Update: up and down

[Hojay]

I haven’t posted in a long time, mostly because my SO broke things off with me about three months ago.

I’ve been doing alright. There are moments of great clarity and insight, during which I can see the insanity that were the last three years, how much denial I was in in terms of the severity of his condition and its effects on me. I can see now how much i was pulled into a dynamic that ever so subtly started chipping away at my sense of self and self esteem. I’m not saying he was abusive—he was and is a wonderful guy—but the projections and blame games, the anger, denial, withdrawal, all that took a greater toll than I was able to see while I was in it.

He was aware of this dynamic and tried and tried, all except going back to therapy, which he downright refused after a bad experience. In a way it feels like he chose his own coping mechanism (suppressing) over me. He knew he couldn’t suppress his stuff for any extended time while being with me. “Love” was always the driving force for him to get better, until, I guess, it wasn’t.

So I’ve been focusing on myself, trying to regain my footing, letting go, and it’s been working well for the last three months.

And yet...

We’ve been in touch now over something great happening in my life, something he was deeply involved in while we were together. I owed it to him to tell him what came of it. The communication has been very nice and friendly. He’s been asking more questions and telling me a bit about himself, and it’s been really great and without any misgivings and he told me he’ll be in town in a few weeks and he’d like to see me, and I feel like a completely lost and confused, blubbering mess again.

I realize there’s still so much I don’t understand about what happened. My head understands (maybe more than it should,) but my heart is not catching up to it all. I still seem to think separating wasn’t the only option. I huge part of me just doesn’t understand any of it, really.

I hesitate to open the can of worms with him because I can’t see the conversation make me feel any better. I don’t think I could cope with him telling me it was my fault too and I did this and that, and all the stuff I spent three years listening to that i couldn’t defend myself against even then (mostly because they made such little sense to me and there was nothing I could say or do to make it better.) Sure, I wasn’t perfect but his problems were so out of the realm of “the usual,” I can’t see the two even making sense in the same conversation.

I want to get over this, arrive at some sane and rational conclusion to actually “want” this to be over (and often, when I take some metaperspective on my life, that’s the case,) but there seems to be an element of insight missing for me to really get over it. I just miss him terribly.

 

[Never_falter2]

Hello,
So nice to see you again. I had been wondering what happened to you. I think it is pretty hard for you now but in the long run you might be happier when it is over. You said you wanted kids. I think that this is so much easier with a healthy spouse. Of course I do not know him, I do not know you and it is always difficult to give advise but when you say that you want this to be over if you take a metaperspective it might be better when it is just over.

 

[Hojay]

Thank you for your kind words @Never_falter2. I’m trying hard to get to a point where I can just take comfort in the fact that it’s better this way. It’s just...hard to explain. My head gets it, but my heart is still in complete shock. And I’m in shock that I’m still in shock. I can go days being fine, only thinking about it marginally, and then I wake up one morning and I’m in complete disbelief that all of this happened. And then I don’t understand any of it, end up blaming myself, going through all the things I should have done differently, completely disregarding how difficult things were. “But it was worth it!” my heart screams. Not to him anymore, I guess. But it’s probably a lot more complicated than that, which is where ptsd comes in.

 

[Friday]

I still seem to think separating wasn’t the only option. I huge part of me just doesn’t understand any of it, really.

Of course it wasn’t the only option.

That’s the nature of “best options”. Choosing to do what’s best for your self, by nature, means that there were other options. It wasn’t the only thing you could do.

That tends to f*ck people up sometimes. They can live with it if it’s the only thing they could have done, but making a judgement call and deciding on one course of action amongst many? Hits them where they live. Whether it’s self confidence, or not liking to think of themselves as making judgments, or not liking to put themselves first, or “the grass is always greener” (you know what happened with what you actually did, but you imagine what “might” have happened with the options you didn’t choose and because it’s imaginary it’s all unicorns and rainbows), or, or, or, or.

So personally, I’d look at my hangups... and then work on those. If it’s self confidence? Confidence building activities. Judgements? Be really purposeful about making decisions for awhile, and how necessary they are (these running shoes, instead of those running shoes // this breakfast instead of that breakfast // walk or take the train // etc.) all the hundreds of daily judgment calls I make day in and out that shape my life for he better. Et cetera.

 

[grit]

Nice to hear from you again and thank you for sharing your struggle. It is not easy.

 

[Hojay]

There’s a lot of good stuff in there @Friday, thank you! In this case, the issue is rather that a decision was made for me, based on factors I, in my limited perspective, didn’t think would have necessarily warranted a breakup. So not only am I seeing all the options that could have potentially been better, I wasn’t involved in weighing them. So I somehow have to come to the same conclusion in hindsight, which works well sometimes, sometimes not so much.