Seekinglight45’s Weblog

That’s what it feels like today. So much is clear. Listening to music, and the song tells me: you only live once, pick up and go, no one is going to take you by the hand and get you out of there.

But it all seems so complicated. I have children. I want the best for them. I haven’t worked in nearly 20 years (student life, children). What would I do? But that’s just all practical stuff. If I just jump in, I’ll learn to swim.

Thinking about the relationship. I’m trying to learn to cope, to be me, be authentic, stop hiding myself and trying to please him, I want to be fair. I’m thinking, well, maybe I should have started talking and confronting him sooner, shouldn’t have put up with so much. But I did! And lately, there is sadness about that, but there is also anger about the negation and humiliation.

I smoked. He hated that. I smoked when I met him. As time went by, he really put on the pressure. Scolding me in public (at a party), then withdrawing – not wanting to make love to a smoker!!! And what did I do? I felt guilty, felt bad – like a bad little girl. I swore I would be better, stop smoking. Yet I couldn’t, because those cigarettes were symbolic of freedom. How sad that I would be reduced to smoking as a sign of rebellion. I even smoked at our civil wedding ceremony. There is a photo of us together, and I have a cigarette in my hand. He scratched it out with a pen, so now only the two of us know that there was a cigarette. Imagine that! He simply scratched out what he didn’t like – and he did that symbolically in many ways. Now I’m waking up and trying to find all that scratched out stuff, because it occurs to me that it’s part of me and I am lost without it!

I did quit smoking 4 years ago – but that was for my voice, because I like to sing. Anger is coming up – he saw who I was when he met me, and he went about changing me. He had an ideal, and I was supposed to correspond to that. Damn, did I try!! (Like I said, I was sick and had a bad self-image. So I thought, if I worked hard enough to change myself, the relationship would work.) So on the one hand, I feel guilty leaving and blame myself: I should have spoken up sooner. On the other hand, I am angry: he set about to change me and had no guilty conscience about it? Why should I feel guilty about someone who committed such a crime?

Recently we had a long talk. I’d been avoiding it, but something happened that made it necessary. And once I got started, I was like a waterfall for nearly 3 or 4 hours. Afterwards, I was exhausted. Anyway, he says he loves me and wants to stay with me forever. I don’t want to stay with him. That is what my heart tells me. My heart has always told me that, but I didn’t believe it. Partially because I was convinced that I should take what I get – it might be my only chance! I really doubted whether I could find another who would want me. How crazy is that??

Lately he’s talking about doing things – going out together twice a month to pep up our relationship – if I want to, he said. I nodded and inside I said to myself, “No, I don’t want to. It is too late.” I don’t want to spend time with him. For me it is over, but I just don’t know how to deal with that. My habit of thinking in extremes makes it hard, too. I often don’t see the middle ground. I mean, it is dawning upon me that I can say, “I don’t want to spend time with you right now. I’m in a different space, sorting things out, and I need more time alone.” I could even say I want a break. A time out. There are various possibilities, I just have to be convinced that I deserve it. If he says No, well, then he says no.

Recently I hooked up with a new friend, and all of a sudden I feel like I am reminded of who I used to be. This new friend is a woman with whom I have a lot in common. I talk with her, listen, and think: “Oh my, that’s how I used to be, to think, to talk!” Instead, I have spent around 20 years sinking in the quicksand of a doting husband, who is quick to put me down or give me a dirty look if I’m too different than I should be.

On the outside, everyone thinks he is wonderful to me. True, I can do so much, have so much, am free. But for every step I have to hear: “Is that really necessary?” Then he grudgingly agrees. And I feel like I have to pay dearly for these things, or be a good little girl to keep him in a good humor. I am beginning to see that he likes to shine in my light – reaping the rewards for being the one who stands beside me and supports me. But the hidden costs within the four walls of my home are an expense that has become intolerable.

So much of this behavior is learned – I saw my own mother behaving in this way. I don’t even remember it, but it must be that way. And when I tell her about things in the relationship, she feels terrible and says, “Oh I’m so sorry – that’s the example I set for you.” Well, I’m an adult now. I can’t blame my mother. I can recognize the situation, that things are not right. I have no role model, no good example. So I’m stuck figuring things out for myself. But creativity is useful here – I can create this life, this situation, even this relationship. I don’t see us staying together. In fact, deep in my heart, I don’t want to. But if for some strange reason he were to change, I could live with that.

It really is not easy, but for now I am grateful to be finding wonderful, supportive people who tell me I am fine, talented, able, a good person – just the way I am. I’ve been alone with this for a long time. I did talk about it over the years, and time and again swore I would leave, but I just never had whatever it takes to go. God, please help me get out of here soon. Please help me recognize when the time is right, and please help me be prepared. Please help me save myself. Thank you.