Tag Archives: shame

That Ugly Power and Control Gene

Posted on by learning to live like water

I shared a post on FB of the cover of the latest New Yorker mag. It’s a very unflattering caricature of the Cheetoman, hitting golf balls at the White House, breaking windows. It’s pretty funny. Someone commented that he is such an “unqualified” public servant. I replied, “he’s not a public servant, he’s a public nuisance.” Seriously……he only serves himself. Jimmy Kimmel had a video up from his show where he shows how the tweeter-in-chief has a habit of moving things when he sits down. At dinner, at his desk, or coffee table, at a conference…what ever. I think my ex used to do that a lot, especially when he was trying to show that he was working. Control issues, both of them. Gotta re-arrange the table setting to show it’s never right.

Then I saw a video, on FB, of Cheetoman in a ceremony to sign a bill, with everyone there, and then he walked out of the room without signing it. He thanked everyone, said we’d see some immediate changes, and then left the room. Pence tried to get him to come back, and DJT told him to bring the bill with him. He’s starting to lose his shit, really. It’s wild, but kind of scary to see someone in that position who is seriously losinig it.

Every day, there is more stuff about this mans inability to deal with his job. After dealing with my ex last week so much, I can’t really watch him much because I swear, he even looks like my ex. Same facial expressions, when I know he was trying to fool everyone that he actually had a clue what was going on, but didn’t. I really hate to listen to him. So most of the videos I just watch and shut the sound off.

It’s scary really, when someone is so hell-bent on power and control that they will lose everything, like my ex did. But to see that same personality type….with their fingers on the nuclear codes….and randomly tweeting in the middle of the night, constantly disrespecting our allies. Crazy scary shit.

I learned a lot about power and control when I left my marriage. I had no idea what had happened to me until I was in an online community for abuser survivors. Then, I found Brene Brown, among others, but it was her TED talk on vulnerability that really broke it down for me. I wonder if the orange one’s father berated and belittled him his whole life, like my ex did my son. Like my father-in-law did to my ex. And all of tRumps wealth and running for a job for which he is clearly unqualified, to say the least, was to prove to his father he was worthy. And I bet he’s still not. This is just random musing on my part, but he sure fits the bill.

What I’ve learned is that these people never can change. They will go down with the ship. You can’t save someone hell bent for terror. I tried, I kept thinking that one day he’d snap out of it, one day he’d see what he was doing. but he just consistently became more deeply imbedded in it. My ex would rather have lost everything than admit being abusive. The stories he makes up now, I just have to pick my jaw up off the floor. I gave up a long time ago setting his record straight. It only creates an argument to tell him, for example, that he had 16 years with our son, not just 6 or 7. He made up this outlandish statement to try to explain why his son wouldn’t talk to him, rather than face that fact that he was horribly abusive to him. Just made up a story, that he can tell people, so he’s not at fault, so he doesn’t have to face the shame.  I am so glad I had my moment of realization that he was never going to be able to change, and was never going to allow my family to live a normal life, and moved on.  Because, look at the life I have now.  It was worth 4 years in court, to salvage the rest of my life.  It was even more worthwhile, to see how well my son is doing, because I gave him a chance to see a different way of living.  Not in fear but in love.

DJT too, just tries to cover one lie with another. He’s a bully, to hide his own fear rather than face it.

Well, it’s whatever. I guess I’m a little retrospective today. That power and control gene is a tough one.

I have a nice day planned. Going out to the “Frankie and Johnny” show tonight to hear my good friend sing. Might even put a dress on for it, lol. It’s a beautiful day today, 80° and sunny. I probably need to do some baking for my son in the next day or two. And maybe for our new writer’s group. That should be fun. Think I’ll take a nap this afternoon too. I was up in the middle of the night again last night, and finally took an Ambien. I guess I got some sleep. You know those nights when you wake up and you don’t think you’ve been asleep, but the clock shows the passage of hours….That was me. I don’t want to be falling asleep at the show tonight.

Love and light everyone.

