This post took me a month to write. A lot
has happened in that month, and I sat down several times to write this, but I could
never get it out quite right. Even after
numerous rewrites, I’m still not sure it’s where I want it to be, but I’m ready
to move on from it – and everything it’s about – so I’m going to drop the mike
and walk away.
The last few weeks have been…difficult. Christmas Eve I
found out some information that I had been suspecting for a while about my
ex. Out of respect for his family, whom
I love dearly, I will not be going into details, but it was really difficult to
hear. I had spent the previous three
weeks or so of our breakup defending him to my friends and family – hell, I was
defending him to his friends and
family. I thought the breakup was going
to be good for him and allow him to get to a healthier, happier place. I was trying to maintain cordiality with him
in the hopes of being able to be friends one day, since he was one of my best
friends for two and a half years. I even
still took him to a concert that I had already bought tickets for as his
Christmas present. Turns out it was
pretty much all for nothing. He is now
someone I do not recognize, and do not want to be a part of.
It has been incredibly difficult to reconcile the really
great guy that I dated with the person he is acting like now. It makes me question pretty much everything. I keep trying to figure out when everything became
a lie for him. I thought we were really
happy, and then in October I noticed a change in behavior, but he kept
insisting we were okay. It was work. He was unhappy in the area he was living.
Lies, lies, lies. My instincts told me there was something wrong, but I had no
reason not to trust him, so I did. I pushed aside all the thoughts in my head
and the noise in my heart and renewed my efforts to show him I loved him.
November just kept getting worse. It made me start to hesitate
about my life with him. He had broken up
with me in November of 2013, right before Thanksgiving and here he was acting
weird again. Was this going to happen every
year? Was I really going to be okay with getting nervous and worried and questioning
everything every November?
Thanksgiving was a complete disaster. Looking back now and knowing what I know...just
makes it so much worse. I fully own up to
my craziness on most days and I admit I was acting a nutty and out of character
that day, but he definitely surpassed me on the Richter Scale of Crazy. That day which started off so normal, so nice
and ended so dramatically will probably sit with me for the rest of my
life. It was the day I really saw how
different he had become, and how much I did not like the person he now was. My life had turned into an 80s country song.
In the last month, my few interactions with him have been so
bizarre and out of character for what I knew of him. Based on stories I hear, it sounds a lot like
he has become the person he was a couple years before we dated. Every time I thought that the last of the
b.s. had passed, something else came up.
His reactions to things are overinflated and ridiculous. It took almost two months to get my stuff
back, even with everything he has going on now.
I keep thinking it’s the end of our interaction, but somehow there is
more. Even as I type this, I get a text
from him saying he need something from the trunk of my car. I have asked him to delete me from his
contacts, but apparently I have to block him.
The worst of it is that he gaslighted me. He made me doubt my instincts and pretty
much told me I was being crazy for all of my apprehensions and voices in my
head. I’m so frustrated with myself now
for not trusting that which has always pointed me in the right direction (if I bothered
to listen). If learned anything from
this experience - although I hope I learned a lot - it is to trust my gut, and
not just swayed by the pretty blue eyes of the boy I love.
Those who know me well know that I had trust and commitment
issues before him, a lot of which he helped me to start working through. With the way things ended up ending, and all
that I have found out after, it makes it difficult to not take 5 steps back to
where I was before. I just don’t want to
give him that power over me. He carried
his ex’s actions with him like a blanket that I constantly tried to prove
worthy of taking off. I don’t want his
actions and behaviors to create massive roadblocks in my next relationship the like
of which I had to deal with in him. I know
we all carry around our pasts, and the people who we’ve known, but I want to
learn from the experience and walk away from it. I do not want to be completely jaded and
labelled by everything that has happened the past several months.
With the posting of this blog post, I am making my decision
to walk away from the drama and craziness the past few months have
brought. I am not built to be an
emotional mess and I do not like living inside the plot of a CW tv show. I will look back fondly on all of the amazing
memories I have with a remarkable man, and be grateful for not being around the
person who took his place. It’s the start of a new year and a new chapter in my
life. It’s going to be a year of new
adventures and treasuring all the amazing things in my life – but that’s my
next post!
Image borrowed from Jenny at http://purehappylife.com/life_quotes_love_quotes/one-of-the-happiest-moments-in-life-is-when-you-find-the-courage-to-let-go-of-what-you-cant-change.html#lightbox/0/ |