More points to ponder...

[wishing, hoping]

Thank you AJ.

I had another brainstorm when driving into work this morning. I thought about my mother and my stepfather and H's interactions with them. And I started to connect the dots. Whenever my mom or stepdad would have a close friend come over (or even my own brothers for that matter) and do something for them, if my mom or stepdad gave them money or did something nice for them H would get angry and tell my mom or stepdad how those people were "users" and taking advantage of them. I remember a pretty specific incident with my stepdad where H did some talking and my stepdad had a falling out with a friend he had for years. Then I think how we never really had any close friends. Or if we did have good friends suddenly H would start bad-mouthing them and we wouldn't do things with them anymore. I remember how he would bad-mouth my friends. He would always do this in a very subtle way. Kind of like a snowball effect. When I started re-connecting with old friends on Facebook, H couldn't bad mouth friends he knew nothing about, so he started bad-mouthing Facebook in general, but in reality a lot of the interactions I had were with his own family. Which he would bad-mouth as well.

H is poison to relationships. He is toxic. I know this is obvious to many of you, but it goes back a ways into our history together. And when another puzzle piece fits into place it is like a huge AHA moment for me. He is jealous and insecure. He is absolutely incapable of making and maintaining relationships that are meaningful and not superficial. And whenever someone "close" to him develops a relationship with another person (as innocent and innocuous as it may be) H is threatened and he feels the need to stifle that other relationship. This explains another part of the reason why H hates my attorney so much. My attorney and I have a relationship. It's professional, but that doesn't matter to H. That is one of the many reasons why H is trying to disprove my attorney and cause me to lose faith in him.

This is nuts. And like I said, not a huge surprise to any of you, but it's part of the healing for me. And it's part of the breakdown of our relationship. It doesn't just apply to me. It is why he has to bash his other family members in front of his mother. It is why he criticizes his co-workers in front of his boss. It is why he talked down about my friends and family to me. He will probably do this to the kids in the future unless I instill some preventative measures and speak truth to them often.

I almost feel like I am cleansing my soul. Purging of the negative energy and the toxic vibes. I do need some physical activity to help release the toxicity of this relationship. I never realized how toxic it was until I stepped away.

WH