Recognition, Remorse, Repair = Resolution

Posted on by learning to live like water

I woke up at 1 AM last night, on the nose. And as so often happens, my mind tried to resolve unresolved issues. Like my ex, who I will have to deal with until he signs the quitclaim he has to sign. The thing is, with him, that I’m sickest of, is him trying to use me to manipulate my son into talking with him. I don’t do it, won’t do it, but I’m so tired of him going around and around in long, ridiculous circular conversations about it. I’ve said I was going to block him, when this last legal thing is done. I hope I can follow through on that.

The reason I say “hope” is because I don’t know if I have the heart to cut him off from his only access to even know how his son’s doing. However…..his actions have been, and probably always will be, about control. My problem is that I know his need to control things come from the shame he feels that he’s not worthy of unconditional love. He was brought up in a household where love was earned, and could be taken away, and often was, on top of being extremely abusive both physically and verbally. This was an upper middle-class family, he grew up in material wealth, and was taught that it was what was important. To understand that, is to feel sorry for him, because it so messed up his own life.

However, he was so abusive to both my son and I, I have to eliminate him from our lives. Just have to. My son has, for all intents and purposes. And I will too. My idea in the middle of the night was that I would send him a letter, so that he couldn’t talk over me, or pretend he didn’t hear me. And tell him that he is cut out of my life because of he has never acknowledged, owned, or apologized for what he did to us. I will list some of the things he did, so he has to look at them.  He apparently does not know that I know he physically abused my son as well as emotionally and verbally abused him. My son told me, when he came to live with me. I will tell him that I know. Then I will tell him that until he is able to accept responsibility for what he did, he needs to stay away from me. And I will suggest, that until he can do it for his son, he won’t be welcome in his life either.

This way, I can eliminate him but also give him a path back. I cannot deal with his absolute insanity. His re-writing of history. His tales he weaves to manipulate and draw me back in. The lies. So many lies. I am grateful my son has been able to just eliminate him, because he knows that’s all his dad will try to do to him. I’ve kept that door open out of compassion for my ex, but I think I need to put it in proper perspective, and hold him responsible for his behavior in a much stronger way.

I’m going to prepare the letter to him, and send it as soon as the sale of my slip is completed. I just have to do something to keep the dogs from barking on my phone (his ringer is dogs barking), blind-siding me, filling me with dread, triggering PTSD from all the years of abuse I suffered from him. I need to take my power back, and put the truth out on the table with him, again. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, but with the passage of time, he seems to think that the slate is wiped clean. I want to make it clear that until he can recognize, feel remorse, and attempt to repair the damage he did to our lives, and even moreso to his own, that the slate will remain engraved.

Once I figured out what I would do, I almost got up and wrote him the letter. Then, decided it didn’t need doing at that moment, and that I needed sleep more immediately, since a friend is coming over this morning, and because I have open mic night tonight, and I have to get to Walmart today too. I have probably a week until this sale is completed. Instead of getting up, I relaxed and fell back to sleep.

Resolution to issues is always a good thing. You can’t always get it with the other person, as in this case. But you can get it with yourself, and decide on a pathway that will give you peace of mind. You can eliminate toxic people from your life. It seems I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. All of them have a way back if they want to take it. Recognition, remorse, and repair. Real change. And if they don’t want to take it….well, love and light to them. I hope they are able to find peace with themselves and their actions but they are not welcome in my life, until they can do those three things. Recognition of what they did, real remorse for what they did, the kind of remorse that causes real change in behavior, and then, repair of the damage.

Resolution is a good thing. Love and light everyone.

Uncomplicated Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

“Think of someone you love who is uncomplicated to love,” the meditation guide instructed. I thought, of course, of my son. And as thoughts are liable to do, immediately after my son, I thought of my mother. And then of my father. And then of my two sisters.

All of them, uncomplicated to love, and to be loved by.

I have never known different with my family. Even when we had our disagreements, our rough patches, I never doubted that we loved each other, and that if pressed, we would be there for each other. Ever.

