Tag Archives: confusion

Compromise, or Self Accountability?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Damn, I needed a glass of wine tonight.

First a little update. A bought the house. I got 2 or 3 group texts, with pictures…waxing poetic about Santa Fe. He got to Santa Fe on the weekend. Previously he spent less than a week there last winter. And in 3 days, he decided to change his mind completely about his lifestyle, and put a contract on a house, which he couldn’t even have had inspected yet. WTF? I kept thinking something is really wrong with him. Then later today, probably because he had no response from me about the house, I got a private text. I have NO idea how it got through, but he asked if I had the surgery. I deleted it without reading, or even opening, so it would show on is phone as “undelivered”. That really threw me, I mean, how does he get a text through when I have both his numbers blocked, and it’s coming from a blocked number? And made me more concerned about his motivation to do what he’s doing. I mean, that would be severely delusional, if I had anything to do with his decision. But then, I was married to a man who still thinks his 23 year old son could be a professional soccer goalie. People are quite capable of spinning great yarns and believing them. So yeah, that gave me a little headache.

The wine tasted good. I’m only having one glass, even though I’d like more, lol. But it’s a week night, yada yada.

But then.

I was thinking about my relationships with S, and A. Before A’s text. And how I compromised myself, both times. With A…I accepted his love for me, misdirected and perhaps ill motivated as it might have been. I accepted it without loving him back, because he made me feel good. It was a lush feeling, for awhile, to have someone adore me. To hold me, before he left and tell me he loved me “so much”. To hug me and say, “Thank God you came back to me.” I had just gone to say goodbye…he was leaving forever….I didn’t say I was back, he told himself that story. I didn’t disabuse him of that notion. I felt he was leaving, I’d probably not see him again, let him leave happy. Which is probably why I worry about his motivation in buying a house so impulsively. I mean…it’s not my worry really, he’s a grown man, but how can it be a good decision based on so little information.

But I compromised myself with him. I didn’t tell him the truth, at least not all the time. When it got too much, I did. I never told him that I loved him, I never led him on, but I accepted love from someone who I didn’t love back, and that feels wrong. Like I should have been more honest, I shouldn’t have been so self absorbed in enjoying the huge ego boost I got from it. Just feels wrong. Like I used him, even though that wasn’t my intention. I tried to love him but I couldn’t. I knew I could love S, so I went back to S.

I knew I did love S. I adored him. And he broke my heart so many times. Finally I got smart and headed him off at the pass, but not before I cried a river, a fucking ocean, over that man. Wondering what was wrong with me, that he could so easily dismiss me. So the compromise there was, that I allowed myself to love a man, with everything I had, who didn’t love me back. He would tell me he missed me, but he only missed sex. He said once he missed making me laugh. But he also told me he didn’t want to be in love, or a relationship, that he wanted to see other women. So I guess the lauging and the sex wasn’t that big a deal. I gotta give him honesty. He only led me on once.

After he fucked the prison whore, which I have lots of blogs about last winter, as I tried to work through that. He knew I had begun to see A, and just didn’t want someone else to have me. I thought he wanted me. He told me everything, almost, that I ever wanted to hear, he did everything I’d dreamed about. It took me about 30 seconds to cast A aside and be with S.

And then once S knew I was with him, not A….all those things disappeared, never to be seen again. And we went back to our non-relationship status and it hurt more than ever.

Because I compromised myself. I gave myself willingly, because I wanted to love him. And I didn’t care that he didn’t love me. I let myself do that….treated myself like a tramp, like shit, because I wanted to love him. He treated me…ok, unless he was having a bad day, but he never was dishonest with me, except that one time, to keep me from being with A. I shouldn’t have allowed that either.

So here I am, compromised. By two men, on opposite ends of the spectrum. One, I let him love me, and I didn’t, couldn’t, love him back, but let him lavish it on me, just to make myself feel valuable. The other, I loved, with nothing in return. I let myself be used. Used honestly. It was only my fault.

So the question is…..should I be feeling bad about any of this? Am I responsible for the fact that A loved me, unrequited? No more than S is responsible that I loved him, unrequited. We can only control our own emotions. We can only set our own standards for ourselves.

