I saw H this past Friday, and my first thought "oh, so glad that I'm not spending a Friday night with you... a glass of wine and a book sounds SO MUCH better."
It wasn't smug anger/resentment....more like "whew" when i remembered this past 15 months and the hell it was to live with that man, and even moments of the good H he was. He is a difficult man, and I like not living with that. It's draining, exhausting. It's wonderful to have that energy to myself.
I'm trying now not to spend my freed up time THINKING about him either. B/c that still gives that time/energy to HIM.
Living with an insecure, self-loathing, angry, self-pitying man is draining...and I imagine what it must be like to live with an alcoholic or drug abuser. Draining, like you're always managing a person's life, that they give little back and always trying to avoid THEIR next crisis/meltdown. It's always hoping, beyond hope, that they will change, love you, their family or their own life enough to stop drinking. But, sadly, you finally just have to realize that it's not your job to sit around waiting for that, to help them grow. That you have a life to lead and to live it, and that you CAN get up and walk away.
Doesn't mean that you give up in the future or that you can be together. Just that this journey is theirs alone.