How friggin’ blessed I am, is something I’ve come to know as an adult. Really not until I was well past the half-way mark of my life did I realize the depth of that blessing.

I remember back when I just assumed all families were like mine. It seemed incongruous that my best friend’s father (at age 12) could put belt marks on her legs, but he did. She didn’t make a big deal of it, so no one else did. I can’t imagine what it was like, to be a 12 year old, going through puberty, and have your father take a belt to you. I remember my own father, at times in his frustration with my misbehavior as a child, raising his hand. That, the raised hand, was enough to make me know I better stop what I was doing, or saying. He never brought it down on me. I think it would have killed him to hit me.

I was SO naive.

I have known and loved men who were beaten by their fathers, whose mothers stood by and watched, thus enabling the brutality of a child. I think I made it my quest to prove to them that they were lovable, that they were in reality, as deserving of unconditional love as much as anyone. I wanted to convince them that it is possible for someone to love them purely, with no conditions. I cannot imagine a more painful thing to live with than the belief that you innately do not deserve love and belonging. Would it not instill false shame, to think you weren’t worthy of your parents love? And shame is such a destructive emotion.

I was unable to achieve this. It took me a long time to actively give up the quest. And that in itself, is not a good basis for a relationship anyway. There is no common ground. But, I love them, still. And wish they could see themselves the way I saw them. I wish they knew that all the love they think they missed is inside them now, given to them as a divine right. No one can take it from anyone else.

My childhood friend, has somehow managed to retrieve a relationship with her siblings now. They are very close. She has held onto the friendships of her youth. She’s coming to see me, and our other friend who lives in Daytona across the state, in January. This group of girls is like my family. They reconnected with me after about 40 years, and we picked up where we left off.

I think though, that it is part of my soul’s journey to love others the way that I’ve been loved. Am loved. It’s always the underlying emotion, the baseline. If I’ve loved you, I will always love you. If I never see you again, I will always love you, always wish the best for you, always feel the pain I know you feel and always send out whatever I can to assuage it. I may not like your behavior, I may choose to withdraw from it, but the love I felt, only came through me. I did not create it, I just channeled it. And will continue to do so, actively or passively.

So this was my post-meditation blog. Kind of a deep, heavy meditation, and it seems I’ve been doing a lot of reflection and introspection around this broader subject lately. I hope I’m not boring….not bringing the kiss of death on myself, lol.

Love and light, all.

Why Is It So Hard

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

Why is it so hard
to say, “I fucked you over”?
How do you even know
Who you are
If you can’t own it?

Is it worth losing people?
People who loved you?
A son, a lover
Because the shame is so strong
For what?

Hold onto that shame
And lose everyone who ever loved you.
Lose everything that ever meant anything.
Because you can’t stand the shame
so you lie, you steal
You rewrite history
To avoid feeling the shame.

Your son has no father
Your wife has no husband
You have your pet shame
You hide it in the closet,
But with every word you say
The closet door cracks open
And the shame creeps out and
Stinks up your world.

Would that you could own it.
And we could embrace you
And tell you we are ok.
And tell you we loved you anyway
And that shame is no friend.

Lies, fear, shame,
Causing so many people so much pain.
Why? Because you can’t own it.
So no one ever trusts you.
No one ever knows you.
Not me, not her, not him.
So you walk through this world alone.
Your whole life
Miserable, unhappy.
Believing shame, when it tells you
You don’t belong
and you don’t deserve love.

If you only knew
If you only could see
How simple it is to leave it.

Let it go, own it
Send it to the universe
To atone.
Join life again.

Still Waiting…..

Posted on by learning to live like water

Waiting-

Maybe I’m just tired tonight. It’s getting late for me, because I’m up so early. Maybe it’s because I was alone all day.

But I’m sad. Just, sad. I miss him, and I don’t. I remember how I loved him and I don’t anymore, but I miss loving him. I used to be able to call his name in my head, and I’d hear from him. I don’t now. I think about calling him that way, and then every version of the conversation that could possibly take place runs through my head and it’s never good, it never serves any purpose except to re-open old wounds.

