Zelda - Baby One More Time

[Zelda09]

Well, I've got range, anyway. Cold War Kids, Britney Spears, you know...

This thread is titled as such out of pure honesty for the battle in my heart lately.

I was mostly ok for a while and now I just cry. SOMEHOW I WANT HIM BACK. Dear Lord in Heaven, what is wrong with me? And this is where I need to confront that yes, I am codependent, enabling and basically ready for another cycle if he were to show the slightest interest.

Imagining that him not signing those papers wasn't the big cruel game I thought, it wasn't the inaction of a confused and messed up man, but it was him really thinking about what he'd done...come on, get real Zelda. Every, every single fact I have on hand supports the cold hard truth, the reality, not the hopeful ramblings inside my head.

I am 4 months past the big event, and as my anger has left me, and I have struggled to forgive without the apology I'll never receive...I feel my heart opening again. Trying to see and understand the point of view he must have had, DR style.

Vanilla and I had started an abuse thread a while back. This is me, yearning for the sweet cycle to begin again. Crying my eyes out almost daily. Fighting the urge to minimize, deny, rationalize the truth of it all. To go rescue him after hearing from paralegals and mediators that he didn't want his divorce.

Well, when I heard it, I did reach out, with an offer that I would stand for our M if counseling, and for a guy that didn't want his divorce...he shut me down with 'Zelda, I disagree and will not try to contact you.' STBX speaks out of one side of his mouth with one audience, another with me.

So. Here I am trying to hold to rational foundations and not the emotional tug.


A. There is no reason to think anything will change if he doesn't want to change. Abuse tactics changed, and that was all that did for six years. Even if he came back, we would have more of the same and I do not want it in my life. The past was sweet but it was also a heart wrenching roller coaster once or twice a month.

B. I am dodging a bullet and there is nothing to fear about the future without him. This is a new beginning.

C. As much as DR inspired self-change can help change the dance, this is different. I must not doubt myself or blame myself for causing his behaviors and reactions. I'm simply not that powerful. And I didn't deserve what he did to me, or him giving up.

I admit to being rigid and easily upset, and I wonder if I had dished out my own emotional abuse in the past. Criticism, lack of empathy in the face of his irrationality.

But I must honor the way it really was to live with him and my own feelings about it, even if there are changes to be made. I believe he was borderline personality - aimless, unemployed, volatile, abstract, erratic lashing out even at friends, alternately sugary sweet or raging, depressed, full of fog and weak grip on reality and how the world works. Trying to be compassionate in the face of this felt like being a therapist, a mother, and putting my own feelings on the shelf as to not disturb him. I felt like I had a tremendous weight around my neck. My journal tells me that I felt disrespected and taken for granted and that he stopped caring a long time ago.

D. Even if his was reactive abuse to my anger, he doesn't want to be here and I have pursued enough. I must drop the rope. Truly trust the outcome.

E. Love is not enough. Love is a lot of chemicals in my head, and just because this hurts and I am grieving - it doesn't mean the M is worth saving. Just because it hurts doesn't mean I am losing something wonderful. It hurts because I have the ability to deeply attach and because I believed we were soulmates.

(Some soulmate.

But you all would understand if you ever saw him, if you looked into his eyes when he was deeply listening, if you heard him sing to you in his boxers, if he got up at 4am just to make you breakfast before you left for work each day, if you felt the way it was to be loved by him and if your heart broke for his constantly breaking heart. If you felt those big hugs and dreamt all those dreams with him, if he built you a giant easel, anything you wanted, and got behind your dreams and all that emotional support, you'd understand how much I put up with, how I never walked away for good six years ago when he shoved me off of that dock and walked around the party telling my best friends what a who** I was...)