A loved me, (I am not sure that’s even past tense at the moment), but I’m not responsible for his emotions. I never led him on, I just enjoyed his company. Until recently, when he was wanting a bigger camper “in case” I wanted to come see him, and then suddenly a house. And the way his conversation went far more intimate than I was comfortable with.

S…didn’t. I knew it. He’s not responsible for my emotions. I guess I kept thinking that he would love me someday, that some day he’d want me the way I wanted him. But it was my stupid dream, his was to be free. Over time, I began to detach. We saw each other rarely, we talked a lot, but there was nothing growing there, except separation. I accepted that over the summer, and little by little let the dream go. When he lost his temper with me over nothing this past weekend, it was not hard at all to close the book, and decide not to turn the page. I hadn’t seen him in a month. While I thought I missed him, I was actually in the process of detaching. This was the first time it has not hurt. Maybe there are no tears left to cry, but at any rate, I’m not and that’s a good thing.

(Let me just note here, that I have not been blogging about S and I for some time now.  The things in this blog are all things I have published before, so I don’t feel like I am breaking any trust by talking about them.  I cannot write this blog without mentioning them.  I am not going into any detail about why I closed the book on that relationship, now or ever.  If I did, I would be breaking the trust.)

Going forward….I don’t want to compromise. I will choose, yes choose, to love only someone who is capable of loving me back. I will not stay with someone just because he loves me. I will have balance, or be alone. It’s only myself that I have to not let down. No one else. Maybe I’ll be alone, but that would be preferable to not liking the person I have become. I’m alone right now, and you know what? It feels fine.

Just a Sad Life

Posted on by learning to live like water

My ex.  Where to start.  Sheesh.

His home, my old home of 30 years, that he fought so diligently to keep me from ever feeling ownership of, or having any legal right to, was foreclosed on.  The process took about 2 years, he fought it with all he could and I’m sure with a lot of imaginary stories that the court, and the bank, had to investigate to find the truth.  At any rate, it was finally sold last spring.  He told the new owners he’d be out in 60 days.  He is still there.

One of my best friends works with the new owner’s son-in-law.  They apparently had a court date, to get a court order to remove him from the house on Monday.  I told my riends I doubted he would show (having experienced way too many court dates with my ex..).

While I was at the dr on Monday having my bandage on my hand removed, my ex called my son. I assumed since son got that call that ex was not in court.  But, as it turned out he was there, and calling my son from there.   My son does not take his calls, lets them all go to voice mail.  In this voice mail, he asked my son why doesn’t he try out for the professional soccer team that’s coming to Hartford.

My son was looking at me, like, “WHAT is the matter with him Mom?”  I think he said that too.  I mean, my son played soccer for a year when he quit hockey, for fun.  When he was 17-18.  He is now 23.  Has not played in 5 years, and was never anything but a recreational soccer player.

Apparently my ex has not been able to give up the dream that our son would be a professional athlete.  Geezus.  Talk about delusional.

But what bothered me even more is that this was what he was thinking about at court, where he was about to get booted out of his home.  I am pretty sure he has made no effort to find a place to live, that he’s done nothing to clean out the place, even though the buyers got a dumpster for him and offered to help him.  He still has cars there, and all his stuff.  And now he has 2 weeks, 14 days, to move out or the sherriff will come and remove him.

They buyers have said that once he goes my son and I can go and take anything that’s left in the house, but we have also heard that the town will come and clean the house out.  Which seems ludicrous to me, that the town would spend money cleaning out the house, I hope that is not true.  But I’ve emailed my attorney to find out the truth.  I might call the police department too, and ask them.

Not that the point of this is what can I get from there.  I want my father’s shotgun, it’s an antique, and it’s one of the few things I had from him.  I had given it to my son, but it was left there when my son walked away from his father.  My son wants his hockey stuff, jerseys, trophies, pictures, memorabilia, etc.  There are things there of value, remnants of the time years ago we were making good money.  I would hate to see them lost.

I can’t call my ex.  I feel sure he wouldn’t even take my call, and that even if he did, he would never tell me the truth, but make up some delusional story that he is actually probably believing.

It is so sad.  The whole thing is so sad.  I am so glad that I got away, and my son and I are not part of this, that I was able to salvage what I could.