I wish I could just let go. I wish I had no connection to him except the 18 months that I knew him. I wish I never knew what he felt, and I wish I had never called his name and had him answer. I wish he’d never said to me, “if something happened to you, I’d know. I’d just know.” Because if that’s true, he knows right now how my heart aches. And I believe it’s true, that he knows. Because I know when his does.

Right now, I know he doesn’t blame me, he doesn’t hate me. But he never wants to talk to me again, because it reminds him of how utterly stupid and self-absorbed and self-centered he is. And what he lost because of it. He knows he cannot hide from me, because he knows that my soul and his recognize each other over the lifetimes, even if he says, “We can’t know that…” Instead of me reminding him of the light that shines somewhere under all those layers of darkness that he hides under, I remind him of how he put his own interests ahead of everyone, and ended up with nothing and no one. A barren landscape that once held so much promise.  I never wanted to bring him shame. 

Why do I even care? I am strong, independent. I have created my life so that I can live it out the way I want to, and don’t need anyone. But I wanted him, I think that has gone on for a very long time. I knew this when we met, I knew that I already knew him.

I read a couple of old blogs from the 3 days over which the truth became known in November. I don’t know why I read them, maybe I was just trying to keep the memory of my disgust, my amazement at the depth of what he did, alive so I wouldn’t miss him, so I’d see how utterly without conscience he was.

I remembered all of that, but then I also remembered when I loved him. I also remembered when the end started, and I also remembered how I kept asking him to just let me go. I remembered how it unraveled slowly all summer and then he let it build back up, he pretended we were going to be together in the way I’d dreamed of for months. He let my emotions crescendo, maybe because he wanted to feel how much I loved him just one last time, just before he destroyed me.  It’s hard for me to imagine that he didn’t purposefully cause me all that pain.

I found this poem I wrote one week after I last talked to him, the day that she got my letter and I told him he was dead to me.  I’m going to put it here again, because I think it’s pertinent to the way I feel tonight. It’s called “Awaiting Transformation”

Day dawns,

First light glows the horizon

Soft pink

Where heaven meets earth.

The sky still indigo directly above,

With one solitary star still visible

On this cold clear November morning.

The trees are bare,

The earth in New England settles down

For a long winter nap.

All of the the past year’s leaves and flowers

Lay on the ground

Ready to begin their transformation.

We mourn their passing,

Yet

At the same time

We know at the first breath of spring

They will arise to become

something once again beautiful.

I will rest with them

Let my heart

Heal in the warm unconditional love

of the universe

All the pieces I have so carefully put back together,

And the ones I have not found yet,

Will meld together again,

Become whole once more.

I will leave the old hurts in the ground with the leaves

Covered in the blankets of snow

Knowing that the spring will come.

Awaiting transformation.

 

Stardust Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

We-Are-Stardust

It’s another weird late December morning.  It will reach 60° again today, though it looks like the last warm day.  The world is shrouded in fog, and my head too is a little foggy from the late night last night and the wine.  It’s a peaceful kind of foggy though.

No pressure today, no ghosts of the past filling me with longing this morning.  Nor the demons of shame, or guilt, for my part in what happened.  I loved, that’s all.  I loved deeply, intensely, without limit, beyond reason.  I don’t now, I will again. And today, I will let it go at that.

It’s easy to see our flaws when we look backward.  It’s easy to chastise ourselves.  But why?  We are all the same thing, the universe manifesting itself through us.  We are here to evolve, to grow, to learn.  Bitterness will take away the beauty of the lessons we learn.  I choose to hold them dear to my heart, so that as the future unfolds, greater joy will come into it because I didn’t waste the lessons.  I didn’t waste the time.

Like my current favorite teacher Brene Brown says, (and I am paraphrasing), we are hard-wired for struggle, we come into this life that way.  But we are also, from the moment of our conception and for no reason other than we exist, worthy of love and belonging.

