Hurt at first a little bit, but now I'm SO over it in Journey Back to ME

I’m having so many thoughts about reaching out to him. I knew this would be hard because I’ve stopped talking to him before. That time I lasted maybe 10 days before he sent me a picture of him and my daughter and his daughter in their classroom on Valentine’s Day. I took the bait and then once I conceded, he proceeded to verbally punish me for weeks after that. Me and the kids went to Sea World a few days after V-Day and I remember him highjacking my happiness during my trip. Keeping me on the phone all evening while giving me a lecture as to what he will and won’t accept from me. He is very good at STEAM ROLLING me, completely diminishing my character, all the while not allowing me to speak. He’s so full of himself that he would make me feel like I OWED it to him to listen…so I get stuck in these lecturing sessions that go on for hours where he’s “telling me about myself” and berating me. He convinced me that my “walking away from conversations when they no longer serve me” or my “shutting down” when I’m not being heard were just me running away and not being willing to face THE TRUTH. None of it was MY truth. He really had me convinced that his truth was my own. In order to be a better communicator, I took a front row seat to a LOT of criticisms and scoldings. When I told him I felt like a child next to him. He said “that’s on you”…when what I meant is that he talked to me like I was a child. He still does that. Scolds me like I’m one, and constantly feels like he needs to “teach” me something. We’re not even 10 years apart, but he makes sure I never forget that he’s so much OLDER and more SEASONED.

These are the things that make it easier not to reach out. Saying these things out loud. Thinking about those moments, and there were SO MANY. He had me convinced that I was really this heartbreaker who couldn’t communicate. That I didn’t give a shit about him. It only made me overexplain myself over and over about how much I really cared about him. Only for him to turn around and tell me that all of the things I had done or said didn’t show him that. This made me work harder, do more…try again. Only to have the same thing be said to me. Nothing was ever good enough. None of it was ever enough. None of it was acknowledged which caused me to work harder and try harder, and do more. Just for him to hurt me again and again and again. HIS NEEDS were always seen as more important than mine. I had to read every article he sent me about himself, about Capricorns, I had to watch tarot reading videos about him and subscribe to an astrology app so that he could constantly have me know what the Earth Moon and Stars were saying about him. I had to read the 5 Love Languages book and study HIS. I had to do everything for HIM. I had to answer the calls, and respond to the chapterbook long messages he sent me WHILE i was at work. I had to come to his house every time he asked me. I had to do EVERYTHING he asked me because otherwise “no” triggered trauma of his childhood. If I said no one time, every single other time I ever said yes went out the window and now he would never be inviting me over or to do anything ever again. I had to sleep naked everytime I slept over. Although he said it was my choice, but he would withold intamacy if I was wearing even the skimpiest of nightgowns because it wasn’t as inviting as just being naked. Nevermind the constant discussions of OTHER WOMEN. His BEST FRIEND is a woman who has unrequited love for him, and their relationship is SO strong that she will ALWAYS be his number 1. She calls and messages all night. He does movie nights with her over the computer. She orders food for him constantly and clothes, sends packages to his daughter…there’s literally NOTHING any woman can do to TOP what she does because she DOES IT ALL. And she lives in another state…

Anyway, I initially wrote this entry because I wanted to talk about my dumb thought about reaching out to him, telling him I want to sleep with him, having sex with him (without connection the way he THINKS I’ll want to), literally snatching his soul and leaving directly after and never reaching back out. But who am I kidding? That’s not me…although the idea sounds bad ass. I would still be relinquishing power. He has psychoanalyzed me to the bone. My every move is calculated by him. So I don’t think I could pull something like that off.

After writing this though, WHY WOULD I WANT TO? Being horny isn’t a good enough excuse.

I just KNEW he’d reach out after the girls’ field trip yesterday, but he didn’t. However, his friend did come upstairs and give me some earrings my daughter bought on the field trip that I guess she left in his car.

I keep having these thoughts like, is he thinking about me too? If I reached out and said “I miss you” (because he told me that when I think something I should reach out to him instead of just thinking about it), what would he say? Would he care? Probably not. He’d probably say something like “that’s interesting”, and then proceed to give me a 2 hour lecture afterward and if I tried to get off the phone he would convince me to stay on because HE SAID the conversation isn’t over.

I’m glad that I decided to write. It definitely talked me out of it.

I can’t help it though because I keep wanting a heartfelt apology or a grand gesture, and that’s going to be the hardest thing to MOURN because that is never going to happen. That moment is never going to happen. ACCEPTING that is the hard part.

And then sometimes I get caught up in what he might be posting or saying about me. Probably memes about “if you love someone you wouldn’t give up” or something about how “ghosting someone is the worst thing someone could do” or about how he deserves better, and someone that communicates better and doesn’t shut down. I get these obsessive thoughts about what he’s saying about me to other people. Everybody wants to fixate on my reaction to being mentally and emotionally abused but not the actions of the manipulative, gaslighting abuser himself that led me to where I am.

Last updated May 07, 2023