It’s been almost a year since we stood in our driveway and he talked to me like I was a stranger. His whispering voice, his head tilt, his robotic movements. His announcement that he was keeping the house, he had changed the locks. I didn’t know him anymore. 24 years of knowing him and in this one moment I was absolutely terrified of him forever.
We’ve been communicating through attorneys. I’m sure his tactic is to tell his very little and direct her. I have been hiding, not doing enough research. Letting my fear guide me. I’m the opposite of him, I can’t throw myself into strategy. It makes me feel like a moron.
The fear has kept me in my rental, mostly napping, reading and journaling. I only do enough work to squeak by (for now). I’m having a full blown awakening and I had no idea it would be this painful and lonely. Sleep seems to be the only thing that brings me relief. That and copious amounts of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The huge realization I’m having is that you don’t start actually healing until you feel safe. Until the anxiety and the toxic energy is removed from your realm. I’m coming out of the constant production of stress hormones and the clarity is draining and overwhelming. This is radical acceptance and pure surrender.
I’m also realizing he was a narcissist. He was a parasite, sucking my good energy, my empathy, my labor and my love directly from me, leaving me with nothing. Because of my programming, I just tried harder, did more, absorbed more of his toxic behavior and energy. And here I am on the other side, with nothing to show for it.
I mourn this. I am accepting this. I believed I was participating in building a life, a big picture, deferring the rewards, deferring the gratitude and creating something bigger than myself that required sacrifice and teamwork. But, my teammate wasn’t trying. He wasn’t putting in a fraction of what I was putting in. He wasn’t sacrificing, going without, crying before intimacy and feeling totally invisible. I was.
I’m finally seeing that he wasn’t participating in our marriage. He was fighting it. He wanted a subservient mommy with benefits, I wanted to build a legacy for both of us. He wanted to spend “his” money on collectibles, camera equipment and things for his own pleasure. I wanted to invest in things, build equity, help people, be proud of what we had accomplished together in life.
I can only imagine what we could have been if he would have sacrificed, if he would have supported me as I had supported him. If I would have received the kindness, help and accolades that I showered him with. Could you imagine what we could have been if we would have worked together? I mourn the loss of that. I mourn it all.
And I mourn him. Who I pretended he was. Benevolent, wanting to know me, caring about my safety. He only wanted my body and my servitude. Nothing else.
So I sit here on a rainy Sunday filled with stress, a tension headache that won’t go away. My eyes, jaw and head throbbing from being so tight and bracing for the next email from my attorney. I’m growing spiritually and emotionally by leaps and bounds, but I didn’t know I would be mourning who I thought I was, what I thought I was building for four decades, my place in the world, how my energy would be given and received.
I was used. I was discarded. I wasn’t seen. I was a ghost. He never cared about me or respected me… meanwhile, I was toiling and going without. Without love, care, encouragement or even being heard. And now I have to let it all go and surrender.
But, silver lining, I am walking away from that old life with new eyes. Strength. Trusting my instincts again. Getting to finally know who I am. I just had *no* idea this would be so exhausting, no idea at all.