I have read  a few blogs this morning about shame, our personal shame, and how excruciating it is.  Let me say, that verbalizing the shame, and not burying it, is the only way through it.  Allow others to feel empathy for us, because empathy is the death of shame.  Iyanla Van Zant says those things that we bury do not die.  They rot and they fester and they will make us sick.

I believe in putting our shameful experiences out there.  I believe in sending the energy to the universe, and that the universe, as a loving parent of us all, will atone, and make right what we did.  I believe that in owning our stories, we gain strength, and perspective, and understanding and compassion.  More importantly, we also make connection possible.

Shame isolates us.  Owning our stories, and letting go of the shame connects us.  To feel isolated, is to feel separate from others.  How can we be separate, when we are all created from the same stardust?   Shame, and isolation is us not believing we are worthy.

We are.  Each and everyone of us.

 

 

Christmas Eve Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

love and belonging

Before I went to bed last night I used my very unscientific method of confirming my feelings about knowing him from a past life, I asked my pendulum, both of them.  LOL.  They both said, yes, we have known each other in past lives.  They both said yes, I was supposed to remind him of who he was.  But no, I was not supposed to bring him back from the darkness.

Which is a relief…..Because I did my best, while we were together, to tell him that he had a beautiful soul, and that I could see it.  The darkness, the things that have happened to him in his life, have obscured it, in his own mind.  I always saw it, and even now, I know that it was his insatiable need to be loved that made him deceive.  I know his holes are so deep that he just couldn’t let go.  Such erroneous thinking.

Ruin is a gift, S.  It is the only way to begin transformation. I know he’s saying “bullshit” to that, lol.  But it’s true.  The trip back from the darkness is his to undertake, when he’s sick of having his life go wrong.

I saw him, I still see him…I forgive his inability to believe enough in himself to tell the truth.  I do know that the person the most hurt by all he did was himself.  So, the fact that I made sure she knew the truth is secondary.  If there had been nothing to tell, he wouldn’t be there.

The fact that I’m sure he blames me for the misery he’s in now….well, honestly, what he thinks of me is none of my business.

My ex has the same issues, of not believing anyone could love him based on his own merit.  And blaming me. He never was with another woman, but he lied about finances, about what he was doing, about his life, about his successes and failures, and blamed everyone else for everything.  In the end, everything was my fault, and still is, I know.  I really want to take him some Christmas food today.  I will try, but honestly, I don’t even know if he’s even living in the same place.  I’ll try, as long as I can do it without running into him.  I haven’t seen him in about 2 years, though I’ve talked to him during that time.  But I just don’t want to come face to face and have to talk to him.  It would be uncomfortable for us both.

I have considered inviting him over for the holiday.  But first, my son and he have no relationship.  My son is content that way, even though I know he’s avoiding feeling all the stuff that he had to deal with with his father.  I could not do that to my son. He’s made a lot of progress, and is a great kid, but he’s not ready to deal with his father’s abuse.

I also know that my ex believes everything we had together, all of the money and possessions, were his, not ours….so the fact that I have a lovely home while he lost everything he had because he borrowed so much money and thought he’d never have to pay it back, would just anger him.  He really thought he could lie his way out of of having to pay the money back.  He would look at me and think this house is really his, that it was bought with his money.  The fact that I worked side by side with him for 25 years, and then for 10 more ran his business while he descended into severe alcoholism, means nothing to him. I was there to serve him, not to partner with him.  I’m just so grateful that I got out before he threw it all away and was able to salvage enough to have a nice life for my son and myself.

So I have to leave him alone.  But I’d still like to bring him something, so he’d know we were thinking of him.  He can use that information however he wants, to build his ego or to regret his actions that caused him to lose us.

I got a message from a guy on a dating site this morning.  His profile just made me laugh, it was so obviously a spoof on profiles.  It’s too bad he lives a little too far outside my geographic area, about an hour and a half or so from me.  But God, I hope I actually find someone who has a sense of humor like that.  It would be so much fun.

