He’s back. My ex is back in the picture. I hate the power that has to hurt me. I hate that I feel like I’m the one being a burden to my family because I’m the one with unresolved issues. I hate that he let his wife abuse me for YEARS. I hate that he took my son to live away from me for YEARS, and now when it’s talked about the boy speaks of it with such bitterness. I hate that I thought I was doing the right things for YEARS, taking their shit to maintain what I thought was “the peace” to give our children a happy family life. I let them walk on me. I let them have my son and not give him a room of his own, a bed even, of his own. I let them make my boy feel like he was not important. I hate that he left us after the world exploded, to be with her still. I hate him for abandoning us. I hate him that he left me to clean up the mess, to go through the hard parts, only to have him come back years later when most of us are mostly healed. Where the fuck was he through the last five years that he gets to waltz back in and reap the benefits of the hard work this family has done to get where we are? With her. With the one that was half to blame for our world exploding. And why is he back? Is it because he saw the light? No. It’s because she kicked him out. He’s back reaping the rewards of our dedication to this family and he is not worthy.
Why do I hate him so? When I went through a period of dealing with the emotional fallout of those years of hell, he not once had a kind word for me. He let her destroy me further, and then he blocked me and removed me completely from his life. She kicks him out and suddenly he’s back. Seriously?
Suddenly he was all over my facebook. Commenting on my friends and family posts. Every single time he appears, it causes me angst. I have shed more tears because of the reaction my heart, mind and body has to him in the last few months than I’ve shed in the last decade over him. Easy fix, I thought. You don’t get to control how much you are in my life. I do. “Block”. Ahhhhhhhhh!
Except it’s not that easy… my sons love to laugh about the good times had with Andy and Andrew. I sat gritting my teeth the other night while they regaled the masses at my bar with the hilarity. I fought back tears, smiled, laughed, said all the right things, and inside I was dying in pain. I’ve not been back to the bar since.
So why now am I so filled with angst that I need to blog and purge? My family created an event on FB for the fireworks. I didn’t see it until I got tagged asking if I’m going. I look at the event and see it’s my entire family invited, but I am far from the only one that hasn’t responded. Why is she singling me out? Oh wait… I bet I know. It didn’t matter because I was already committed elsewhere, but sure enough today the pics are posted and there he is, enjoying the day with my family. Let me just point out that I’m not jealous he was there and I wasn’t. I’m not that person. I couldn’t be there, and knew that this gave them the opportunity to invite their new/old friend.
So what’s the big deal? Why am I sitting here crying? Because this makes me the asshole. I realized, putting it all together, that in future for any events while my family loves me and will give me first right of refusal, I am now the “should we invite Andrew? Not if Dee is coming” cunt.
As far as I see it, and please god correct me if I’m wrong in the comments cuz this is destroying me, I have two choices:
1) Skip events that I feel they will enjoy more with him, or feel that I’m an obligatory invite, or
2) Forgive him and move on. But wait… in my heart and soul he is just as much an abuser as she was, by proxy and because he turned on me. He blocked me on FB. He never ever ever said a kind word to me to counteract what she was doing. He chose not to be in the middle, and then when I was going through the backlash he completely abandoned me. We were friends. We were FAMILY. So, I have to swallow the years of pain, the years of watching my son in pain, the years of working with my family to get to a healthy friendship and then having him waltz back in? I have to put it all behind me?
He’s not even tried to reach out to me. No wait, that’s a lie… he messaged me. He messaged me to ask Steve if he wants to go to soccer. That’s it. I said a while back that I didn’t feel forgiving, but anyone that knows me knows that all it takes is a few well chosen words and I will not only forgive but love you as hard as I hate you today. I don’t hate this hard without having loved equally. The coward has made no effort. None.
So now what? I cannot talk to my family on it, what am I going to say? I cannot make them choose. I cannot put them in a tough position. They have worked out their shit with him. I’m over here alone, scared, hurting, crying and hating that I feel like I need to back away from that social group, despite that they are my family, because I am not prepared to be ten feet tall because of him again. I’m fucking tired of always being the bigger person when it comes to him and his. I’m done. He’s the one that left us. Ive been ten feet tall in this “relationship” more than my fair share.
Times change. I’ve seen it many times in my 46 years. I always struggle with it, but end up fine. I will with this too. I just have to deal with today’s emotions of loss first, then I’ll be able to move on…. whatever that looks like.
Boot Camp B (buddies, bitches, babes whatever ;) ) 