Aftermath

Aftermath

I didn't stop talking to him immediately after that message he sent me.  Truth be told, he’d ‘cut me off’ a number of times prior to that. We actually had a set of boundaries and expectations in place for just these sorts of occasions.

The last time he'd insisted we cease speaking, after the initial shock and flood of texts I sent him, I stopped texting him altogether.  He messaged me after a few days of silence and accused me of getting over him. 

So for the next 6 weeks or so, I texted him every day. Here’s some highlights of my shame:

Milestone

It has been a year since I've had sex.

We’ve hit Anger, for now

A few years ago, my friend’s city had to be evacuated due to a wildfire. Pictures from the evacuation process look exactly what I (an atheist, and admittedly not a theology expert) picture Hell to look like. It is pure terror.

Once my friend was able to return to her residence she found that it had burned to the ground.  She and her partner had lost everything.

I remember her telling me the frustration she felt  trying to talk about it.  She heard a lot of “but at least you’re ok, it could have been so much worse!” My experience is different than her’s, but I understand her now much more than I did then.

I am Angry.  Yep, Capital A.

When I actually sat down and looked at the numbers, I handed him 6 figures.  I got years of therapy and the prospect of never being right again  nothing.

When I think about how I’m killing myself to pay off debt that I got into to appease him, and scraping pennies together to try to get myself even half way to where I was with him, yeah, I get Angry.  

I am angry for the life he stole from me. 

I’m furious  he’s sitting in MY home, with MY bed and MY furniture, and gifts MY family got us, with MY money lining his bank accounts and MY trinkets and heirlooms that have no real value in this world aside from the memories and connections they have to me lining his shelves and cupboards. 

I have tried to talk about this, and very well meaning people, tell me  “It’s a small price to pay.”   “You’re lucky you got out.”    “It could be so much worse.”

Listen, no one feels my mortality or how “so much worse” it could have been more than me.  You weren’t there when he was threatening me with kitchen knives, putting pillows over my face, smashing my head against walls, pushing me down stairs, or threatening me with tools.

You weren’t there. I was. I know. I get the fucking flashbacks that remind me any time I’m feeling too comfortable.  Do you really think the other stuff is  “a small price to pay?”  You have no idea.  

I know, they mean well, and they’re trying to make me feel better, but they aren’t. They’re trivializing my loss, and making me feel as though I should feel guilty for being angry.

I’m entitled to my rage; I will take it and let it wash over me.

Behold. My empire of scraps.

I can scrape a life together from ashes and crumbs.

Late Night Realization

I didn’t want to buy a house yet, and he was so angry.  He threatened to leave me.  He told me that I was keeping him down, and that I loved watching him suffer.

My reluctance was my subconscious throwing up warning signs: Get out!  Don’t invest financially in this this too!

His threats won, my subconscious lost, and he and I started “living the dream.”

After my indiscretions came to light, he told me that he pursued other options when I showed resistance and had been carrying on periodic dalliances online  since then. Though nothing as serious as what I did, of course as he wasn’t that sick. They provided emotional ‘support’ when I was ‘hurting’ him.

He never met up with any of them, so he says, despite having plenty of opportunities. Realistically it doesn’t matter now, and I don’t care if he did.

What stings is that I allowed him to hold me under his thumb and torture me as punishment for my own infidelity.  And he was out there likely doing the same thing, or something in the same vein at the very least .  

It doesn’t justify what I did, but it does render his disdain and condemnation illegitimate.

This has all just sunk in tonight.  If I had any guilt or shame left for what I’ve done, it’s fucking gone now.

I know we’re supposed to avoid harbouring sympathy for our abusers, but goddam it, he didn’t stand a chance.  

Is it any wonder?

TW - self harm

When he was in his early teens, he confessed to his parents that he had urges to hurt himself.  He wanted to take one of his hunting knives and plunge it into his gut.

I’m not a mother, so maybe I don’t know, but if my kid came up to me and told me he was having a hard time not gutting himself, I’m pretty sure we’d be dropping everything and going to the hospital to get some professional help.

They took away his hunting knives.  That’s it.