I'm angry.
But I want to be filled with rage. I WANT to be filled with rage. I SHOULD be filled with rage.
"That's not good for you", they say. "It's like drinking the poison and hoping they will die."
Yeah? Fuck you. Because I've earned the right to be filled with rage. YOU should be filled with rage for me. And goddam it, rage has a place and purpose. It says - it wasn't right, you didn't deserve it, how you were treated was deplorable. Deplorable. And what you have lost is unimaginable.
My son's girlfriend lives with her paraplegic aunt. The result of a car accident years ago, when she was 19 years old...and when she begged her friends not to move her afterward. They did anyway. There's a thousand ways to mitigate any rage she may feel. She was willingly in the car. They were wild and crazy kids. Her friends were truly trying to help. Shit happens...it happens to us all. How she has such a positive outlook after all of these years...not just a life lost but a gratitude for a life also saved....I have no fucking idea. It's humbling. I feel like I should be doing better.
But at the same time, her loss and subsequent challenges are validated on a daily basis. Not one single person can look at her and feel she should somehow be doing better. If she wanted to kill herself at any point and time, it wouldn't even cross my mind to suggest that her suicide would be selfish. Are you fucking kidding me?
Here's also the things I would never even think to say to her:
What role did you play in this?
It could have been worse...be glad you didn't have to deal with (fill-in-the-blank).
You should be over this by now.
You have to quit thinking about the past and get on with your life.
Work on yourself.
Well, at least you got a good settlement out of it. You're lucky...I wish I didn't have to work.
What. the. everloving. FUCK?
Do you know why people don't actually say these things?? Because you would have to say that while you are looking at a person that is visibly living with unimaginable challenges...you would have to say that to a person that is confined to a wheelchair or bed and using a physical assistant device to manage any modicum of daily physical activity. I have nothing to say to her beyond, teach me. TEACH. ME. Because I feel like I am now an emotional paraplegic.
I know. Overdramatization. I feel the shame as soon as I write that. Reference all those statements above that I would never say to her...but that I say to myself...and that get further validated by what is said to me by others...by people that CARE about me. Cue anger. Swallow said anger. Because anger is not good. You could actually BE a paraplegic. You're ungrateful. (Cue the gods that may then inflict some other further lesson on me...omg, no, no, no. I'm sorry. I won't be angry anymore.)
He took 20 years - two fucking DECADES - of my life. I learned in the last couple of years that he was engaged when he first asked me out. This was NEVER going to turn out differently...not even from day one. And my agency was stripped throughout every single day.
I spent 20 years in a largely sexless marriage (off and on again - depending on his manipulation tactic at the moment) while he feasted from the buffet. What little sex I had exposed me to any number of STDs - while I had never in my life practiced unsafe sex.
I lost my dreams of a happy, intact family by no action of my own. My children are a by-product of having been raised in such an abusive environment...and that has a generational effect. There is likely more hurt to still come.
According to science, my physical brain has been re-wired by this experience. As I try to adjust and process it all, my own body is likely working against me. I can't make it do what I just want it to do. A large part of this is due to how covert abuse infidelity is.
And the worst part - I had no idea the depth and breadth of how I was being abused. Therefore, no one else does. I must continue to process it through the bits and pieces that come through....the memories that surface and the new connections/realizations that were made. Oh, that day he was so angry and picked a fight for no reason...it's because he needed a reason to leave to go meet his OW. I didn't just lose a perceived future...I lost all of my history. It's like watching one of those fucking thriller, twister movies....where that end scene causes you to have to go back and put all the weird pieces from earlier together in a new narrative. Except there's no ability to re-watch it all....there's no DVD. Every single one that comes in is like a face punch...delayed, years later...but a punch no less.
When given a choice between being hit or being cheated on by a spouse, most people would choose to be hit. I've been in both types of marriage (Yeah, I know...What role did I play in it? I need to work on myself.) I would definitely choose to be beaten...not because I necessarily think it's less painful, per se...but because it is something that can literally be witnessed. It is physical...so there are bruises in the mirror and friends that are genuinely appalled at the treatment. Nobody consoles/mitigates a beaten woman by reminding her of the many times he brought her flowers...or the great settlement in the divorce. And if she's having trouble healing, then it's understood because it's a recognized TRAUMA. Even if it's just the one that's abused that recognizes it.
I don't know what the point of my post was/is. I was angry when I started it...and like so much of the time, anger acknowledged can also be anger then diffused. It's a sucky part...because as soon as I make space for it, it goes. Lather, rinse, repeat. I sure as shit hope this ultimately proves to be healing. I do feel as a society that it's time we redefine the act of cheating...that we come to see it for the extreme abuse that it is. We have judicial systems that now protect domestic assault victims without their request/consent. But we still maintain rights for cheaters as equal partners. From a personal responsibility perspective, I will say to anyone that's in a relationship with a cheater that is not clearly remorseful (not just regretful) and taking extreme measures to make restitution. GET OUT. It is an abusive situation.