Much thinking last night and this morning...and woke this morning feeling like I just had to talk with B and clarify things. We've not talked once since she moved out - well, not talked as calm adults, at least...we did have those conversations in which she attacked me and threated to call the police again...but I'm setting that aside right now to focus on what I have to do....
I asked her to talk with me tonight - so that we can at least begin to iron out the details of what happens next. Long ago I had said that if she ever told me she wanted to get help and find a way to work on herself as I am working on myself that I would have given us a chance - it's now become very clear to me that she's not interested in finding out more about herself - and that she has settled into her way of being and is (perhaps, I don't really know) - happy with herself as she is.
I look back on our time together and see the joy, the sadness and the pain - I also see the extent to which I allowed our situation to get worse by playing into it on my own - and I recognize that the only way for me to have learned what I've learned over these last few months was to go through this dismantling of my life.
When I speak whit B tonight it won't be with the idea of trying to reconcile or to ask her if she's sure this is what she wants -that's up to her - I just want to let her know that I care about her, that I recognize the value of her decision to leave - and that I want to find a way to communicate with one another that ensures the best possible outcome for our baby boy. Right now, with her behavior, I worry that she cannot see the value of my role as his father - and that she just has to demonize me so completely in her mind that she just doesn't see the difference between who I am and who she thinks I am.
Over the last couple months I've had more glimpses of just how destructive her father can be - and the kind of black and white, harmful and dysfunctional world he inhabits...I don't like the man - in fact my pity for him often approaches a genuine disgust with him - and I used to wonder how B could have been raised under his specter and still come out all right...of course, I usually just thought she was okay when things were happy - as I had a great ability to let go of the ways in which she was/is far too similar to her father - and its those similarities that strike me the most these days...
She used to tell me about how her father would scold them at dinner if they didn't pass dishes around the table in the right direction (he had that direction wrong, btw, at least if he intended to go by the lead of the Queen of England) - and despite knowing that, B would always be harsh toward my S11 at the dinner table. She would tell me how he would treat her like an obstacle and a burden - which is how she treats my S11 - and also how she accuses me of treating her...(which is sad, because I sometimes did think of her as a burden...though I often thought she knew exactly what she was doing when her actions became burdensome).
And there's her anger...her father has a horrible, just a horrible amount of anger in him - and though he'll put on a facade for his customers and people that intimidate him - he'll unleash his anger in the most disgusting ways on anyone that works for him - or anyone in his family...and B seems to have taken a large share of that anger into herself as well...
I'm just clearing my head here...not trying to analyze or makes excuses for anything...just clearing my head so that I can focus on letting her know that I also recognized the best in her over the years. I fell in love with a wonderful person - and I married a great person - and that part of her will hopefully emerge as her more dominant self one day - It just won't happen with me in her life. Our love, our marriage, is, I suppose, the casualty of my growth and hers...though I don't know if her growth is happening at all, since she seems, instead, to be retreating into her role as the dutiful daughter to the enabling, manipulative and abusive parents...
So why am I going to talk with her tonight? Because I am moving out of this house...because I see this move as a statement of finality - as the end/death of our marriage - and I want to let her know that I don't hold it against her - that I'm not angry with her - and that I wish her the best. I hope she finds herself someday and finds a way to work through the pain that stifles her...
