6.16.2021

It's coming up on a year that we've been non-divorced-divorced and I'm still knees deep in pain and hurt. I spend most of my days self-reflecting and trying to figure things out like; what is wrong with me, am I a narcissist, is he a narcissist? Am I the one who caused him pain and damaged him? Did I force him to be the way he was the same way I feel like he forced me to be the way I was? Let me just say, it's exhausting. Self-reflecting and navigating your emotions and feelings is hard, exhaustive work.

I feel like I am constantly in this ebb and flow of emotions. One second I'm on the path to healing and then something will happen and I will completely unravel. I can experience this every few weeks, days, and even sometimes all within one day. It's this constant never-ending roller coaster and I just want off! Or do I? 

Maybe I'm so used to this way of life that I live off of it. I don't know any other normal so I'm constantly holding on to it and refuse to let things go because I need this roller coast to survive. This is what I have been trying to figure out for the last six months or so and it is exhausting. I'm constantly drained and tried. Growing, changing, self-reflection - it's all hard work and sometimes I wonder if I will ever get through it. Will I ever be normal? Will life ever not feel like such a battle? Will I ever be able to manage life and being an adult or will I always feel like I'm struggling? 

I need to realize I will never have the answers I want and NEED. I know that I am the type of person who needs to know the why to things. I am an answers chaser. That's why I once thought about being a detective so I could solve all the unsolved cases - because in my mind - how can we not solve this? How can we not have all the answers? The answers are there we just aren't asking the right questions or we aren't looking at the evidence right or we didn't have the tools we needed to get the answers, etc, etc. 

So I'm coming to peace with the idea that I will never get the answers I need and for me, that is so hard. It's been one of the many reasons why I am feeling stuck lately. I need to let it lay. I need to put it on God and let him be my savior and strength.  Just give it to God. 

I also need to learn to forgive myself and HIM. I'm not really sure how forgiveness works but I don't know if I've ever truly forgiven anyone who has caused trauma in my life. Not only do I have a hard time forgiving others but I have a hard time forgiving myself - maybe above all I need to learn to forgive myself and give myself grace and patience, I am only human after all. 

I need to do these things so I can stop loving him. So I can stop hoping and waiting for him. Waiting for our family to somehow come back together again. I need to do these things for myself so I can find happiness, joy, and contentment. I can't love him anymore, I need to continue to let him go, and man oh man is that scary as hell. When I let go of him I'm letting go of so much more than just him and my love for him. I am letting go of me, my family, my husband, the father of my son, the plans I had for our family. Every plan and goal we were trying to achieve. The ideas and visions we created for the future. ALL OF IT! A whole life you are letting go. I read this article that said one exercise to do to prevent getting stuck in divorce depression is to write a goodbye letter to all the things you are losing. I think that is powerful. I haven't been able to write my letters yet but I will. I want to because I don't want to be stuck and I can't be emotionally connected to him anymore. For my own well-being, I have to. 

I have to detach myself so that I can stop the cycle I feel like I'm in. I'm over here obsessing about how much I hurt and how could he move on with someone who isn't me. Part of my reasoning for holding on is my fear is that I'll find happiness without him. I'll be happy and move on and find another guy who makes me happy. And then he'll be right and so will everyone else. It'll be proving to him and everyone else that we weren't supposed to be together. That we're better off not being together and I hate that. I hate proving myself, Joe, and everyone else right. I wanted to overcome. I wanted us to have the fairytale epic love story of struggling love, hardship and finally making it. 

I hate proving everyone right by finding happiness because that means I'm healed and the pain is gone and that the pain that I did go through is gone and unimportant. That the feelings I felt don't/didn't matter, that what happened to me doesn't matter anymore because I've moved on and found happiness. Everyone will just forget all the pain and suffering I had. Everyone will have forgiven Joe and forgotten all the things that were said and done to me. So the longer I hold on to him the more people will know my pain, my hurt, the depths of his damage. Everyone can see him for who he was to me. And everyone will know our story. That I tried and he didn't. That he walked away from our family, not me. That he was psychologically abusive not me. 

If I'm happy then I'm a fraud. I was wrong. I was a liar. I the abuser. I the narcissist. I was constantly trying to make him be better - be someone he couldn't be, isn't that selfish of me? He told me all the time he was never going to change for anyone and that he was happy with who he was. And I come along thinking I'm going to change this man who is literally saying I will not change. Obviously, I didn't believe him. I do think parts of him changed, that he softened a little when he was with me. I've heard his family and friends say he changed since being with me and they all said it was for the better. I thought was the highest compliment. But was it? Is it wrong of me to want him to change? 

It always felt like something was missing with us but I never could figure out what it was. I could never pull the trigger on marrying him because there were too many things I needed to happen before I gave vows to this man. 

This is ironic because even without the vows I was in. I was all in - and forever. I never wanted to walk away or give up. I always wanted us to keep fighting for our relationship and family and to figure it. With every fiber of my being, I would pray and pray for us to get it together, to figure it out. But I can't be the only one who is willing to go to the ends of the Earth to make that happen. I need a partner who is willing to go to the ends of the Earth as well. 

Why do I feel the need to tell my side of the story? Why do I want to tell the world the things he said and did to me? Does that make me a bad person? Does it make me a hypocrite because I know I have faults and did things I'm not proud of? Is it hypocritical of me because all along in the depths of my stomach I always felt like something was missing but stayed anyway? 

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Peace, Love, Joy, and Happiness