Once again, I have let my arrogant, trusting heart bite me in the ass.
In the course of a few days, I dealt with my wedding anniversary—19th, but the first since DH and I separated—as well as the demise of my relationship with Bounder. Again.
I have been over it with him, with the girls, and in my own noisy head about a hundred times. Here was a man who said, “I am done being afraid. I love you. I am committed to you and to this. I want to be with you and not just so I don’t have to be without you. You are wonderful, though you deserve more than I can offer in my damaged, fragile state, but I am willing to try fully to meet you in this, with the goal of moving forward in our life wherever that may lead.”
But when it got real, when I got real and challenged his excuses for being suddenly and irrationally unsupportive and distant, I was told it was my fault—that I was just too much.
At every turn, I was blatantly honest with him. I told him from the very beginning that he would always know where he stood with me, because I would be sure to tell him. I was just as quick to remind him that I loved him and supported him and cared about him as I was to tell him I was upset or unhappy about something. Because of his own damage and his past, it was sometimes hard for him to understand how someone could actively love him, how they could do it not in spite of his plethora of issues but openly and accepting of those as what made him into this enigmatic mix of strength and vulnerability, of hurt and hope, of love and loathing.
Bounder and I met at an incredibly emotional time in our respective lives. We were each in process of divorce, which included the unmitigated difficulty of examining what in each of us had led to the unexpected death of dreams and plans and intentions. But we understood each other like no one else and were instantly, constantly connected. We could often seem to read each other’s thoughts.
When he came to me in June, he asked me if I really wanted this, meaning him and his baggage and the hardships that might come from that. I told him yes, that I loved him and that I was willing to take the risk of being hurt again because the potential for good far outweighed the potential for the bad. I asked him, again, if he was ready to really be in this with me and accept my own flaws and baggage and logistics. He was adamant that he was. But
there was always the issue of his sobriety. I wrote after our initial breakup in the spring that I was pretty sure he was an alcoholic. He denied it then and later. Truthfully, alcoholism can be tricky to determine. There is a difference between having a high tolerance, being a problem drinker, and being an alcoholic. Even when some people drink heavily or regularly, that doesn’t mean they’re alcoholic. It’s the impetus behind the drinking that determines whether it’s a problem or an addiction. There are alcoholics who’ve been dry for long periods of time but who make the same choices, perpetuating the addictive behavior, even without the use of substance. I’ve often heard it referred to as being a “dry drunk”.
Like so many others, he functions well and lives an active, productive life.
“You have to be sober for me,” I said.
“What does that mean to you?”
“You can’t let alcohol or any substance be the thing that allows you to create and maintain emotional distance between us. It can’t be the tool to drive me away.”
But when I needed him, and needed him most, he did just that; he let a drink become the excuse behind why he couldn’t be there for me. He let that be the place to escape his own tormented head and to drive the cycle of self-flagellation.
I know his history intimately and fully understand like almost no one else how and why he came to this place in his life. So much of our respective pasts is mirrored plainly in the other’s. We have always been openly cognizant of the pitfalls and respectful of the fact that we each had to tread very carefully and consciously in that minefield. But he assured me, time and again, that he was willing and able and ready to do that. He told me he loved me, that he supported me, and that he appreciated me.
In the end, the breakup happened over an email while I was 200 miles from home.
I didn’t go into this blindly or easily. I didn’t forget what had happened before. I did choose, consciously, to put those things aside and do everything I could to healthily support him and our relationship. I refused to constantly be waiting for him to fuck up, because that is no way to love or to live. Even when I was afraid during the last few days that this might be happening, I told him, asked him again to face me and talk to me, to tell me if it was more than he could handle. He reiterated again that he was in it, no matter how scared he was of disappointing me.
But his excuses won out over his intent. He let it be easier to push me away than to face himself and do the work needed to mend his own soul; he let it be easier to be overwhelmed by the fear of the difficulty than to actually make the attempt. His refusal to believe that he could ever be healthy or deserving of good things fueled his fears, and he bailed. Again. Rather, he pushed me to the point of saying I’m done.
It hurts, make no mistake. I loved him deeply and passionately and honestly in a way I’d never been with anyone else. All of the lessons of the preceding years, all of the work I’ve had to do to deal with my own past and mistakes, allowed me to go into this thing with him with my eyes open. I always knew I could get hurt. I had no specific expectation that I would be with him for the rest of my life—if it happened, so be it. I also wasn’t interested in being in a relationship with this man if I knew there was expiration date. There was no way I was willing or able to go into this without accepting the potential of something long term. Regardless, we agreed to see it through to the end.
Instead what I got was a man who wasn’t brave enough to face his own demons and who used excuses to justify running.
“I appreciate you and everything you’ve done in my life. I wouldn’t have come so far if I hadn’t met you when I did. I love you so much more than I can really express, and I’m afraid I will disappoint you.”
You disappointed me not because you decided this wasn’t right. Even if it was that I wasn’t right for you, that would have smarted but I get how that happens. It’s that you yet again chose to let your fear stop you from accepting what you want most: to be loved for who you are rather than who you should be or what you can do for the people you care about.
You did it knowingly and decidedly and didn’t try not to hurt me in that. You made excuses for refusing to move any direction in your life, and you intentionally misled me to your place of stagnation and then had the balls to both blame me and say that you’d always warned me it might happen.
It’s childish and toxic and cowardly, and you had no right to drag me down with you.
So now I’m back the place of grasping for stability. Eventually I will have to start the process of regaining ground, but right now I just want to ground to stop spinning beneath me.
Before, I wished him healing and peace and hoped that he would find his way to a healthy place, whether or not it led him to me again. Now, I just don’t care. I refuse to do it. When I did care, it brought me this. Again.
My heart hurts, undeniably. My head comprehends the how and why, really, but my heart is unlikely to ever grasp how this could happen again, given the intricacies of intimacy that occurred between us every single day. I wasn’t delusional about any of it, I am confident in that.
But maybe I shouldn’t have been, and I probably won’t be again. I don’t want to be. I don’t want to trust someone again, let alone love them. If you’re not in my inner circle now, don’t expect ever to be. I worked so hard to come to a place where I could even be willing to love another person again, and it got me this. Again.
Hot Pocket says I will meet someone one day who can love me like I deserve and want and need. She says I am a generous, light, and shining spirit who deserves someone who appreciates that.
I may be, but I feel pretty sure that person doesn’t exist. Every time I’ve come close to that, when I have someone who looks me in the eye and says, “I see you for who and how you are, and I love you for that,” they back the fuck away and let their own baggage drag me down. I feel stupid and humiliated. I don’t trust my own judgment, let alone my heart or my head or my gut. And I don’t want another person ever to touch me if it means they might have the power to hurt me.
So for me, it’s not worth it. It makes me question my own worth, undoubtedly, and whether I was right two years ago when I suggested that my lifetime value was bankrupted when I gave birth to my sons. Was my purpose in life fulfilled when I procreated? Did I really have everything I deserved at 32?
Life is complicated, and love is hard. I was willing to take on that challenge, for me and for him and for others before him. Now? No. So even if Fate herself appears before me and says, “Sass, you gotta do this. You gotta see this person and go this way. I’m going to make you,” I will tell her very clearly to fuck off.
I would rather incur the wrath of the gods than ever let my heart be open to another person again.
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