In the divorce, my ex got the house, the business, (which is in receivership, a solution to the foreclosure it was in), our boat, and as much money as I was given, if not more.  And this is where he’s at, 4 years after the Supreme Court upheld the judge’s decision to not enforce the post nuptial agreement my ex forced on me in a grandiose effort at power and control all during our marriage.  He had everything, and now is losing everything.

Most importantly, his mind, he has lost his mind.  He went from an aggressive, smart man with every advantage to a total mess.  I told him years ago, when he appealed the decision, that he would end up homeless if he stayed on this path.  When I was married to him, I warned him he would die, old and sick and all alone because  he pushed away everyone that loved him.

I’m a little sad for him this morning, I think I will do the Ho’oponopono for him today.  It can’t hurt.  It will  help me to feel like I’m doing what I can energetically.  I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.  Over and over.

It’s up to the universe now.  He’s getting what he thought about, though he wanted it to happen to me, not him.

Just sad…..

What Is Going On With A?

Posted on by learning to live like water

Some of you may remember A, the guy I dated after S did the prison whore, and then on and off as S and I went through our 2 week on-off cycles. A had a plan to sell his 3800 sq. ft. home and live with his 44 yr old son out of a camper. Which he did.  Put about 30,000 miles on his truck in 6 months. Finally, I realized that #1, I would never want an intimate long distance relationship, #2, that I was not really attracted to A in any kind of long term intimate way, #3, that the continuing communication wit him, mostly via text, was a distraction to me figuring out what I really wanted.

I communicated this to A, and he responded by trying to change my mind.  Just before this, he had been talking about buying a bigger motor home (the one he had was tiny, 150 sq. ft.) “in case you want to visit me” was his first reason.  I didn’t respond to that.  Because, it’s just not an idea I could wrap my mind around, and assumed there were other reasons, like even for his son and him there was no privacy in the small one.  I had seen it, it wasn’t really pleasant in any way.  He said that about the time he asked me if I’d have time to visit him next summer.

In talking to me after my communication, he told me that he would never get remarried (he is a widow of just over a year), which is fine with me because marriage is not an idea I ever want to visit again.  He also told me he planned to be homeless and live out of the camper/motor home for a couple of years because he was enjoying their travels so much.  He said he had wanderlust enough to last a long time.  When he left CT he had a plan to be in Santa Fe by this fall, then go back to his brother’s ranch in TX, then decide where they might want to stay for next spring/summer, but he loved Santa Fe the best, it was his first choice.

Now, I think it is fine for someone to follow their dream, or their bliss, it is, in fact, what anyone, everyone, should do.  However, I would not have any interest in visiting him (or anyone) for any length of time in a camper/motor home.  It’s just not my thing.  I told him I was a home body, just talking in general, that I would always want to have a home base.  (To be clear, I could stay on a boat for 2 weeks, a nice, good sized boat, but then that’s my thing.  Not camping.)  So, I was happy for him, I knew I would never want to be a part of that and he didn’t seem to be asking me, until he started with the visiting thing, and the needing a bigger camper/motor home in case you want to see me thing.

So, for all these reasons, I decided to just block him.  Then I wouldn’t get texts I felt compelled to answer, and if he just stopped hearing from me, hopefully he would move on, and let go.  It felt like a clean, necessary break to me.

For some reason, even though I have blocked all  his numbers, and everyone on his group text list, I still get his group texts.  I cannot stop them.

So a week after I just stopped the communication, I got a picture of his new, much larger, camper/motor home. This is about a week after he said the thing about needing one in case I came to visit him.  I immediately thought, “Damn, I hope he didn’t buy that thinking I would come to see him.”  But I thought, that would be crazy…no one would do that, would they?  No…I hope not.

Today, I got a group text with pictures of a house, and the scenery around it, in Santa Fe.  With the message “going to make an offer on this house tomorrow.”  WHAAAAA?  This is a guy who not more than 3 weeks ago insisted he didn’t want to own a home, wanted to continue to roam the countryside, seeing new sites, visiting new place, meeting new people, and was quite content to be “homeless.”  A couple weeks later he’s buying a house.  And he JUST got to Santa Fe about 3 days ago.

Again, I thought…I hope this has nothing to do with me.

