It’s getting bad again, but I’m not surprised it’s expected. He isn’t out right being alwful…yet…but he’s giving me the silent treatment and the push/pull thing. He’s going thru some terribly stressful times at his work and it truly is a stressful time there for everyone who works there. Long story short it’s a funding issue and restructuring issue. He hates change so this is f’ing him up pretty bad. I’ll take the silent treatment over the verbal treatment or physical treatment any day.
I don’t want to get into the details of this silent because it’s so absurd I don’t even know how to express it with clarity.
But this morning as I was sitting in my bed, in the dark, he’s getting ready….taking his shower etc…I was thinking that I’m a hard person to love. I make it hard for him to love me. I know why but at the same time I don’t really understand…or truly know WHY…if that makes any sense at all. I was reflecting on my coldness, my self-protection, my withdraws into myself….and my vow to NEVER get into that lil box again (you know the little box we have inside of ourselves?)….and I was going all the way back to the beginning of us…when we met and where I was at and where he was at, emotionally….We were both emotionally damaged people when we met. We were both at points where we didn’t’ know how to love or be loved, not really, by anyone. He was physically abused and I was emotionally neglected growing up.
I don’t really and truly believe in ‘love’ it’s a sham, it’s for suckers, and losers…but my heart doesn’t really believe that, it’s my head that tells me that. Logically, looking around me I’ve never seen ‘love’ except in fairy tales and we all know those are not true and one is really setting themselves up for a world of hurt if they believe in that ‘happily ever after’ it’s a lie. I’ve always had this wall up and how I deal with hurt is to withdraw. Mostly it’s because I’m an introvert and to get all wild isn’t what I do.
He was coming out of a bad marriage and a bad divorce…I think he does believe in love…but it’s a twisted concept that I don’t understand. Nor do I agree with. To him physical love is the highest form of love (sex) but I don’t believe that….he told me stories about his ex and his family’s told me stories and she even called me once at my work. They have absolutely no ties and 20+ years later she still calls him. When we first got together he would drink a lot and be loving and mean at the same time. I was so young and had literally no experience with anything to do with adult romantic love…I never even seen it so how could I really know….except I did know but wanted to believe…He’d go out drinking and leave me home with the babies…and he’d come home and tell me about all these women who were hitting on him and grabbing his stuff and things like that. He wanted me jealous.
And so it went for years and years. I’m not a good game player, never have been I’m most always straight forward but with him I had to learn how to play the game “If you wanna play the game you have to learn the rules and guess what? There are no rules!” (one of his favorite sayings – really.) So I stopped. Just stopped reacting or interaction when he was like that…and that’s when the physical abuse really started. He dragged me up the stairs when I was 5 mo’s pregnant with our son…who he blamed me for getting pregnant with and would tell me over and over that he never wanted him….you know why he dragged me up the stairs? Because he had people over drinking and had the radio all the way up listen to music in the middle of the night…I had to work in the morning and our 1/5 yr old daughter was trying to sleep and I came down to tell him to turn it down…I would have left then but I knew full and well it’d be a fight so I stayed in my room and cried. I hate that. If you knew me you’d know how very much I hate that.
When I’m pushed I get crazy, well I used to get crazy
I’m too old for that mess now. But back then I would fight back, I’d say all sorts of mean things and be hateful. I never destroyed any property because that’s just dumb. I never called the cops on him and that was dumb of me. Mostly I fought back and tried to block the blows…I couldn’t leave my kids with him and I knew he wouldn’t let me go with the kids…I know that from experience. The last time he beat me, I had black eyes and fat bloodly lips…in the morning I told him that if he ever touched me in anger again that would be the last time he ever touched me….and he never has ‘hit’ me since. He had pushed me and grabbed me but never punched or slapped me. He’s held me down and up against the wall by my neck on occasion.
So this was our life. We quite drinking and I thought things would get better and they have improved a hundred fold…but it’s still ___ty at times. Last year was bad, he was flipping me off, and calling me all sorts of horrible things, I was ready to leave and still am ready but worry about others in my house. Last year he was arguing with me in the middle of the night and I got up and started getting dressed he asked me what was going on and I told him…he told me if I left he’d kick my brother out, so I stayed.
I’m cold to him. I want to be loved in a good way but I’m cold to him. I give him no chance to really love me in a good way. I have all these memories in my head, hateful and it hurts.
So sometimes I wonder, what came first? The chicken or the egg? Was he an ass first or was I an ass first? Lol. Did we feed our dysfunction? Both of us? Or was it him then me? Or me then him? Do we both have this BPD stuff? Or is it not even that? Did he make me this way or did I make him that way? And why can’t it ever get better? Why can’t he get better? Why can’t I get better?
I’ve been doing work on myself to heal myself. I’m getting better and he refuses to see me or what I’m doing, he refuses to acknowledge what I know…he tells me to stop talking because I’m ‘talking down to him’….it takes two to make this thing work for both of us…sometimes I feel just like filler or something, not real to him just filler for his life…you know? Like I’m a supposed to be a one-dimensional creature just for him and only do/be what he wants, what he expects…
Sigh, just ruminating on everything at the moment…if you have any words to share with me I’d really appreciate it…I’ve never been this honest before with anyone about any of this…it’s scary…but I think I have to do this for me to continue down that healing road…
