After the Storm...

[Treasur]

Hi OwnIt, maybe we're at similar points. I've found with letting go that it goes in steps, but at each step I grieve again a little bit. I've gone backwards the last couple of days. The house is a mess. I'm a mess. Not sleeping or eating again. Flashbacks. Even the cat is ignored.

For me it's because I had to push him to force myself to test - and see - what was BS. And it hurt to have to see that his real priority is to be a free man, or free of our M anyway. That his talk of conversation and mess and salvaging were about excuses without remorse, and that he still has no interest or care for how much he has wounded me and destroyed the life I thought I had. He thinks his behaviour has been 'far from good'...we'd use different words. In his head, it is an act of post-D tidying up and he has no interest in seeing me afterwards. Ever. He said that was because he presumed I would never forgive him and wouldn't want to...but actually I could hear that was BS, he just doesn't want to. For him, me and our M are now distant history.

I'm proud that I didn't buy the BS. I'm proud that I was brave enough to look at the painful truth. I'm proud that I changed course, detached, cut through the BS, said no and came up with a solution that keeps it going through the Ls without contact. I'm proud that I didn't scream or cry. I'm really proud that I ignored the fake flicker of what I longed for and protected myself from being manipulated by it.

And I'm a bit angry that I spent yesterday dealing with admin that is protecting me but also tidying up his mess. I had to because he can't be trusted but still it seems unfair. It hurt me more to close down an old bank account than it did to take my rings off, funnily enough.

The harsh truth that we all have to balance is that the person we loved was real, and they loved us. But it is also true that the MLC version is a dark part of them too, their shadow. Part of the H I loved and trusted is also capable of extraordinary cruelty and spite and pompous entitlement. Both things are true. A friend of ours, who really loved my H, kept trying to reach out to him for well over a year. He ignored her too. She said that she had wondered if the friend she knew was ever real. Lisa isn't given to deep analysis; she's a pretty straightforward horsy country girl. She said
"I think it's as if being with you brought out his best self because he had to be good enough for you. Left in charge of his own life, maybe this is the real him that he would have been if he'd never met you and it isn't a great person, is it? He's not making a great job of his life. Like the difference between wearing a suit for work and what you look like in your old torn sweatpants. Maybe he was never good enough for you, or as my friend. Neither of us would like or trust him if we met him now, would we?"
There is maybe something in that. It fits the MLC idea that someone goes back to (ideally) move forwards.

I've been very tough with my reflections looking back, as I'm sure you have. Could I honestly have seen this coming? Really, I couldn't and everyone who knew him was as shocked as me. Did I love a fake? I don't think so, no-one can fake for almost two decades, but maybe I got the best of him not the dark bits. Was marrying him a mistake? Maybe, but I wouldn't wish a moment of those years away and I didn't rush into it, we'd been together for 6 years. Was it the age difference? Maybe him being only 18 when we met encouraged me to believe his FOO fractured bits, and I knew they were there, would strengthen naturally as he got older. Maybe it meant that he tied his ship to mine before he had time to design his own. Having said that, I honestly believe that the extraordinary strength of love was shared for almost two decades; I didn't imagine it and it was mutual. Even now, I can close my eyes and remember the delight on his face just because I existed and vice versa. If we hadn't got together, I think he would have had a breakdown in his 20s and be as he is now. Would that have been better or worse? Who knows. Less to damage in some ways, but less maturity or life experience to use to recover.

I think letting go and turning away are different feelings. The finality of turning away feels big. I have spent well over a year, in the face of contrary evidence, hoping that my H's psychiatric treatment would bring him out of the self-destructive fog. Partly because I wanted to believe that he would get better and return to reality. Partly because I was so overwhelmed by the grief of losing my parents too that I was frozen and couldn't call on logic in the way I usually do. Logic screams - whether I like it or not - that my H is currently a damaged toxic child who will hurt himself, me and other people without even noticing. Inviting that into one's life is self-abuse and D is the last step in self-protection. If he ever reaches a point when he returns to being an emotionally-balanced adult - and it could take years and incur much more damage to himself and others - he will need to make contact with me as part of his own healing. And I trust myself enough to know that I will know the difference between that man and the one in play now. It wouldn't be hard to see.

But I also have to move forward from here, rather than his 'move on', assuming that I will never see that because it may never happen. I need to move forward with grace and part of that is not robbing myself of my memories of two decades of my own life. I hope I will be deeply loved again before I die. I know how rare and special it is to be cherished for who you are, and I can't regret that experience.