There’s a fire starting in my heart
Reaching a fever pitch and it’s bringing me out the dark
Finally I can see you crystal clear
Go ahead and sell me out and I’ll lay your ship bare
See how I’ll leave, with every piece of you
Don’t underestimate the things that I will do
The scars of your love they leave me breathless
I can’t help thinking that we could have had it all
Adele, Rolling In The Deep
I came out of the Meditation class, relaxed and full of joie de vivre.
Thirty minutes later, I find myself with the prickly hate-filled ball lodged back in my chest cavity, blocking all the good energy.
It takes only one phone call. Minutiae. And yet everything about that call is so symptomatic of what has gone before.
A therapist said to me recently that he sounded calculated and manipulative. I hate to lay those epithets upon a man that I once loved so much and I never saw it that way. He did the things he did because he either couldn’t empathise and see what he was doing or because he always tried to take the path of least resistance to make life easier for himself… not to deliberately hurt me.
And yet, those little arrows hit their mark every time. His failings were always related to the things that were most important to me, that affected my security and the safety net that I was trying so hard to build.
The scars of that love still leave me breathless… with the pain and the sadness at what might have been, what could have been. If only…
But if only what? He let me down on so many levels that it is impossible to pick one thing that could have saved us.
To see his actions through the therapist’s eyes is to admit that I picked unwisely. But it’s more than that, it’s effectively saying that he has been fooling me for three decades.
Spinning webs like a dormant spider, suddenly to awake and start reeling in the skeins.
Constructing a meshy barrier that stands between me and mine, the final ejection in a long list of exclusion.
But, curiously, that obstruction helps me to see things more clearly.
If only I knew what to do next.
This is the shittiest part – another bit I fear, deeply – you can leave, you can go through all the blood and grief, and come out the other side… and then all the things that were the problem are still right there to be dealt with.
I too have an ex who won’t work to resolve anything. We avoid each other’s issues until they necessarily flare up here and there, leaving me angry and frustrated and panicked. Once you’ve broken up you waive the right to complain, or demand a change… no idea how to advance when he thinks that the split has solved everything. Or at least gold-plated the wall he built around himself.
Jo, the gold plated wall! I had not thought of it like that but you’re right. And it has some kind of X Man protective quality as well. I had another discussion with mine recently about maintenance. I dont expect him to support me forever and had tentatively talked about when our youngest will be 18 but what I actually meant was when he left school. My ex said something about that not having anything to do with it because I dont look after him. It was like a kick in the teeth and I wanted to say ‘Whose fault is that’ but knew that, whilst liberating for me, it would only be counterproductive in terms of his adopting a defensive and unyielding stance about the whole subject :(