I’m probably just paranoid.  He has not tried to reach me that I know of.  Of course, being blocked, I don’t get any texts, which was our main way of communication.  But there are no blocked call voice mails, and no emails.  It’s just that he was the kind of guy who got into me so much that all my interests became his.  Except the camping thing, which he and his son planned long before he knew me.  But the music I loved became what he listened to, my spiritual journey started to become his.  If I was going to Sam’s club he wanted to come with me.  Or anywhere.  ….idk.  That was something I didn’t really like.  At first, I found his attention flattering.  Then…it became too much.  We didn’t go out that long, only a few weeks, maybe a month.  He pushed it along way too fast.  When we first met I was broken, and bruised by S and the prison whore, it felt good to have someone who adored me, and made me his world.  But I realized that was totally selfish, and that I just didn’t feel the same, and found it easy to tell him I was going to try again with S.  That was 6 months ago.  Then I saw him a little bit before he left, when S and I were constantly breaking up. I just fear that A hasn’t really let go of some story he made up.

Anyway, when I got the text, I deleted it, as I do all his texts.  I hope he decided to buy a home because he wanted one, not because he suddenly thought I might come visit him if he had a home.  It just was so sudden, as was his purchase of a much bigger camper/motor home.  Didn’t seem particularly thought out…planned out…and was the opposite of his intention just weeks ago.

I sure wish I’d stop getting his group texts.  I’m looking forward to the day when I’ve shed past entanglements and made room for something new to come in the door.

Things Are Not Always What They Seem

Posted on by learning to live like water

Things are not always what they seem.

Day may seem like night,

When the sky goes black

and the sun can’t be found.

Night may seem like day

When the moon is a full golden orb

Casting long shadows across the lawn

Under a canopy of 10,000 flickering stars.

Sometimes words can heal,

when they are hard,

When they don’t feel good as you hear them.

Sometimes they can hurt

while creating great beauty as you listen.

Sometimes love can exist

Unspoken.

And sometimes the most ardent declarations of love

Feel empty.

Sometimes, there is more in less.

And less in more.

Sometimes, when you are most confused,

You find the most clarity.

Staightening Out the Mess I Created

Posted on by learning to live like water

103

I had a rough day yesterday.  Feelings of being taken for granted permeated my brain, my being, from the people at work, to S.  I was angry by the afternoon.

At work, the lead admin is on vacation.  Her desk is deemed the most important admin job because she supports the sales of our biggest, main product. When she is gone, I cover her desk.  I have always done this, no one else knows how to do it.  Of course, no one covers mine while I cover hers, and my work generally gets behind.  This time, it has fallen way behind because we are all unbelievably busy.  My boss seems to be oblivious to it all, and just keeps piling tasks on me, which someone else could do but he’s afraid they will get mucked up.  I’m  afraid they won’t get done at all.  Anyway, the pressure got to me yesterday of expectations and realistic capabilities and I began to fold.

I heard from S, in his ever to be playful way.  He felt better yesterday, but not great.  I asked something of him that my ego wanted, just to feel like I mattered in a certain way.  I ended up in angry with him, because he doesn’t do on-demand things, ever, and I wanted, needed it.

Last night I had a dream, that I was at a table, maybe a luncheon, in a house where my sis lives in Florida.  And all these wonderful spiritual teachers were there.  We were talking and walking outside with each other, it was amazing.  Lots of crystal jewelry, I remember especially one woman’s beautiful fluorite broach.  Fluorite is one of the most healing of stones.  And someone came and gave me a card, and it was from S, and all I remember it saying was that he loved me, in his own handwriting.  Which he has never said to me, and which I suspect from time to time, but then he will say he doesn’t want to be in love.  And when he backs off I am sure he doesn’t love me, and when he pulls me back, I think he must or why would he do this?

This morning, I did my Byron Katie thing on my thought about him.

1. Do I know it’s true?  Yes.

2. Do I know absolutely that it’s true.  No.  I can never ever know for sure what goes on in his  head. (or anyone’s for that matter.)

3.  How do I feel when I think that thought?  Bereft, lonely, sad, unloved, uncared for, used, abused, broken hearted.

4.  And how would I feel without that thought?  Happy, content, most likely still crazy about him.

So, all that angst over something that may or may not be true.  I went to see my best friend’s daughter in West Side Story last night, S called me on the way there, and I was mean, I was still angry.  Yet when I got out of the play, there was a text asking me to call him when I got home.  So do I believe I don’t matter to him, when he is able to get through my angst and still want to talk to me?  It seems like I should let him speak for himself, and stop imposing my belief, which is not coming from my best self, on him.

