Tag Archives: dysfunction

(Very) Early Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

I woke at 4:15 this morning. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because I was asleep at 9:30. I lay in bed for about 45 minutes, just thinking about things. Moving, the foundation cracks, lol, the men I’ve loved.

The moving, the house selling, it will all be over soon. So, I just have to make my way through each day, and do what needs to be done. Taking it one thing at a time, I’m sure I’ll get it all done, easily.

The men, idk. I was thinking about my ex. His name is the same as my son’s so I don’t use it on here, because I don’t want to confuse anyone. But it’s Bruce. I was thinking about the fondness I still feel for S, and how I have none for my ex, who I was with for 40 years. I guess the difference is my ex, B, eroded that love every day for years with his control and abuse of me, and my son. I don’t wish him any ill, I don’t have to, lol. He’s done a damn fine job of fucking up his life with no help from me. I wish him love and light, all good things, but I know with his last breath he will blame me for his problems.

I thought about how, when he was in control, he used to occasionally have these 2 or 3 day brain-washing sessions with me, before my son was born. He would brow beat me, and yell at me, and threaten me for days. I couldn’t leave the house. I was his captive scapegoat for all the ills in his life. And back then we had very few ills. We had enough money, a decent home, a yacht, but still he had to make me feel less than human anytime I began to feel happy and secure. And then he’d say, “I love you, I would think you’d listen to me, knowing it was for your own good.” Geezus. It was for his. To have himself a servant who would do everything, who was dancing around trying to win his favor.

One particular time, during one of those brain-washing sessions, he decided that I did not deserve my 1 1/3 carat heart shaped diamond. He ordered me to give it to him. I refused. He got up from the couch as I sobbed, went in the kitchen and got a pair of pliers out of a drawer where he kept a few tools. He came back, and grabbed my hand and broke the setting, so that the diamond fell out. I am sure, 100% positive, that if I’d fought him he would have broken my hand. He was 6’2”, about 240 lbs, and had arms like most people’s thighs. Very strong, he was a nationally ranked swimmer at one time.

He put the diamond and the broken setting in an envelope and put it in a kind of jewelry box in our bedroom. Folded up tight, so it was about a 1” square. I always knew where it was. I believed that some day he’d realize what a good wife I was, and how I was trying so hard to do everything he asked (while he did nothing at all for me, but I guess I believed I didn’t deserve it) and he’d get it reset one day.

He never did.

When I moved out of the house in 2007, I opened the envelope and took the diamond. I left him the broken setting.

But that just illustrates how dysfunctional he was, and I was, and we were. That we managed to have my son after that is amazing. But thank God, my son is a blessing to me borne of that pain.

S…..well, he betrayed me when I loved him the most. My love for him didn’t die over time. It never had a chance to die a natural death. I grieved and grieved, and still do some days. It’s easier when I never hear from him, I’m much more able to see the dysfunction that surrounds him, and was part of our relationship so much more clearly. I know it would never have lasted, even if there were no B, because I wanted more that he’s capable of giving. It’s been almost 2 months now since I’ve heard from him, and I am fine with it. I have some fond memories, tempered by the reality of his nature. I can love him, who he was to me, I can be grateful for that time in my life. I am so happy to know that after my long miserable marriage, (and long miserable divorce) I can still love someone so passionately, so intensely.

I don’t think he and I can be friends, though. I’d like to be, but I don’t think B will allow it. Even if I’m in FL, 1500 miles away, she would be jealous. He says she’s not, I say, you don’t see it. She’s a master of the passive aggressive stuff. Never wants to talk to him again, until I do. Then she does. Never wants to be with him again, until I am, then she still loves him. Whatever.

I know that I can’t go there again. I can say never say never, but I gotta be real. He is never going to want to make the changes that I’d like to see in him. I think he is much more comfortable with the game playing, the push pull thing, and with misery and unhappiness than happiness, because he sabotages his own life constantly in an effort to prove to himself he’s not worthy. I will always tell him he is. I would, am, always here for him if he wants to talk. But I know he can’t trust himself, so he doesn’t trust me.

I will say, one reason I loved him so, was because he let me be me. All the time. Even though I talked too much, lol. He knew how to quiet me down. Take me to the beach, or somewhere, tell me a story, put on some music that was new to me and tell me about it, or take me to bed. But the freedom I felt with him, after being with a man who tried to control what I said, wore, how I wore my hair, how I walked, yada yada yada, was blissful for me. For that I will always love him. Now that I know what that’s like, I intend to find it again, in a man who is capable of loving, who seeks the light, and is happy and likes himself.

All good lessons with these men. Painful, but good. I know myself, I’ve found myself through the pain that I experienced with them both. I can say to my ex, I love you and I wish all good things for him, he is making himself pay for sins he thinks he must have committed, I am sure. I can say to S, love always and all ways, because that too is true. Because I do. I will. All the betrayal, really, that S orchestrated, was him, sabotaging himself, setting himself up to fail. He hurt me, yes, but for me it’s temporary. I can find my way out. I don’t look into the abyss. I walk away from it, even if I’m on my hands and knees crawling.

At peace this lovely morning. Nice to put things into perspective.

Love and light, everyone.

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.