So Painfully Familiar.

So painfully familiar.

This is important hello (x)

A swift breeze to my house of cards

He took the new one on what should have been our trip.

I won't ever be interested in going to St. Lucia now.

Friendship is a vastly underrated relationship.

Full disclosure.

I cheated. Yes, I'm one of those horrible people.

And not just once. It was systematic. It spanned years, and with multiple people. I was trying to heal myself, give myself a moment of reprieve, find that light heartedness that makes life manageable.

What it actually did was cause further destruction to my self worth. And I handed him a weapon and an excuse that he used to torture me further for another two years.

My actions are inexcusable. I have no one to blame for them but myself. I have been wrought at the idea that I have inflicted pain. It is done and cannot be undone. I can only be better moving forward.

The last two years

He found out two years ago.

He told me that he uncovered my indiscretions by looking for the best way to propose to me.  A clearer head tells me that his reason for snooping might not be true, but there was evidence everywhere, really.  Facebook, phone, my journals, everywhere. A friend of my theorizes that this was my subconscious’ attempt to get myself out: a bread trail of evidence.   

The jury is still out, but regardless - he found out and it all came to a head in January 2016.  He kicked me out, and I was so ashamed. For what I had done, for hurting him so profoundly, and for disrespecting myself so.  I would do anything to make amends for what I had done. I would do anything for the chance of having him back.

So he used this to his advantage.

Since that time, my reality before was simply amplified. I was now fully prohibited from expressing any sort of dissent or disagreement.  The things that I thought were logical and sane were clearly not in line with how “normal people” and specifically “normal women” did. He was to be able to insult and shame me without rebuttal at any opportunity he felt appropriate. After all, I was now deserving of every slur and insult he wielded, unlike before where he’d feel obliged to buy dinner after being abominable.

I was  to drop everything and cater to his every whim, which was what he stated I should have been doing from the beginning.  He didn’t like that the activities that I enjoyed took me away from him, and made me neglect the duties he believed were mine.  The sleep that I required to maintain sanity was disregarded.  He continually told me “Oh, but you function really well without much sleep” as if living on 2 - 3 hours a night for months on end wouldn’t ultimately take a toll on any human being. I was not permitted to make mistakes - no dropping things, getting injured involuntarily, putting things away somewhere other than where he explicitly wanted them (without actually providing that direction - I should have just “known things”) or completing tasks in a sequence other than how he gave them to me.

Usually consequences ranged from being reamed out, to some sort of humiliation, to sending me home with the threat of replacing me with someone more “dedicated” as I was unworthy.  Often there was a physical threat, or some milder physical violence.  Other times it got scary.

And this has been my life for nearly two years.  Existing for him and only for him.  Compromising my health, safety and mental state for the glimmer of a hope that he might take me, unworthy as I am, back.  Trapped by my own guilt and used by a man who has hurt me more than I am yet willing to admit. 

Rinse, repeat.  Rinse, repeat.

I have started writing a number of my posts with “The worst thing about an abusive relationship is....” and then having to erase it because it isn’t true.  I can’t call this particular aspect or experience the worst thing.  It’s all the worst thing.