As it was, when I called  him I woke him, and just told him to go back to sleep, we could talk today.  Because it was late, he’s been so sick, and I was tired.  It was nice to hear his voice.

I think that loving someone I see so sporadically is playing with me.  I need to either shit or get off the pot with this relationship.  Either we have one or not, I want to be done questioning where we stand with each other.  If I’m gonna miss him so much, either let me miss him and get over it and move on, or let the longing be fulfilled by seeing him on a regular basis.  For me there is no in between.

So, S, if you read this, I’m sorry for spiraling into the stratosphere yesterday.  There may have been underlying reasons that were valid, but I didn’t need to go where I went.

It’s going to be a perfect beach weekend.  I hope, maybe, dream, maybe that I’ll finally get to spend a perfect summer beach day with him at one of the beautiful places he took me in the winter.  I suppose it will depend on a lot of things.  In the end, my heart aches to be with him.

Now if I can just get through today at work, without a meltdown, I think I will be ok.  The picture is from one of the beautiful beaches we went to in the winter.  I will end with Ho’oponopono.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me

Thank you.

I love you.

A Perfect Dichotomy

Posted on by learning to live like water

I can’t write today.  Too many conflicting emotions.  Too much personal business that I can’t make public. Full of gratitude, heartache, longing, and fulfillment.  I am spinning, and standing still. Sadness and joy.  Missing someone, loving someone, accepting what is.  No resolution.  Drifting away while trying to get closer.  Ying and Yang.  A perfect dichotomy.

Just Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

I spent yesterday morning on the edge of tears. Whenever I was alone, I just faced and tried to weigh my emotions for this man, against the reality of our relationship.  All it did was bring me to tears.  About lunchtime I realized I had to stop thinking about it, it was making me crazy.  I went to lunch, read the book he had given me, then did a quick 10 minute meditation in my car, at the edge of the cove where I spend most of my lunch hours.

When I was driving back to work, I thought, “Do I have to decide right now?  Today? Tomorrow?  This week?”  S is happy with things as they are, I know he is not pressing me to decide what I want.  What I decided to do was to let all the questions go for the moment.  Put aside all the differences, to deal with later.  I want to just BE with him, and enjoy each others company the way we used to.  I am so tired of unfulfilled wanting, I just want to stop.  Just be.  Not to want more than is there.

Let me have some of that God, of just being with him.  Let me just surrender all the desire and unfulfilled wanting I have in this relationship, and let it flow, like water.  Let happen what’s going to happen.  Let me feel gratitude just because he is next to me without wanting more.

In the middle of our serious talk, he made me laugh so hard I couldn’t talk.  That has to be worth something, doesn’t i?  To both of us?

Blue Eyes

Posted on by learning to live like water

Those blue eyes follow me everywhere.

Sleeping,

Sitting

Driving

Walking.

I am trying to ignore them.

They steal into my brain,

And lay in wait for weakness

To strike and draw me back.

Bind me in the blue cords which jettison from them

And wrap around me until I find the strength

To wiggle out of them

And exhausted lay on my own bed.

In confusion, I want their warm sensuality.

In confusion, I cannot bear the way they cut into me and

Slice my heart open,

Again and again.

I opt out, for a whole life.

Not to constantly be stitching up the pieces of my heart

strewn across the horizon.

But the piercing blue eyes

are committed to my memory.

Bittersweet, and sad.

Acceptance Comes Slowly

Posted on by learning to live like water

So dawns a new day.  I still have not heard a peep from him.  I left another voicemail, I have texted him.  It is unlike him to hold a grudge with me, especially when I am so obviously trying to find my way back to him.  But this morning, acceptance is setting in.

I had a nightmare about him last night. And now I’m trying to see if I can logically understand why he is silent.  So far these are my choices.

1.  He’s still angry with me for being so hurt the other night.  He cannot stand being the bad guy.  All it  required was an “I’m sorry”. We all make mistakes, he made one in not telling me he was not going to come.  He made one in underestimating how much it meant to me.  But a heartfelt “I’m sorry” would have gone a long way.  A phone call would have been nice.

