understand what happened to me and my son, and undoing the damage.  I realize that the wisdom I gained from that search, might be valuable to someone else.  It has nothing to do with the marriage, or letting go of it.  It has to do with life lessons, and learning, and sharing.  I know for a fact that sharing the wisdom has helped others, when I was active in an online community for abuse survivors.

I couldn’t convince either my ex or S that they were lovable just because they existed.  It’s water under the bridge now.  I need to find someone who already knows it.

I was watching Amy Schumer on HBO last night, after my boring date.  She just cracks me up.  I love her honesty, and she’s hilarious.  She reminded me of how my relationship with S used to be, open, funny, physical, flirty, honest….  Watching her just made me laugh, and remember part of my life.  I didn’t get sad, or upset.  I know S is not that guy all the time, I know he morphs into another person when he’s with a woman that probably wouldn’t find Amy Schumer funny. Or if she did, she would think she was outrageous, and that no one is like that.  Not knowing that S was for 18 months with a woman pretty much like that, though not as funny, lol. I know he and I both thought she was hysterical.  Real.  She’s very real.

Well, whatever.  I’m sure there’s a man out there who would appreciate and enjoy an open, honest, monogamous, sexy woman, and is open to falling in love, and monogamy too.

God, I sound a little needy.  I think I just miss having sex, lol.  Nah…I need a connection to have it.  I’m just longing for that connection with someone.  I’ll find it.

A Wave Just Washed Over Me

Posted on by learning to live like water

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What a beautiful New England autumn day.  Just gorgeous.  Tonight my Bff asked me over, to a bonfire, dinner and drinks.  I will be the only single person there, but I always am.  She’s gathering me in, wrapping me up in the love of good friends, protecting me from the thoughts that surely will come if I am alone.  She never met him….but she had him pegged from the beginning.

If you are bedding a man for 18 months who has never met your BFF, I would guess that’s a pretty blatant sign that this relationship is not all it’s cracked up to be in your head, isn’t it.  Only my son met him, and from the first day he told me S was weird.  LOl.

Weird is good in my book.  I’m a little weird.  But my son didn’t mean it that way, as in slightly eccentric like you Mom.  I should have listened to him.  Especially over the summer, when he disappeared for days.  My BFF has told me 100 times,  “A relationship that is that much work, from the beginning, is not a good one.”  And I didn’t listen. And it was work, right from the beginning.  Work with no reward, really.  Betty Boop is getting the reward.  I would have had to screw him over for him to treat me well.  Seriously, I mean that.

There was a story on FB this morning, of a little girl who was hit in the face with a rock by a boy. Her mother had to take her to the hospital for stitches.  A man at the hospital, checking them in, said, “I bet he likes you.”  What???  There it is, the warped idea that hurting someone shows that you like them.  Watered down, it falls under S’s old adage, “I only tease you if I like you.”  I think it’s the same mindset.  Perhaps he’s so used to being hurt by people that he actually believes that being hurt is part of loving someone.

If that’s the case…I gotta feel for him.

In that case, I also gotta stay way clear of him.

I always have to feel bad for anyone who didn’t go to bed every night in their life taking their parents love for granted. (Or at least one of them.)  If I believe him, (which I’m not sure of anymore) he never went to bed wondering if he wasn’t loved by them.  According to him (which, again, now I’m not sure how much of it was true, how much was manipulation of me) his parents had not left out any form of abuse of him as a child.  How could I possibly have expected him to get me, to have any idea what a normal relationship is, to even want one?  Not that there aren’t people who overcome that.  But he wasn’t one, and it was pretty clear to me, if I am honest.

It makes perfect sense of Betty Boop, and why she’s spending the weekends with him now.  And really….while there is still a small part of me that hurts from the way he did it, I am really blessed, not to have gotten in any deeper with someone who believes hurt is love.  That passionate fighting makes for passionate making up.  He told me that was what they did.  I remember saying, I only want to love passionately.  You can keep the fighting and making up.

