skepticoley...



Anne and I playing...

I continue to enjoy my new home. I did finally get the driver's license replaced, and will be able to work now. The lack of transportation has hindered me quite a bit...I swallowed my pride and asked the folks for some help, as I'm eager to get my career back on track. Without help, I will be delayed by a few months...but will survive that too I am certain.

I have certainly learned a lot this past year, and continue to learn. The lessons are both hard and wonderful...new "aha" moments everyday...although I am weathering the loss of my marriage (as I have no control over choices made, or feelings others have)..my big challenge now is to navigate anger. With grace.

The current narratives I am told are attempts to invalidate our entire history, and they cast doubts into my mind as to the type of person I really married (and therefore leave me wondering why I am so blind). The fervor with which the "okay, so here is the truth NOW..." is no less than the hundred times I heard before...and so I have no idea what to believe. I have to choose to believe it was real somewhere for her. It was for me...I guess just more grounded.

I also have to remember that regardless of how she feels about it with twenty twenty hindsight..I loved the stuff that was good...and that doesn't change...nor does it need to. These big proclamations are her style, and they are heavily influenced by what is wanted at the time. "I wish I could take it all  back", "I want out life back", "It was always about you, Jo..." and "I never stopped loving you..." SOUND as real as "I was trying to convince myself I don't love her" and "she's the love of my life..." and "I didn't want to make you feel bad." I know that the truth of events still gets twisted by her...things revealed to me about feelings or what she did or lied to us both about are suddenly inconvenient  and then withdrawn. Words and events I was RIGHT THERE a part of are subjected to revisionist history to fit the most current version of "how it is". For reals and for trues this time. No, really! This version is the real one.

 I did not know that truth was so negotiable...and I have to check myself to not do the slash and burn crap I did over the past year in anger and hurt. I did a lot of petty things in pain, anger, out of a sense of betrayal and frustration that deception/cheating came with rewards for her, and pain for me alone. I am NOT proud of what I did, and I know EXACTLY the person I will refuse to be now. I accept the consequences of my own behaviors, confess, and know better than to blame anyone else for feeling a certain way about me...or for disliking me or what I did. BUT I am not really hearing anything but justifications from my ex now...and it angers me. I made BIG choices (and encouraged others to do that as well) based on information I was given. That pisses me off. But I've been doing that for years now, it seems,  so it isn't really a new phenomenon. Of more interest to me now is that I am finally feeling some outrage at being treated badly. I think that is a good sign, to break the "oh please take me back" cycle. 


 The reality is, she has probably really felt ALL of these things at one time or another over the past year. It just gets frustrating. I have lied in my past too...and I guess I can't then get all pissy when anyone I lied to then wonders if I am telling the truth. People might be skeptical of my ex...but to then blame me for it because I told the truth...REVEALED it more likely...or get mad because people start figuring out I am not the psycho nut-job she made me out to be...well, that is like shooting the messenger. If people have a case of "skepticoley" it is probably because I'm not the only one that witnessed the all over the map crap. To realize in retrospect that I was used to invoke feelings in someone else, or that I was an interchangeable "safety card" with someone else really sucks. The "if one is off the line, the other one will be there" type thing.

Now I'm thinking we're both gone to her...and it doesn't make me as happy or satisfied as I might have thought it might. That is probably because I really loved her, and still do. You can dislike a characteristic about someone, but still love the person. It's hard because now I wonder if she ever did love me. And I'm not sure if that even matters...the good times were real to ME. I know the truth of things now and don't need to convince anyone else..and this is all part of my recovery..which isn't about her.

The fact of the matter, as I understand it, is that if I learn from the things I did wrong-that is the point. I can try to make amends for my hurts visited on others, and I alone am responsible for what I do from here forward. I tried to hurt Nicole back. I did. I'm ashamed of that. She has a hatred for me now..and likes to claim I "don't know her, and never did." I know she is angry that I revealed truths in a vengeful way (I never made anything up)...and part of this resentment exists precisely because I DO know her. She's a beautiful person, flawed just like me. And I see "behind the curtain"...born of us weathering a relationship of experiences, challenges, changes, deaths, friendships coming and going, moves, addictions, fears, long talks, laughter, tears, hopes...and she would like nothing more now than to set that all down and recreate herself. I can relate. I'm in Phoenix, for gawdsakes...for that very reason. She told me no one new in her life will ever know that she was ever married, and that hurt quite a bit.

But I can't control that...

God, grant me the serenity...