It seems I mostly get messages from men who live in California, Arizona, Texas….lol.  One this morning from Manitoba Canada, lol.  I live on the east coast, it’s pretty densely populated here.  But most of the profiles I come across are so boring!  Where are all the funny, alive men?  That was the attraction with S, he made me laugh and he was never boring.  If he just could have been honest, geez….

Well time to wrap gifts.  Make cakes. Clean up the kitchen, the house.  My son is working all day, so won’t be home til this evening.  It will be a nice low-key evening and I’m looking forward to it.

Happy Christmas Eve to all.

 

Guilt vs. Shame

Posted on by learning to live like water

Guilt-vs-shame-1024x744.jpg

I’m unsettled this morning, though I don’t know why.  I’m irritated I broke my tail light lense on something I couldn’t even see in an unlit parking lot.  Backing up and turning.  This morning it’s raining so I’ll have to tape it up with plastic to keep the rain out ofit.  Grr.

I haven’t talked to my bff about her plan to put together some program that will benefit seniors, so I need to do that today.  I know that will help me move forward more than anything.

Last night the book club talked about why people who lie, and take, and deceive do it.  We all had someone in our lives that have done that. Was it for the thrill, for getting away with it?  Was it for the power, to feel “in control” of things?  I said, I really believe in Marianne Williamson’s and A Course in Miracles stand, that what is not love is fear.  And fear gives the ego rise.  The ego will convince someone who has doubt, that they are not worthy.  That the only way they can have people in their life is to manipulate them in, to lie to them.  The belief that you are not worthy of love and belonging, causes shame, it causes the belief that you are not worthy.

And shame…. is the most destructive of all human emotions.  Guilt can be productive, guilt says, “What I did was bad.”  Shame says, “I am bad.”

Those that purport to wish to be alone, like my ex-husband, really only believe they are not worthy of love, and are alone to hide their shame.  Better he should be alone, I guess, than trying to do to someone else what he did to me.  But the best outcome, would be if he could recognize his own worth, the beauty of his own soul, and let it shine.

S said to me, when he was trying to get me to help him with Betty, “I know I will pay 5 lifetimes for what I did to you.”  He doesn’t understand that at any point, even now, he can choose to change, he can own, and apologize and try to make right, and thus learn the lesson that he obviously missed.  Karma isn’t about paying.  It’s about learning the lesson, and if you don’t, you will repeat it, until you do.  The same situations will appear and reappear until you learn the lesson.

S was so similar to my ex, I believe that he showed up in my life to finish teaching the lesson that my ex started.  I hope I’ve learned the whole lesson now.

I think the first part, with my ex, was the power of unconditional love manifested in setting my son free.  The second part was to love yourself with that love, enough to learn not to give yourself away, to make a person earn the trust.  To honor yourself, first, always.

I hope I’m done with this lesson, and with men who can’t love.

The lesson, whatever it may be…..while hard to learn, is such a beautiful thing, and life can change so dramatically when you learn to honor and love yourself, and let that spread to others.

Shame is not necessary.  We all do better when we know better, that’s called evolving.  Guilt, for something you have done wrong, is a message from your soul, telling you to change.

One day at work, someone asked me a to do something that clearly was their job, and clearly not mine, and I was already overwhelmed with the work I had to do.  I very unkindly told this person that it was their job to do, and not to get me involved, etc. etc.  Making them feel stupid, I’m sure.  Even though I was right, I was cruel.  I hung up the phone, (I was in a different part of the building) and within less than a minute realized what I’d done.

I called this person back, and said, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.

Guilt….made me see what I did to her.  Not shame, I didn’t feel shame that I did it, I felt guilt.  And the guilt drove me to fix it.  My co-worker and I laughed about it later.

I believe the only way to get rid of shame, is to stop listening to the ego tell you you are not worthy, and begin to reconnect with your soul, your true spirit, which in all of us, is connected to the one great thing.  Love. Begin that journey, and watch your life change.

