At the weekend I met up with the wonderful man I'm now with. One of his friends came along too.
I'd met the friend once before, almost a year ago now, and knew a little about his circumstances. The friend had left a M, left a teenage son behind too. Not sure if there was an affair involved on his side, but I think the woman he was with after his M was having an affair. That R didn't last long, as she went back to her H (under a lot of pressure and emotional blackmail).
Anyway, I could tell straight off the friend was a super sociable kind, liked people and liked a drink...a lot.
This weekend we went out to a gig, the three of us (which was great) and then back to my wonderful man's house. I stayed up to 1.00am and then went to bed, leaving them to chat (and drink). I'd had maybe one drink all evening?
Now, I was in no way concerned about what time my wonderful man would come to bed at, and in what kind of state he might come to bed in. It's weird, after a bit of initial concern about what he might be like around alcohol when we first met, it doesn't register with me me *at all* any more. He's just not one of those kinds who goes out and gets really drunk every weekend, or even once a month. For starters, he's way too healthy for that. Anyway, I didn't wake up, or even hear him, when he came to bed. Next morning he told me it had been 3.00am. That's how oblivious I was to it all.
In my previous life, I would have gone to bed really unhappy, as I would have known that my XH would have be up *all* night (until maybe even 8.00am, or 9.00am? Definitely until at least 6.00am), getting really wasted, maybe breaking something (glasses, spilling red wine over the sofa...that sort of thing). I would have been awake for hours, hoping that he would come to bed at some point soon. The next day would have been a total wash out, as he would have spent most of it asleep.
Instead, both us us were totally awake mid morning. He made breakfast for us all and suggested the three of us going out for a nice easy walk. His friend wasn't much up for it initially, but came along and enjoyed it. After the walk, about lunchtime, the friend suggested a drink. We had one (I actually had a diet Coke).
Some of the things the friend said gave a little more insight into his M: he'd drunk a lot, his W/XW would find him created out with alcohol/unconscious on the sofa, he found her very controlling, he was incapable of doing any sort of official paperwork relating to his life (to the extent where he had recently sold his car to someone without giving her the log book and knowing her first name only...no contact phone number, no email address, no address), his W/XW had done everything to do with running the house, his teenage S won't really speak to him now. He said 'the spark had gone' and it had been time to leave.
Did he show any sort of sadness? Or remorse for any of the devastation that he must have caused? No. No sign either of any concept of how much devastation that he probably caused.
As he was talking, describing his M, I could feel myself bristling...so many similarities with my own XH and the M we had/the roles we both played.
Anyway, I think I kept it under wraps and managed to stay relatively neutral, as none of my reaction registered with the friend.
It's weird, all of that seems like a lifetime ago now. I can't quite understand how I put up with it for so, so many years. Maybe I just didn't realise that there was another way of being for me?
And at the same time, it all feels horrendously familiar. So much so, that I could feel my hackles rising when the friend was talking about his M and his drinking.
Just glad I'm so totally out of that whole scenario now. I honestly feel that all of that energy I expended in that stuff is going somewhere much more positive now (on me, my health, good relationships, good and very varied work projects). And I have a ton more energy too.