Emotionally, really, he is about 14.  My son at 23 is 100 times more mature.  I mean, look at how he broke up with me, by text!!!  I want to scream, how old are you anyway?  Who does that, at 66?  He didn’t want to listen to me scream at him.  What did he expect, me to say,” Oh that’s ok S…” If you are hell bent on devastating someone, I think you have to be prepared also to deal with their pain.

I wish it hadn’t happened to me.  But if I stand outside and peer in, I am so glad to be out of such an immature relationship.

Anyway, enough of my analysis of him,and myself. .  We are all sick of it, lol.  As an adult we own our lives.  We make our choices.

Writing about this makes me stronger, and see what the work is that I have to do.  I’m sorry if I’m sound like a broken record.  The healing, and the growing comes in waves.  And I just got swept up in one, and now I’m landed on the beach and looking at where I came from.

Like the Phoenix…..

Posted on by learning to live like water

Day 4.  I am better this morning than I was yesterday morning.  Not as good as last night.  I have let him go, let any desire for him blow away with the emotional cyclone he put me through.  I never want to see his face again, I have deleted every picture so I won’t accidentally come across his face, and have to remember how I loved this asshole.

It’s the treachery, the deception, the idea that he thought it was perfectly ok to lead me on all week, to blow my world apart.  That he couldn’t man up, and tell the truth to me, and let me go when I was asking to go.  Such a narcissist, one of the worst I have ever known.  Worse than my ex-husband, and I thought he was the worst ever.  My ex’s lies were just random, about what he was doing, often stories he made up and believed, that were so obviously lies it was almost humorous.  (Though laughing at him brought on his scary scary temper.)  He never set me up emotionally just to punch me in the stomach, just to knock me down and stomp on me.  He was a sick f**k, but S is so much sicker.

Yes S, it turns out you were much like him, as you said.  You were him, taken to a new level that was past my ability to think was possible.

I have known many people abused as children, though his story was one of the worst.  But he’s smart, he could have crawled out of it.  He used to say he didn’t have a filter.

No, S, it’s not a fucking filter.  It’s a conscience.  You said you were developing one?  That’s a laugh.  Really…you are so full of shit. You like chaos, you like hurting people because you NEVER dealt with your own hurt in a productive way.  So you project it, and you act out on as many people as possible, in as intense a way as you can.  And some unsuspecting person like myself, that just saw the possibilities of you instead of the reality,comes along, you must have been fucking drooling to set me up and watch me fall.

Like you said, it’s your karma.  If you had a belief in anything, that would be ok, but you don’t.  You’re a cold, dead heartless man.  I am so glad to be rid of you.  And not to have lost any more than i did.  You ought to go crawl in a hole and stay there, until sensory deprivation makes you forget everything you know, and you have to be reborn.  Go to the monastery, like you talked about.  And stay there.  Then you can’t continue to hurt people for your own gain. (Yes he used to talk about doing that for 6 months.  I used to laugh, I am thinking the monks would exorcise him before they’d let him in.)

I have my book club tonight, I’m grateful for that.  To be with friends who live on the other side with me will be just what I need.  A has still been beside me through all of this. He texts me all morning, during the day, in the evening.  He still tells me he loves me, and we know it’s just an unconditional love he has, that we will always be good friends. He sends me music, pictures of the southwest. Just being sweet, kind, loving, talking me down if I need it (tho I think I was done with that after the first 48 hours), showing me reality in a kind, but firm way.  He has always turned out to be the blessing in my life.  He is diametrically opposed to S, and I am sure that he was put in my life to make me see the difference between a creep and an angel.  I wish it had been S I cut off for A, a couple months ago.  Not the other way around.

My friend Megan from here has been so helpful to me too.  She and I have so many of the same issues, and we have had a running conversation with each other comparing notes, and trying to understand this sick narcissism.  So the blessings that have come from his treachery far outweigh the pain, and the pain was unbearable.  But the duality is, there is equal joy that grows out of the ashes.  Like the Phoenix, I will rise. I will be better, happier, and more loving.  No stupid man who thinks the darkness is where it’s at, is ever going to have too much effect on me.

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.