Guess I’m feeling philosophical this morning, lol.  Book club is good for me.

BEWARE

Posted on by learning to live like water

Beware Some People Will Sell You A Dream And Deliver A Nightmare

Beware of Those Who Play Their Cards Close to their Chest

Because they are lying to everyone. They only tell you so much, so they can manipulate your thinking about who they are. And then they go on to the next person, and only tell them so much, so they can manipulate that persons thinking just as they did yours.

I was a secret. No one knew about me. Oh, he told me they did, a long time ago. But I was never introduced. I never met his kids. I never met his friends. If they called while I was in the car he either didn’t mention me, or said he wasn’t alone, but never, that he was with me. How stupid could I be? After a year……

Meanwhile…I was falling in love with the person he coached me on. I was writing all the secretiveness off to “he’s just not ready yet…” making excuses for him. Like an idiot. Like a fool.

After all, he took me to his “special places”. Bullshit, special. Bullshit. They were just beautiful places that he knew, from living there forever. It was just part of setting me up to love him.

For 2 weeks I reminded him a 3 day weekend was coming up. I was met each time with, “It’s 2 weeks away…..” I reminded him my son would be gone, I’d have the house to myself. I had visions….hopes….dreams….

But what I got was….an offer to come here for an afternoon. And a lot of grief again, for wanting to plan ahead, to plan for more.

Last week we met and talked, I did not want to be friends with benefits. If that’s what he wanted then we should split up. If he doesn’t know what he wants, then he should figure it out, by himself, and if he wanted to, check in with me when he knew.

Yesterday after explaining and re-explaining it for 36 hours…that I was not interested in an afternoon. A “nice afternoon” as he put it. That was the offer. After 5 or 6 times of saying “Look either come for the night and the day tomorrow or don’t come….” He finally told me he had a “family BBQ” at his ex wife’s that night, and wanted to watch the Indy 500 on tv tomorrow.

As if he didn’t know this 3 days ago. After playing me all day and night and morning this morning, bitching at me for wanting to make plans, for never being satisfied, for trying to control things.  All the while withholding information so that he could manipulate and control me.

He’s been hiding this, trying to manipulate me into believing that I am too demanding,that I want too much, because I wanted to spend time with him.  He probably went to his “family BBQ” and played the poor guy who’s girlfriend of 13 years left him last January after he put in a new kitchen for her out of his own pocket, and then got married. Never let them know he was in the process of fucking over a woman who adored him.

Gee….I wonder how sick the girlfriend was of his games. Imagine 12 or 13 years of this.

Me…I only lost a year to him. Believing his lies to me about how he was open to whatever happened. He was open to whatever he managed to make happen, which was to pull me from someone who really loved me, just to do it, and then use me for his own pleasure. How often did we lay together, and the next morning he would tell me how I “scared” him, how he was afraid of the feelings he had for me, and how he didn’t want to be in love or in a relationship.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I loved him unconditionally. I made excuses for him every time. I made myself vulnerable. I put myself on the table, emotionally naked and brave, for him to use. Believing that he wouldn’t AB-use me. I was there on every dark day he had. When he had to have surgery, even though he’d fucked the prison whore 2 weeks before, I was there for him. When his best friend died, and he hadn’t talked to me in days, I was there for him.

Because I loved him.

Stupid stupid me.

He didn’t and wasn’t ever going to love me. He wasn’t man enough to walk away from me. He liked the attention. He liked the adoration. He liked my eagerness. He liked what I could do for him. Even though he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it for me.

I loved him anyway

Stupid stupid me.

Allowing myself to be a secret. Allowing someone to use my sexuality for their own pleasure, with no care about how he was using me.

One of these days I will stop beating myself up over being so stupid. But not for a few days.. I drowned my shame in a bottle of rum, last night.  Good rum.  Gosling’s Black Label.  There’s enough left for the rest of the weekend

Gonna try to forget what a foolish woman I am.

Beware of those men, and women, who hold their cards close to their chest. They are full of deceit. And they will hurt you.