2. He read the blogs I wrote after, “Crash and Burn” and “Sifting through the smoldering ruins” and was furious.  He dislikes i when I write about him, us.  When we are published on the internet.  No one knows me, or him.  He says, “yes, but when your book is published they will know who you are, and then who I am….”  That’s still such a long shot. But I have to write about me.  I have told him any blog I write is a snapshot in time of how I am feeling at that moment.  So why don’t I just journal it, why publish?  Because when I am in pain, confused, fearful I long for feedback from my peers.  The community helps me through it, helps me not to feel so alone.  I am quite able, obviously, when my feelings change, or circumstances change, to own it, and correct it here.  I rue the day I ever gave him the link to this blog.  It puts a bracket on my freedom to write what I feel here.

3.  Maybe he is too sick to communicate with me.  I can’t know that he actually went to work yesterday.  I do know that he wasn’t in the hospital.  I do know that he didn’t die, because I checked the obits this morning.  Sounds morbid, I know, but if he had an aneurism, which could kill him instantly, I would never know, I would never be told by anyone because no one knows of me. So it was some kind of black comfort not to see his name there. Maybe he is just in too much pain to add the stress of talking to me to it.  But…he doesn’t have to talk with me.  Just to tell me how he is, in a text or an email, and then ask me to continue to leave him alone, and I will.  Just to ease my mind.

4. I have occasionally, thought, what if his ex girlfriend leaves her new husband (that she found within 4 months of breaking up with him after 12 years) and wants him back?  He told me many times he was not over her, that he thought she was the one.  I asked him not that long ago, maybe a couple months, what he would do if that happened.  He said he didn’t know.  Which didn’t help me feel secure with him at all, obviously.  There is no making sense of who we choose to love, he says he loved her, and she took him for so much…..  I just don’t know.  But it is what it is.  I mean, I still love him after all the ups and downs we have had, when it is quite obvious to me that this is not a healthy relationship.  This #4 reason leads me to the nightmare.

I dreamed he finally called me.  We were, in the dream, on the phone, but I could see him at his house as well.  He told me he was in love. His voice was odd, kind of a falsetto.  He has in reality a deep, sexy voice.  I kept asking with who?  And he just kept telling me it was real, he was finally in love. (He constantly told me he didn’t want to be in love.) Then I could see his ex girlfriend in his jacuzzi.  And I said, “tell me who it is or I’m hanging up.”  He got mad at that threat and started yelling back at me on the phone.  I hung up, I woke up.

This morning I can’t help but wonder if the universe was telling me something.  I don’t even know what to look up on dreammoods.com.  It is so unusual for me to dream about him, about anyone I know, and to remember it, though I am sure I remember it because it woke me.

So where am I at this morning?  Still  numb, thankfully, from the wine and an Ambien.  It’s nice how the two combine to knock you out on a night when you’d not have slept otherwise.  Especially after the dream.  I am accepting that I can’t do anything about his refusal to communicate.  I can call the hospitals again, and make sure he’s not there.  I considered calling his ex-wife, who doesn’t know me, and asking her to check on him.  Because I am pretty sure, that unless he goes in the hospital, he has not told his family about  his health issues either.  By family I mean ex-wife and kids. But then I think, in my best Byron Katie mind, no don’t do that.  Then you are in HIS business.  (you know, there are three kinds of business:  Mine, other peoples, and God’s)

So to try to stay in my business, only mine today, I won’t try to reach him but just let it be, as he used to tell me all the time.  Maybe he’ll be in touch when he feels up to it.  Maybe he never will be again.  My business is to go on with my life.  So, I’m going to go get my hair done, go to the grocery store, go get 2 new tires for my car and maybe talk to my ex husband about our son while they put the tires on, since his business is right next door to the tire place.  But his business is weather related and we are supposed to have a huge storm this afternoon (of course, it’s Saturday) so he might not be there.  That should keep me clear of him until tonight.

Acceptance of what you truly don’t want to have to accept is such a mind-fuck  But again, it’s reality.  He is not communicating with me, and I need to respect that is how he wants it, for whatever reason.  I can’t put too much energy into that thought, the lump in my throat begins to grow again.

Slowly taking steps to move beyond this pain.